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Before We Were Trans
Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender | Dr. Kit Heyam
18 posts | 9 read | 22 to read
A groundbreaking global history of gender nonconformity Todays 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 peoples 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 offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans transports us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to early America, and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures.
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MarshmallowAdventures
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Pickpick

Full of a wide array of histories that weave a tapestry of humanity through the lens of gender, sexuality,
and the inseparable influence of society on both.

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MarshmallowAdventures

But while the distinction between 'gender identity' and 'gender expression' is a useful teaching tool, helping to underscore the point that we can't tell anyone's gender just from looking at them - I use it myself every time I deliver trans awareness training - the reality of our experience is often more complex.

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MarshmallowAdventures

If what it means to be a man, a woman or a non-binary person is different for everyone and varies between contexts, how can we straightforwardly talk about 'people who don't identify as the gender they were assigned at birth', in either the past or the present?

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Hooked_on_books
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Pickpick

There have always been trans and gender nonconforming people, even before we had the word trans. Heyam looks back through history to reveal those who fell into these categories as well as those who most likely did. This is completely fascinating and thoroughly readable.

dabbe 🖤🐾🖤 6mo
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arlenefinnigan
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Pickpick

This is a fascinating exploration of gender identities throughout history and across various cultures, challenging the idea that trans and gender-nonconforming identities are a modern ‘trend‘ or ‘fad‘. You may not agree with everything that Kit Hayem argues, but it‘s thought provoking and incredibly well researched.

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arlenefinnigan
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5feet.of.fury
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Pickpick

Soft pick. Discusses trans history while acknowledging the blurry divides between gender roles, gay history, intersex people &religious practices. the sections on precolonial societies & spirituality were particularly interesting &cohesive.

1 section I disagreed with Heyam‘s conclusion (the internment camp) & Heyam devotes the bulk of a chapter to include an intersex person who clearly did not consider themself trans which I have issue with.

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5feet.of.fury
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I‘m hoping to get a couple chapters in to All The Sinners Bleed tonight, but I am exhausted, so who knows if that will happen, other than that, this was a very successful #20in4 I screwed up my clock but got close on the 20 hours. I started the tagged book today, it‘s a very informative & entertaining look at gender norms globally & historically.

Andrew65 Brilliant, well done and thanks for playing along 👏👏👏🙌🎉🥳🍾🥂 1y
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jlhammar
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Pickpick

So glad I read this book! Highly recommend. Quite dense and academic, but not at all dry. Was a great book club choice. Made for a wonderful discussion.

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jlhammar
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#bookmail My IRL book club chose both of these for our June meeting. Should be a great discussion!

CBee Ohhhhhh, The Prettiest Star was a favorite of mine last year. It‘s powerful. 1y
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TheBookDream
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School‘s almost done so the brain doesn‘t want to do ANYTHING school related 🙃

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CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian
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Pickpick

A great accessible academic book that focuses on a history of gender nonconformity that emphasizes genders that are culturally specific and/or inextricable from social roles, spirituality, economic opportunities, theatre, sexuality. Gender all over the world has historically been fluid, malleable, and much more than binary. I learned a lot of cool stuff but was disappointed by a weird implication that policing can be redeemed like history?

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Lindy
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“The discipline of history is set up to erase queer lives, and particularly trans lives.” Historians are expected to assume everyone they study is cis. Dr Kit Heyam, a trans nonbinary British historian, has chosen a different approach, one that treats people in the past AND in the present with respect, care and love. The result is fascinating. #queer #trans

Megabooks Stacked! 2y
Lindy @Megabooks 👍🏳️‍⚧️ 2y
dylanisreading Oh I need this book. 2y
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Lindy @dylanisreading I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Have you had the opportunity to check out the quotes that I shared from this book? I had to hold myself back from bombarding my Litsy followers. I read a library copy and filled handwritten pages in my commonplace journal with passages that struck me. 2y
dylanisreading @Lindy Yes, I did. Now you've convinced me to buy my own copy. Thank you for sharing! 2y
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Lindy
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“A note about Freshwater—it is NOT about nonbinary/trans identity through an Igbo lens ffs. It is not about gender whatsoever and framing it as that is trying to force it over to a human/Western center. It is about embodiment as an ogbanje.”
—Akwaeke Emezi, 2021

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Lindy
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I have never read a better, truer account of the experience of being a queer person writing queer history than Jenn Shapland‘s My Autobiography of Carson McCullers.

ChaoticMissAdventures There is an interesting book about her and a few other boundary pushing artists who all lived together for a spell. Really well written and I learned a bit about McCullers 2y
Lindy @ChaoticMissAdventures Thanks for the recommendation Shawna! I am interested. 2y
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Lindy
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The visibility of nonbinary people in contemporary culture is already threatening to eclipse intersex history even further: in August 2021 the discovery of the 1,000-year-old body of a person with Klinefelter syndrome, an intersex trait involving XXY chromosomes, was widely reported as being a “nonbinary Iron Age leader.”

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Lindy
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History is a space that‘s often fiercely contested between butch and trans people. Academic Jules Gill-Peterson calls it “the trans-masculine-butch-lesbian border wars.”

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Lindy
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Recent Reads February 14: Past, Present & Future in Fiction & Nonfiction #queer #CanLit #Indigenous

https://youtu.be/UdKmlhex4E0

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