The waves of trans/gender diverse people

This is not an attempt to define a formal system, and I have no doubt others have thought of something similar or even better: I just wanted to get my thoughts on this on record.

What I'm thinking of as the "First Wave" of trans* / Gender Diverse (I'll use TGD - the trans* stands for transsexual/transgender: you can find more on the TGV  website at here) are those who existed in history up until the time in the 20th Century when medical intervention was developed. Their experiences covered the whole range from good to bad, depending on the biases and thinking of the cultures they lived in.

These experiences included some extremely long cross episodes of what could be described as cross dressing, but probably was accurately - in modern parlance  pre-operative post-transition living. (I might add some of those tales at a future date, especially if I can find a book I was given as a present which I think is called "Transgender Warriors" - I'm having a tidy up SIGH )

The Second Wave of TGD people are probably those who lived in the early era of medical intervention / support. The focus there was on being invisible aka undetectable: what TGD people refer to as "passing". Again, there are stories from this era, and I hope some of those from my home state are made public at some stage, as the work we did in the late 90s depended greatly on the work of those from this era.

The consciousness raising of the 60s and 70s, and the overlapping various human rights (often referred to as civil rights, I understand, in the USA) started to have an effect, and the Third Wave started to emerge in the 70s and 80s, marked by a decreased emphasis on passing as understanding grew that:

(a) TRUE gender does not fit into two widely separated binary, nor even a binary spectrum (even if one allowed for the reality that people's position can change with time and circumstances), and
(b) the problem of bigotry belongs to the bigot, not the person the bigotry was being aimed at. 

These movements were spurred by the viciousness of reactionary people, including police abuses in various nations.

Again, later developments, and the improvement of human rights, depends greatly on the work on the courageous TGD activists of this era.

However, many TGD people who transitioned during this era - including me - were left with various forms of trauma (often referred to as PTSD, including by doctors) as a result of the hateful actions of the bigots.

Incidentally, as a digression, during this era, in the 80s, homosexuality was legalised in my home state. Apart from the human rights aspects of that campaign, one of the aims was to remove gay and lesbian people from the roles that older G and L people felt they had to live - so social stereotypes and constraints applied even to the fringes of pre-60s society (and still do, in socially backward nations, today).

I also have to say that the problem of insufficient awareness and discrimination applied within the LGBTI world as well - particularly against bisexual (by some gay and lesbian people) and intersex people (by some TGD people), but also against (by some gay and lesbian people, and some pseudo-feminists) and within the TGD world (F2M and M2F).

We now come to the Fourth Wave, which is where children (I knew I was female at age four - and anyone who claims children don't know should be locked up for stupidity) start to express their true gender identity at an early age, with acceptance and support, including the invaluable puberty blockers.

This is where we start to move closer towards what gender should be, but there are still problems - the main one being that only a few places on the world have become advanced enough for that: most of the people everywhere else are too backward.

Things will eventually change for the better, particularly with the better aspects of modern communication, travel, activism and law-making (in particular, I am looking forward to the removal of current constraints on correcting Birth Certificates in both my home state and the backward state I was born in) ... but the flip side of that is that more socially backward people can come into more progressive societies, and be at the very least a jarring note. I'm thinking of some personal experiences I've had, but also some of the far right wing extremist speakers from the USA who have tried to come here.

Well, those are just a few roughly put down notes. Here are a few other links that might be of interest:

• http://bilerico.lgbtqnation.com/2008/02/transgender_history_trans_expression_in.php; 
• https://www.glaad.org/blog/timeline-look-back-history-transgender-visibility; and
• https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transgender_history&oldid=876671164 (which tends to make the all too common error of conflating same sex attraction with being TGD).