By Paisley Currah, 2007
Over the last 15 years, the transgender rights movement has burgeoned in the United States. A handful of states and dozens of localities in the United States have passed nondiscrimination legislation inclusive of gender identity; courts have begun to rule that transgender people should be treated equally; educational institutions and companies are beginning to include gender identity and gender expression in their nondiscrimination policies. The term transgender has moved into mainstream dis- course with increasingly positive representations of trans lives in the media—from countless local newspaper articles on transgender people and their transitions, to respectful mentions in (some) political candidates’…