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(FOX40.COM) — The California State Assembly has voted to officially recognize August as “Transgender History Month,” beginning in 2024. The resolution, which passed on Wednesday, makes California the first state in the United States to have a month that officially recognizes the history and contributions of transgender people.

Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), the bill’s author, said, “I couldn’t be more proud to have introduced legislation that will designate August as the first statewide Transgender History month in the nation.”

He continued, “I believe that as Californians our strongest defense against the anti-trans agenda is just to tell the truth. Let’s tell the truth about transgender people’s lives, and let’s lift up the history of the transgender Californians who left their mark on our great state.”

Honey Mahogany, the current chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party and founder of the Transgender District, said, “Many Californians remain unaware of the real lives and experiences of transgender people, even here in California.”

“We can change that through awareness, education, and outreach, and I believe that establishing a Transgender History Month in California is one way we can do just that,” she added.

According to a news release, in 2021, San Francisco became the first city in the U.S. to declare August as Transgender History Month, which was repeated by Santa Clara County shortly after. 

As a state, California also has a history of being at the forefront of transgender legal rights.

The Compton’s Cafeteria riots, which took place in San Fransisco in August 1966, are largely recognized as the first LGBT Civil rights uprising in the United States, the news release stated.

Additionally, in the 1940s, Lucy Hicks Anderson of Oxnard, who was anatomically a man but grew up as a woman, argued in court that she was entitled to her husband’s military pension.

Susan Stryker, the former executive director of the LGBT Historic Society and nationally recognized scholar on transgender history, said, “It’s very gratifying to see that labor, and the labor of so many others who have devoted time and energy to this multigenerational undertaking, culminate [on Wednesday] in the recognition of transgender history month.”

“We have a proud heritage, as well as a difficult one,” she concluded.