A Black transgender woman’s testimony helped ratify the 14th Amendment. Then conservatives began attacking her identity

Thompson’s testimony in 1866 came at a critical time, as the nation weighed whether to expand equal constitutional protections to newly freed Black Americans. But it also came at a great personal cost.

On a Friday in June, Frances Thompson swore an oath before a congressional committee and began to testify about what she’d experienced during a race riot in Memphis one month earlier. She told the committee how seven White men, including two police officers, forced their way into her home and stole her money and all her meager belongings before sexually assaulting her and her teenage housemate. In sharing her harrowing experience, Thompson quietly made history. She is believed to be the first Black transgender woman to testify before Congress. Thompson’s testimony in 1866 came at a critical time, as the nation weighed whether to expand equal constitutional protections to newly freed Black Americans. But it also came at a great personal cost – a decade after her landmark testimony, Thompson was cruelly outed, arrested for cross-dressing and forced to work in an all-male chain gang. Historians and advocates tell CNN they draw parallels between all that Thompson experienced as a Black trans woman and today’s anti-transgender political climate after President Donald Trump signed numerous executive orders targeting trans American minors’ right to access medical treatment and participate in school sports teams aligned with their gender identities.. Bryanna Jenkins, policy director at the Lavender Rights Project, which works to address what it calls a “crisis of violence” against the Black trans community, said in order to understand how to defend the civil rights of transgender Americans today, we need to examine the history and experiences of trailblazers like Thompson.