The Boundaries of Transgender Rights: A Case Study Based on the Historical Legislation of the United States

The U.S. started to legally recognize transgender as transexuals in the 1970s, but with the late 1980s gender queer theory, the U.S. legal system recognizes all transgenders by how they identify themselves. The 2010s see rapid growth in transgender movements and related surgical industries. This paper studies the historical development of transgenders rights in the U.S. and analyzes its legitimacy based on past legislation and ideologies of America. It uses historical analysis and case studies on past lawsuits of the development of transgender. It analyzes how the three aspects of social, economic, and political factors intertwine to form the current legislation regarding transgenders. It divides the post-1980s transgenders into two groups to analyze, each based on a historical analysis of legislative values in the U.S. The current development of transgender rights and the over-protection of which has violated the U.S.s founding ideologies of liberty. To ensure the basic right to privacy in sex-divided facilities, legal systems should give clear criteria for determining transgender. To protect transgenders, especially adolescents and young adults, legislation needs to outlaw the school-to-clinic pipeline.