Frances Thompson: The Black Trans Woman Who Told Congress the Truth About the Memphis Massacre

In 1866, Frances Thompson, a formerly enslaved Black transgender woman, testified before Congress about the sexual violence she endured during the Memphis Massacre, only to have her identity later weaponized in an effort to erase and discredit her account.

Writer’s Note: There are no verified photographs of Frances Thompson. No authenticated portrait of her has been found in public archives. What remains instead are congressional transcripts, court records, and period illustrations,  including an 1876 newspaper engraving that reflected sensational reporting rather than self-representation. Her image was never formally preserved, but her testimony endures in the historical record.

In the spring of 1866, as the United States staggered through the fragile beginnings of Reconstruction, racial terror erupted in Memphis, Tennessee. What began as tensions between white police officers and Black Union veterans escalated into three days of coordinated violence that left at least 46 Black people dead, dozens raped, and more than 90 homes, churches, and schools burned.

Among the survivors who chose to speak was Frances Thompson.

Thompson, a formerly enslaved Black transgender woman, appeared before a congressional committee investigating the massacre and delivered sworn testimony about the sexual assault she endured at the hands of a white mob. Her courage placed her in rare company. At a time when Black people, and especially Black women, were routinely silenced or disbelieved, Thompson publicly named the violence inflicted upon her.

Her words became part of the official record.

The Memphis Massacre unfolded in May 1866, just one year after the end of the Civil War. Black Union soldiers stationed in Memphis faced hostility from white residents and police officers who resented their presence and newfound status. After a confrontation between Black soldiers and white police, white mobs, including police and firefighters, rampaged through Black neighborhoods.

Congress launched an investigation, and the Joint Select Committee on the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States gathered testimony from survivors. Thompson testified that she and another Black woman, Lucy Smith, were attacked in their home by white men who beat and raped them.

According to the committee’s report, Thompson stated that the men “committed the most brutal outrages upon them.” The language reflected the era’s euphemisms, but the meaning was unmistakable.

Her testimony helped underscore the sexualized dimension of anti-Black violence during Reconstruction, violence that targeted Black women’s bodies as a means of asserting white supremacy.

Yet Thompson’s presence in the historical record did not protect her.

Nearly a decade later, in 1876, Thompson was arrested in Memphis on charges of “cross-dressing,” a common legal pretext used to police gender nonconformity. During her arrest, authorities publicly exposed that she had been assigned male at birth. Newspapers sensationalized the revelation, casting her as fraudulent and immoral.

The exposure was not neutral. It functioned as a retroactive attack on her credibility.

White supremacist voices seized on her gender identity to suggest that her earlier testimony had been deceptive. By portraying Thompson as illegitimate, they attempted to undermine not only her account of sexual violence but also the broader findings of the congressional investigation.

Historians have noted that such tactics were common during Reconstruction. As federal efforts to enforce civil rights for Black Americans intensified, white backlash grew. Discrediting Black witnesses, especially those who testified to white sexual violence, became a strategy to blunt political momentum. Thompson’s gender identity made her particularly vulnerable.

There are no verified photographs of Thompson, though period illustrations exist. Much of what is known about her life comes from court records, congressional transcripts, and newspaper accounts. Even those sources are filtered through the prejudices of their time.

Still, the record is clear on one point; Thompson testified under oath about the assault she endured during the Memphis Massacre.

Her later arrest and public exposure occurred in a climate where anti-Blackness and hostility toward gender nonconformity were deeply intertwined. Laws against cross-dressing were often deployed to criminalize transgender and gender-nonconforming people, particularly those who were poor or Black.

By the late 1870s, Reconstruction was collapsing under the weight of political compromise and violent resistance. Federal protections weakened, white supremacist governments regained power across the South, and the gains made in the immediate postwar years eroded.

Within that broader rollback, Thompson’s story receded from mainstream historical narratives.

In recent years, scholars and LGBTQ historians have revisited her life as part of a larger effort to recover the presence of transgender people in earlier eras. Her testimony stands as one of the earliest known instances of a Black transgender woman addressing the U.S. Congress.

Her experience also highlights a recurring pattern; survivors of sexual violence, particularly Black and trans survivors, often face scrutiny aimed at discrediting their identities rather than addressing the harm done to them.

The Memphis Massacre itself is sometimes overshadowed by later episodes of racial violence, yet it played a significant role in shaping Reconstruction policy. Reports of the massacre, along with a similar outbreak of violence in New Orleans in 1866, helped galvanize support for the 14th Amendment, which granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to formerly enslaved people.

Thompson’s testimony contributed to that historical moment.

Though her name is not widely taught in classrooms, her presence in the congressional record disrupts the assumption that transgender people are a recent phenomenon. It also underscores that Black trans people have long stood at the crossroads of racial and gender-based violence in America.

Nearly 160 years later, Thompson’s story remains a reminder that bearing witness can carry both power and peril,  and that attempts to silence or discredit marginalized voices are not new.

Her testimony endures, even when others tried to erase it.