Queer History 754: Virginia Prince - The Complicated Badass Who Gave Us Our Name

The Inventor of the term "Transgender"

In the shadowy underground of mid-20th century America, where being anything other than a straight, cisgender conformist could land you in prison, a mental institution, or a shallow grave, Virginia Prince emerged like a goddamn hurricane wrapped in a dress. Born Charles Virginia Prince in 1912, she didn't just challenge the rigid gender binary of her era—she fucking obliterated it, creating the conceptual framework and language that would eventually give birth to the modern transgender movement. But here's the complicated shit: Virginia was also a product of her time, carrying baggage that would make her legacy as messy and contentious as it was revolutionary.

Virginia Prince wasn't just another cross-dresser hiding in the shadows of American respectability. She was a visionary who saw the possibility of living between genders at a time when society insisted only two existed, period. Her creation of the term "transgender" and her decades of activism laid the groundwork for every rights…