Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender

Author: Dr. Kit Heyam Ph.D

Overview: A 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 offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, such as gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. The book 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.

Recommendations by Themes

SYSTEMIC RACISM

• Fiction

  • Legendborn by Tracy Deonn: An Arthurian YA fantasy teaching about microaggressions.
  • Blood at the Root by LaDarrion Williams: A book about a 17-year-old finding his roots.

• Non-Fiction

  • Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: Written in letter format to his son, discussing the black experience in America.
  • Letter from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: Required reading especially for white folks quoting without context.

IMMIGRATION

• Fiction

  • Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz: A sci-fi book about robots in a post-civil war California.

• Non-Fiction

  • They Called Us Enemy by George Takei: A graphic novel memoir about Japanese American detention in 1942.

COLONIZATION

• Fiction

  • Cry, Voidbringer by Elaine Ho: A story from two points of view regarding oppression.
  • This Place: 150 Years Retold: An indigenous graphic novel anthology of dystopian stories.

• Non-Fiction

  • Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

LGBTQIA+ EXPERIENCE

• Fiction

  • No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull: A multi-POV sci-fi/fantasy about monsters fighting for human rights.
  • Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White: Dystopian horror about a closeted gay youth during an apocalyptic event.

• Non-Fiction

  • A Little Queer Natural History by Josh L. Davis: Discusses biodiversity and counters the basic biology argument.
  • Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam.

PRISON ABOLITION

• Fiction

  • Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Fictional take on privatized prisons made into a reality TV show.

• Non-Fiction

  • Abolitionist Intimacies by El Jones: Tells stories of marginalized voices.

DISABILITY

• Fiction

  • Cinder by Marissa Meyer: A cyborg’s struggle with identity in a society that sees her as less than human.

• Non-Fiction

  • Grievers by adrienne marie brown: A dystopian literature exploration of the pandemic's impact on society.

For other recommendations sorted by social justice topic, visit AK Press Books.

What subjects would you like recommendations for? Leave your recs in the comments!