At first, your mind probably goes to Stonewall, where trans people were the ones who really stood their ground, fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, and raising the expectations for all of us.

But there is more than that.

We're watching an explosion of people rejecting oppressive black and white cultural models, including ones of binary gender today and much of that is because of the hard work and honesty of the trans community.

And they did it by asking questions.

The journey you start down when you realize that your sex and gender may not be in absolute alignment needs fuel to launch, to drive through, to complete. That journey of self-discovery is so important for building human happiness. And other journeys, intricate personal ones involving power exchange, introversion and interactions, and more,

And the path, the language, the methods and models came from the trans community.

Almost in partnership, they fed this journey alongside the neural and cognitive atypical community, with an understanding of how to live and make complex choices on the kinds of continuums that biology creates.

Before the management and invention of much of this language, maybe you remember how people looked at every gay couple, asking which one was the man, which was the woman.You might remember how Donald Trump's Alzheimer's-like confusion about Kamala Harris race was the norm, positioning biracial people as being unauthentic and sneaky.

We are learning about how to live in a world that is less black and white, on every front, than we ever thought. On the other side of that knowledge is a deeper understanding of ourselves, one that may drive greater happiness for everyone.

Let's place our gratitude for that appropriately.