Transgender History

Tracing major movements, events, and writings that shaped transgender history

Posted on June 15, 2020 in Review of the Week

Transgender history : the roots of today’s revolution Rev. ed

Stryker, Susan. Seal Press, 2017
301p bibl index, 9781580056892 $17.99, 9781580056908

Stryker (gender and women’s studies, Univ. of Arizona) charts “a history of transgender people in the United States, concentrating mostly on the years after World War II.” This book is a substantial update to the original edition, published in 2008 CH, May’09, 46-5351. The first chapter defines terms like “gender” and “identity politics” and brilliantly foregrounds the rest of the text. The five chapters that follow narrate a history of transgender people in the US through the aftermath of the 2016 election within “an expansive feminist framework.” Each chapter also includes small breakout sections that expand on terms like “gender dysphoria” and “drag balls” to guide less familiar readers through the text. Stryker deftly contextualizes the political divisions within the GLBT+ movement, especially during the movement to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2007, and explores the divisions between the gay and transgender communities in regard to their relationships with the medical establishment. This book is required reading for historians, but it also represents an invaluable text for anyone who wants to better understand evolving concepts of gender.

Summing Up: Essential. All libraries at all levels.
Reviewer: C. Pinto, Mount Holyoke College
Subject: Social & Behavioral Sciences – Sociology
Choice Issue: May 2018

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