The history of the transgender community is closely tied to the broader LGBTQ movement. In the 1950s and 1960s, transgender individuals were among the first to challenge the criminalization of same-sex relationships and the pathologization of non-normative gender expressions. The Stonewall riots of 1969, which are often credited with launching the modern LGBTQ rights movement, were sparked in part by the arrest of a transgender woman named Marsha P. Johnson. Johnson's activism and advocacy helped to galvanize the movement, and she remains an icon of the transgender community to this day.