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Before We Were Trans

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What to expect

A “vital” (New York Times Book Review), groundbreaking global history of gender nonconformity

Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives.

Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam chronicles expressions of trans experience that are often left out of the historical record. Drawing on their own experience of transition and gender nonbinarism, Heyam reveals that what constitutes a man, a woman, or gender itself has continually been defined, contested, and redefined.

A groundbreaking, radically inclusive trans history, Before We Were Trans reflects the richness of modern trans reality more closely than any previously written—and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures.

Critics Review

Before We Were Trans is a thoughtful, fun, and refreshingly readable romp through the history of gender variance before the invention of contemporary ‘transgender’ categories and concepts.—Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History
Before We Were Trans provides much needed context, nuance, and breadth to our understanding of human gender diversity throughout history and in different cultures. While people who we might now call transgender or LGBTQIA+ have always existed, Kit Heyam shows how both individuals' and societies' understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality are situational, multifaceted, and constantly evolving.—Julia Serano, author of Whipping Girl and Sexed Up
Before We Were Trans enlarges our understanding of trans histories and highlights the beauty, complexity, and contradictions of doing historical work - all in a voice that invites the reader in, and not only teaches us what to think about trans lives in the past, but how to think about them.—Hugh Ryan, author of The Women’s House of Detention
This is such a searing, reflexive read - in conversation with the likes of Shon Faye, Akwaeke Emezi and Leslie Feinberg - that needs to be in everyone's hands expeditiously.—Paula Akpan, journalist and co-founding director of Black Girl Festival
Author Kit Heyam
Narrator Kit Heyam
Duration 8 hours and 2 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781668612675
Format Audiobook
Publisher Hachette Audio
Genre Gender studies, gender groups, Gender studies: ‘trans’, transgender people and gender variance, General and world history
Availability US

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