From Stonewall to the silver screen, how much do you know about transgender history?
Non-binary actor Indya Moore at World Pride in New York, 2019. (Erin Lefevre/NurPhoto via Getty)
From who designed the transgender flag to the Stonewall Riots and breaking TV history, we’ve put together a transgender history quiz to test your knowledge.
How much do you really know about transgender history?
The word transgender was used for the first time in the 1960s but people have been breaking the gender binary for centuries – so we’ve rounded up some incredible moments that shouldn’t be forgotten.
We asked trans and non-binary YouTubers Jake Edwards and Phoenix Stone to play our transgender history quiz.
Play the transgender history quiz below:
Test your trans trivia:
- Earlier this year a gamer raised $160,000 for transgender charity Mermaids by non-stop gaming for an entire day. But what game did they play?
- What year did the World Health Organization stop classifying transgender as a mental and behavioural disorder?
- Which TV show has the largest cast of transgender actors in TV history?
- Transgender sisters and filmmakers Lana and Lilly Wachowski are behind which sci-fi fantasy franchise?
- America’s first transgender statue celebrates and honours which activists from the Stonewall Riots?
- Who designed the transgender flag?
- Who made history by becoming the first openly transgender person to have a wax figure at Madame Tussauds?
- True or false: A transgender man pioneered the use of x-ray photography to detect tuberculosis.
- Isis King is a transgender model who made history in 2008, but what did she do?
- Which trans woman recently had her acting debuted and was also the youngest plaintiff in the ‘bathroom bill’?
And here’s the answers (no cheating!).
Harry Brewis played Donkey Kong 64 for an entire day, a notoriously difficult game to complete because he “wanted to do [his] bit to help support the people who do the hard work of contributing to people’s thinking on an issue”, this came after the charity had part of its lottery funding suspended because of an anti-trans campaign.
Harry Brewis raised money for charity by streaming a non-stop play-through of Donkey Kong 64 (Donkey Kong 64)
In May 2019, the World Health Organization officially changed the global manual of diagnosis as in the previous manual it was considered a gender identity disorder.
Set in 1980s New York, Pose centres the lives of trans people of colour and highlights ballroom culture, as well as the HIV crisis in the US. Ryan Murphy’s Golden Globe-winning series made TV history for having the largest trans cast with actors Indya Moore, MJ Rodriguez, Dominque Jackson, Hailie Sahar and Angelica Ross.
The Wachowski sisters created The Matrix, Lilly went public in 2016 about her gender reassignment. And her sister Lana is the first major Hollywood director to come out as transgender. The duo are also known for Cloud Atlas and Sense8.
The Wachowskis sisters are known for being behind ground-breaking films The Matrix and Cloud Atlantis (The Matrix)
Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who both were fundamental to the uprising at Stonewall in 1969 and founded the first homeless shelter for LGBT people in the US. The transgender activists’ monument can be found in New York and was created to mark Stonewall’s 50th anniversary.
In 1999, transgender woman Monica Helms created the first transgender pride flag, which was first shown at a Pride parade in Phoenix, Arizona. The flag has three different colours: blue for trans men, the pink for trans women and the white stripe in the centre representing the non-binary community.
Monica Helms made the trans flag after she met Michael Page, and he told her “the trans community needs a flag too.” (Getty Images)
Laverne Cox, who played Sofia in Orange Is the New Black, is the first openly trans person to have a wax figure at Madame Tussauds. In 2014, she was also the first openly trans person to be nominated for an Emmy.
Madame Tussauds San Francisco unveils Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter from “Rocky Horror Picture Show” (Getty Images)
Alan L Hart pioneered the use of x-ray photography in detecting tuberculosis. He was also one of the first documented transgender men to undergo gender reassignment surgery in the US.
Isis King became the first trans model to compete on America’s next top model appearing on both the eleventh and seventeenth cycle of the show. She now plays the role of Marci Wise in the Netflix series When They See Us. Before catching the attention of Tyra Banks, she lived in an LGBTQ homeless centre. Her career has helped pave the way for more trans contestants, including the British version who saw Talulah-Eve compete.
Hunter Schaferv is a transgender actor and plays Jules in HBO series Euphoria, a character which has been praised for good trans representation on mainstream TV.
