Equal rights made great strides this week, but on Last Week Tonight, John Oliver urged people to continue to work towards better treatment of transgender individuals, both in the media and under the law.
Some of the biggest names in news media have fumbled over the issue of how to talk to transgender men and women, so Oliver made it abundantly clear: “It’s no more okay to ask transgender people about their sex organs than it would be to ask Jimmy Carter whether or not he’s circumcised.”
Oliver then laid out a road map for differentiating between gender identity, sexual orientation, and the choices that transgender individuals make about whether to use hormones, undergo surgery, etc. In short, according to Oliver: “Their decision on this matter is, medically speaking, none of your f–king business.” As for pronouns and names, Oliver believes people should simply be called whatever they prefer to be called, like U2’s guitarist “The Edge” or Puff Daddy.
Oliver also pointed out that despite the increasing visibility of the close to 700,000 transgender people in the U.S. — which Oliver notes is larger than the population of Boston — they still face rampant discrimination and have alarmingly high suicide rates. According to Oliver, while it’s great that Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox got a wax replica in Madame Tussaud’s, there is still a lot of work to do to protect the rights of transgender people.
Photos: 25 Transgender People Who Influenced American Culture
Laverne Cox has used her growing celebrity as a star of the critically acclaimed Netflix series, Orange is the New Black, to become an outspoken leader of the trans rights movement, addressing crowds of thousands at schools and other forums around the country.
Jason Merritt—Getty Images
With her brother, Andy, Lana Wachowski has co-written, produced and directed Hollywood blockbusters like the Matrix triology, V for Vendetta and Cloud Atlas.
Michael Sohn—DPA/AP
Kye Allums became the first openly transgender athlete in NCAA Division 1, the top level of college athletics, when he played on the women's team at George Washington University in 2010.
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Caitlyn Jenner, made famous as an Olympic gold medalist in 1976 and later as a reality TV dad, appears as a woman for the first time on the cover of Vanity Fair's June 2015 issue, photographed by Annie Leibovitz.
Vanity Fair
Chelsea Manning is an Army soldier who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for violating the Espionage Act, after she leaked hundreds of classified documents to Wikileaks.
U.S. Army/AP
Brandon Teena was an American trans man who was raped and murdered in Nebraska in 1993. His murder was a catalyst for a lobbying effort for hate crimes legislation and his life and death were the subject of the film Boys Don't Cry.
AP
The electronic musician Wendy Carlos released Switched-On Bach in 1968, which won three Grammy awards and became one of the first classical albums to sell 500,000 copies. She went on to compose notable scores for films like A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron.
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Since coming out publicly in a 2012 Rolling Stone article, the musician Laura Jane Grace has been a vocal advocate for trans acceptance. In 2014, her band Against Me! released the album Transgender Dysphoria Blues.
Gary Miller—Getty Images
Model and actress Carmen Carrera vaulted to reality TV fame after appearing on RuPaul's Drag Race. Nearly 50,000 people have signed an online petition asking Victoria's Secret to make her the company's first transgender "Angel."
Danny Aarons—Newspix/Getty Images
Christine Jorgensen, a former soldier, became a nationwide media sensation after having sex reassignment surgery in Denmark in 1952.
Fred Morgan—New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images
The American jazz musician Billy Tipton became famous after his 1989 death when it was discovered that he had been assigned the female sex at birth.
AP
The American public grew up knowing Bono as the daughter of entertainers Sonny and Cher, before he came out as a transgender man in 2009. Bono, who first came out as a lesbian in ’90s, has been an active LGBT rights advocate for decades, writing and making films about his experiences and using platforms like reality show Dancing With the Stars to talk about LGBT issues.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images
Candis Cayne was the first transgender actress to play a recurring transgender character on a prime time series, as love interest Carmelita on ABC's Dirty Sexy Money. In past decades, the majority of transgender characters have been played by non-transgender actors and often been portrayed in negative roles, like psychopathic killers or dead prostitutes.
Charles Sykes—Invision/AP
The pioneering computer scientist and engineer Lynn Conway influenced a generation of computer chip designers and has worked at Xerox PARC, IBM, and DARPA.
Caroline Cossey is a British actress best known for her role as a Bond girl in the movie For Your Eyes Only.
Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Before she came out in 2014, the Serbian-born model was already blurring lines in the fashion world as the androgynous male model and muse for big names like Marc Jacobs. In 2015, Pejic became the first transgender model to appear in American Vogue.
Nicholas Hunt—Getty Images
The LPGA removed a requirement that golfers be "female at birth" after trans woman Lana Lawless sued for the right to compete in 2010.
Ben Margot—AP
Fallon Fox became the first openly transgender fighter in mixed martial arts history when she came out in 2013.
Sally Ryan—Zuma Press/Corbis
Beatie went public in 2008 as America’s first “pregnant father,” undergoing artificial insemination after his former wife proved infertile. The transgender man captured the nation’s attention after appearances on shows such as Oprah, setting off cultural conversations about the social and legal status of transgender people in America. He has since had three children.
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Janet Mock, a transgender advocate and writer, published a best-selling memoir about her transition, Redefining Realness, in 2014 and hosts a MSNBC web talk show about pop culture.
Fernando Leon—Getty Images
Veteran LA Times sportswriter Mike Penner announced he was a "transsexual sportswriter" in a 2007 essay and wrote under a new byline, Christine Daniels, for nearly a year. After struggling with the challenges of living as a trans woman, Penner abandoned the name in 2008 and returned to living as a man, before committing suicide in 2009.
Los Angeles Times/AP
The pro tennis player Renee Richards won a landmark decision for transgender rights in 1977 when the New York Supreme Court ruled that she could compete in tournaments as a woman.
Larry Busacca—Getty Images
Sylvia Rivera was present at the Stonewall uprising and remained a tireless advocate for trans people of color, as well as gays and lesbians, who were marginalized as the LGBT movement became more mainstream.
Valerie Shaff—Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Geena Rocero was already a successful model before she gave a viral 2014 TED talk in which she came out publicly as transgender. “All of us are put in boxes by our family, by our religion, by our society, our moment in history, even our own bodies,” she said. “Some people have the courage to break free.” Her advocacy organization, Gender Proud, works to empower transgender communities around the world.
Santiago Felipe—Getty Images
Jenna Talackova fought a legal battle to become the first openly transgender candidate to compete in Miss Universe Canada in 2012, after initially being rejected because of her gender status.
Aaron Vincent Elkaim—AP
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