Twenty years after a breakthrough Texas case launched a new era of gay rights, trans people are still in the fight

Twenty years ago, on June 26, 2003, people with signs and flags celebrate the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Lawrence v. Texas case outside City Hall in Houston. (Credit: REUTERS/Richard Carson)

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Seated on a parade float winding its way through Montrose, the heart of Houston’s LGBTQ+ community, John Lawrence and Tyron Garner temporarily assumed the status of queer icons when they served as grand marshals in the city’s 2003 Pride parade. Just days earlier, the two quiet men with working-class roots fused their names to a pivotal moment in America’s gay rights movement.