Halfway through the parade, a group of older LGBTQ+ protesters blocks the route. They’re holding signs that say, “LGB Without the T”—a real faction that argues transgender issues are separate from gay and lesbian rights. Leo’s heart sinks. He’s seen this online, but facing it in person feels like a punch.

Leo, a 22-year-old trans man, is volunteering at his first Pride booth for a local LGBTQ+ resource center. He’s been out as trans for three years, but he still sometimes feels like an outsider—even within the queer community. He passes as male most of the time, but he worries that gay cisgender men see him as “not really a man,” and that lesbians might think he’s betrayed womanhood.

Here’s a useful story that illustrates the intersection of the transgender community and broader LGBTQ culture, focusing on themes of identity, belonging, and mutual support.

A lesbian elder who’d been watching from a nearby float—someone who remembers the AIDS crisis and the early Pride marches—steps off her float. She takes the hand of a trans woman next to her, and together they walk toward the protesters. “We didn’t survive Stonewall to leave anyone behind,” she says quietly. “Trans women of color threw the first bricks. Don’t erase them.”