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Dr. Megan McNamara, director of the new transgender clinic at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, the first in the nation.

(Gus Chan, The Plain Dealer, File, 2015)

Jamie C. Capuzza, professor at the University of Mount Union

CNN's Brandon Griggs has written that 2015 "may be remembered as the year the term 'transgender' fully entered mainstream consciousness." The International Business Times' Lydia Smith claimed it was "the year to be trans."

As a new year begins, it would be useful to reflect on whether or not such declarations reflect the reality of transgender lives.

In the government, President Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to say the word "transgender" in a State of the Union address. The Pentagon announced it would lift a ban on transgender people participating in military service, freeing thousands of transgender soldiers from hiding their identities.

Both the Department of Justice and the Department of Education supported transgender student Gavin Grimm's fight to use the boys' bathroom in a Virginia public school. The Department of Justice also highlighted the lack of adequate health care for transgender inmates.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argued successfully in the case of Tamara Lusardi, a transgender employee of the U.S. Army denied use of the restroom, that transgender people should receive federal protection from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On the other hand, several presidential candidates have mocked transgender people from the campaign trail, argued they should not serve in the military, and even called the Planned Parenthood murderer, Robert Dear, "a transgender leftist activist."

At the state level, while more state insurance agencies are offering equal health benefits to transgender people, Ohio is not one of them. Ohio has no explicit policy ensuring equal coverage in private insurance or Medicaid. Additionally, Ohio won't allow gender to be changed on birth certificates, and our state provides sex-discrimination but not gender-identity protections in our safe school nondiscrimination policy.

At the local level, only Franklin, Lucas, Montgomery and Summit counties prohibit discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity for public employees, and there has been little movement on Cleveland Ordinance 1446-13 that would give transgender people the right to use public facilities that most closely reflect their gender identities.

In popular culture, the number of television programs that cast transgender actors and feature transgender main characters grew in 2015, as did the number of reality television programs, such as those of transgender teenager Jazz Jennings and Caitlyn Jenner. Magazine covers ranging from those of Vogue to Men's Health showcased transgender models and celebrities and more children's books featuring transgender characters were published in 2015. Facebook offers U.S. users at least 58 gender options for their profiles.

On the other hand, this end of an era of invisibility has resulted in more discrimination and violence. Transgender people continue to face discrimination from employers and to suffer from the effects of unemployment and poverty. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey showed that 26 percent of trans people lost a job due to bias, 50 percent were harassed on the job, 20 percent were evicted or denied housing, and 78 percent of trans students were harassed or assaulted. Many transgender people are denied basic services such as emergency shelters and medical care.

Violence against transgender people continues unabated. At least 23 transgender people were murdered in 2015, a record number, and most were people of color. This violent backlash hit close to home when a local transgender girl from Akron, named Bri Golec, was stabbed to death by her father.

Yes, 2015 was an important year for the transgender community, and there is reason for cautious optimism. However, as a new year begins, it is important to recognize that there is a long way to go before transgender people can claim their full citizenship and before most Americans come to terms with assumptions about gender so ingrained in our society. The willingness or unwillingness to engage these questions in 2016 will say as much about U.S. society as it does about transgender people.

Jamie C. Capuzza is a professor of communication and gender studies at the University of Mount Union in Alliance. She is co-editor of "Transgender Communication: Histories, Trends and Trajectories," and has published several research articles on media coverage of transgender people.