ABSTRACT
This chapter explores transgender individuals' cultural place in the mainstream, as well as within subcultures from the 1950s onward. In the 1970s, Sweden became the first country to allow a change in sex designation on legal documents. In 2009, both India and Pakistan allowed for gender markers other than male and female on national identification cards. The chapter reviews the medicalization of gender identity. It identifies the backlash to the modern transgender civil rights movement. The chapter looks at two such institutions as they have grappled with inclusion: the military and organized sports. The US military is the newest in a list of nineteen countries that allows openly transgender service members. As the policy is new, the US military has the opportunity to learn from the policies of the eighteen countries. The chapter views that human rights in sports is an essential sphere of consideration, but organized sports are considered as institutions within mainstream culture.
