The Two Revolutions

Happy Pride Month! Drawing on archival research, this week's review investigates the intersection and rise of the transgender rights movement and the internet, exploring how trans people organized and built community online.

Posted on June 3, 2024 in Reviews of the Month

The Two Revolutions: A History of Transgender Networking Online

Dame-Griff, Avery. New York University, 2023
272p bibl index, 9781479818303 $89.00, 9781479818310 $30.00, 9781479818341

In Two Revolutions, Dame-Griff (Gonzaga Univ.) argues that the contemporary transgender rights movement as it is known today could not have come to be without the internet. Accordingly, the book provides a valuable concise history of the transgender community while enlightening readers with knowledge of how the online community has evolved over time. Organized chronologically, moving from the movement’s foundations to the beginnings of its migration to the online format, the book details how at “each step of the way in the history of the computer communication … trans people have been there” (p. 18). As for research in LGBT history generally, the availability of sources can pose challenges. Dame-Griff hurdles this obstacle by tapping the vast stores of pre-internet print materials that became so prolific in the 1960s. Consequently, beginning with users instead of the internet, this book spans the gap between two generations and two archival eras: print material and born-digital documents. This study is invaluable not only for expanding readers’ knowledge base of the formation and evolution of the transgender community, but also for offering an encyclopedic reference for the terms and language of online community organization.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers, advanced undergraduates through faculty, and professionals.
Reviewer: J. Goins, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Interdisciplinary Subjects: Women’s & Gender Studies, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Studies
Subject: Social & Behavioral Sciences
Choice Issue: Mar 2024

The Two Revolutions

Happy Pride Month! Drawing on archival research, this week's review investigates the intersection and rise of the transgender rights movement and the internet, exploring how trans people organized and built community online.