No community is a monolith, and LGBTQ culture has internal fault lines. The relationship between trans and cisgender members of the community has seen its share of strain, particularly in recent years.

The core tenet of modern LGBTQ culture is the right to define oneself. The trans community’s fight for the recognition of gender identity—that who you are is not determined by the doctor who delivered you—has strengthened the entire queer community's argument for self-determination. The slogan "My identity is not up for debate" resonates as powerfully for a gay person told they are "just confused" as it does for a trans person told they are "just following a trend."

The addition of "Q" for Queer or Questioning has helped, but the rise of non-binary identities (people who identify outside the male/female binary) has challenged even progressive LGBTQ spaces. Some gay bars and events remain rigidly gender-segregated ("Ladies Night" vs. "Bear Night"), leaving non-binary and gender-fluid people feeling unwelcome in their own community.

No history of LGBTQ rights can be written without centering transgender people, particularly transgender women of color. The most famous flashpoint of the modern gay rights movement—the Stonewall Uprising of 1969—was led and fueled by trans activists.

On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City's Greenwich Village. While the crowd was diverse, the most vocal resisters were drag queens, gay street youth, and transgender women. Marsha P. Johnson, a self-identified drag queen and trans activist, and Sylvia Rivera, a Latina trans woman and founder of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), are legendary figures who threw literal bricks and fought back against police brutality.

Their activism did not end at Stonewall. For years, they were often sidelined by mainstream, predominantly white, cisgender (non-transgender) gay and lesbian organizations that sought respectability. These mainstream groups often tried to distance themselves from "cross-dressers" and trans people, viewing them as too radical. Rivera famously interrupted a gay rights rally in 1973, shouting, "You all tell me, 'Go away! We don't want you!'... I have been beaten. I have had my nose broken. I have been thrown in jail. I have lost my job. I have lost my apartment for gay liberation, and you all treat me this way?"

This tension—between the radical, gender-nonconforming roots of the movement and the assimilationist goals of some cisgender gay people—has shaped the relationship ever since.