I learned about our history. I came across the story of Lili Elbe, one of the first trans women to undergo gender affirmation surgery, whose story was told in the book and film The Danish Girl. Europe in the 1920s saw pioneering efforts in expanding the culture’s understanding of sexuality and gender, progress largely wiped out with the Nazis’ rise to power in Germany. I read articles from newspapers in the fifties about Christine Jorgensen, the “blond GI bombshell.” And I first learned the names Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the transgender women of color who threw the first bricks
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