Trans Elders & Queer Histories
What We Inherit, What We Carry Forward
We Are Not the First
They call us a trend. A phase. A delusion.
As if we haven’t been here for centuries. As if our names haven’t been carved into stone, whispered in secret, sung in streets, written in letters passed between lovers long buried.
We are not new. We are not rare. We are a continuation.
And if we want to know how to survive what’s coming—we must remember the ones who survived before us.
The Histories They Tried to Erase
Fascists know that the easiest way to kill a movement is to sever it from its past.
So they burn books. They rewrite laws. They erase names. They make us feel like we are alone in history.
But history tells a different story.
The Ancestors of Our Fight
Pre-colonial societies across the world honored trans and nonbinary people. Two-Spirit identities among Indigenous nations. Hijras in South Asia. The galli priestesses of ancient Rome. The māhū of Hawaii. We existed before they had words for us—and we will exist after they are gone.
We were in the streets of Berlin in the 1920s, before the Nazis burned Magnus Hirschfeld’s research on gender and sexuality.
We were at Compton’s Cafeteria in 1966, throwing cups of coffee at cops before Stonewall ever happened.
We were in the AIDS wards, caring for each other when no one else would.
They have tried, over and over, to erase us.
And yet—we remain.
The Elders Who Walked Before Us
Some of them are still here. Some of them didn’t make it. But they carried this fight in their bones so that we could stand here today.
Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, Black trans activist and Stonewall veteran, who never stopped fighting—for trans women of color, for incarcerated trans people, for those left behind.
Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who battled both police and exclusion from within the queer community itself.
Lou Sullivan, a trans man and activist who refused to let the world forget that trans men could be gay, despite the medical establishment’s attempts to erase him.
Leslie Feinberg, whose book Stone Butch Blues gave voice to the struggle of gender-nonconforming people, weaving together history, survival, and radical love.
We'wha, a Two-Spirit Zuni leader, artist, and cultural ambassador who walked between worlds and defied colonial gender expectations in the 19th century.
Christine Jorgensen, who in the 1950s became one of the first widely known trans women in the U.S., enduring invasive media attention while opening doors for conversations about gender transition.
Marjorie Garber and Kate Bornstein, who challenged academia and gender theory, giving us the language to understand ourselves and each other in new ways.
Toni Newman, a Black trans author and advocate who has worked tirelessly for the rights of trans sex workers and people living with HIV/AIDS.
They fought for us in different ways—in the streets, in hospitals, in courtrooms, in books, in quiet acts of defiance, and loud acts of revolution.
We did not get here alone.
And now, it is our turn to carry it forward.
The Weight and the Gift of Inheritance
To inherit queer history is to inherit both grief and power.
We carry the loss—the ones who never got to live in a world that let them breathe, the ones taken by violence, by sickness, by despair. We carry the battles that still feel unfinished.
But we also carry their defiance, their love, their joy.
They fought for a world they didn’t live long enough to see. And now, here we are.
What We Owe the Next Generation
History is not just something we inherit. It is something we build.
The kids are watching us. The ones just finding their names, their bodies, their voices. They need to see that we fought, that we survived, that we lived.
We keep their stories alive. If they ban our history, we teach it anyway. If they burn our books, we write new ones. If they silence our elders, we become their echoes.
We create a world worth handing down. A world where trans kids don’t have to fight just to exist. A world where queer elders grow old in peace, not in exile. A world where joy is not something we steal in the dark but something we build in the daylight.
We are not just fighting for ourselves. We are fighting for the ones who come next.
We Will Be Remembered
One day, someone will speak our names as history.
They will read about this time. About the attacks, the bans, the fear. But also about the art, the love, the way we fought back.
They will say, “They did not break.”
They will say, “They refused to disappear.”
And because of that—they won’t have to fight the same battles we did.
Hold the Line, Pass It On
Honor the elders while they’re still here. Listen to their stories. Protect them. Teach queer and trans history however you can.
Live in a way that leaves something behind.
Let them remember us as unbreakable.
Because we are still here.
And we will not disappear.
In Solidarity,
—Connor
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Mx. Connor Wolfe (They/Them)
Founder Wayfarer Magazine & Wayfarer Books
Connor Wolfe (they/them) is a writer, publisher, and advocate whose work spans over two decades and fourteen titles, originally published under their dead name. Their literary contributions have earned six Pushcart Prize nominations, the Gold Nautilus Medal for Poetry, multiple Foreword Review Book Awards, and the Nautilus Silver Medal in 2022. Their innovative approach to independent publishing led to two terms on the Board of Directors for the Independent Book Publishers Association, a TEDx talk at Yale University, and a degree in Abnormal Psychology at Harvard University through grant programs.
Wolfe is a lifelong advocate for mental health, trans rights, and radical authenticity—the act of breaking silence to reclaim power. After their TEDx Talk in 2018, they stepped into national conversations on mental illness, trauma, and the intersection of art and survival. Holding a degree in Abnormal Psychology, their work examines how creativity and mental illness shape one another. Their studies in Photojournalism under Samantha Appleton sharpened their ability to bear witness—to capture the unspoken, the unseen, the truths too often buried.
In 2024, Wolfe volunteered in the Collections Department of the Museum of Anthropology at Ghost Ranch, assisting in the preparation of sacred objects for repatriation under the newly updated Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. After wintering along the foothills of Cerro Pedernal, they are now traveling through the San Juan Mountains with their three-legged black cat, momo—documenting, writing, and remaining in motion, as all revolutionaries must.
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