Before we were trans : a new history of gender / Kit Heyam.

  • Heyam, Kit, 1990-
Date:
2022
  • Books

About this work

Description

"Across the world today, people of all ages are doing fascinating, creative, messy things with gender. These people have a rich history - but one that is often left behind by narratives of trans lives that focus on people with stable, binary, uncomplicated gender identities. As a result, these stories tend to be recent, binary, stereotyped, medicalised and white. Before We Were Trans is a new and different story of gender, that seeks not to be comprehensive or definitive, but - by blending culture, feminism and politics - to widen the scope of what we think of as trans history by telling the stories of people across the globe whose experience of gender has been transgressive, or not characterised by stability or binary categories. Transporting us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to North America, the stories this book tells leave questions and resist conclusions. They are fraught with ambiguity, and defy modern Western terminology and categories - not least the category of 'trans' itself. But telling them provides a history that reflects the richness of modern trans reality more closely than any previously written"-- Publisher's description.

Publication/Creation

London : Basic Books, 2022.

Physical description

viii, 342 pages ; 24 cm

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-267) and index.

Contents

'I had a gown on a lark': what is trans history -- Author's note: Writing trans history differently -- 'The majesty of Him my daughter': Colonising gender roles in West Africa -- 'She liked me in my greatcoast and hat': Fashion and trans panic in early modern Europe -- 'I took especial pleasure in masquerade costumes': Living and performing as women in First World War internment camps -- 'A feminine soul confined by a masculine body': The entangled history of gay and trans experience -- 'I am both man and woman': Defiant bodies in early America and beyond -- 'Because of the manifestation of the Spirit': Gender, spirituality and survival in North America and South Asia -- Epilogue: Now we are trans.

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    TW /HEY
    Open shelves

Permanent link

Identifiers

ISBN

  • 1529377749
  • 9781529377743