Monday, November 20, 2017

Transgender History. The Roots of Today’s Revolution. Author: Susan Stryker.

Professor Susan Stryker has written a heavily revised version of her Transgender History. It is practically a new book. Just released in November 2017, this volume is an up-to-date examination of transgender/genderqueer history from its beginnings through the Trump election and the “explicitly transgender inclusive and affirming” Women’s Marches that occurred throughout the US on January 21, 2017 (Stryker, p. 235).

But this updated book is not just a history. It is also an exploration of gender-nonconforming community and an invitation to those (who are interested or isolated) to join. History is used as a way to both inform about the past and inform about the culture. A group’s history is part of its culture and this one has struggled against a great deal of prejudice. As a result, Stryker presents, through successes and setbacks, a people, a heritage and a set of individual activists, of whom a community member can be proud.

For all that is positive about this book, it does not begin well. After a stirring introduction, the first chapter is designed to dampen enthusiasm. It is entitled “Contexts, Concepts, and Terms,” and is a confusing bombardment of definitions. Considering that her community has not yet settled upon a definitive term of self-definition, this leaves the reader tangled in a morass of words. Further confounding the issue is Stryker’s continuing use of “Transgender” as an all-encompassing word. Stryker admits that, “in recent years, some people have begun to use the term transgender to refer only to those who identify with a binary gender other than the one they were assigned at birth” and that transgender is a 1990s term “similar to what genderqueer, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary mean now” (Stryker, p. 37). This chapter functions as a wet washcloth on the first embers of anticipation. It would have been better if the author had included some limited terminology in her introduction; and reworked this chapter as a glossary appended to the end.

The book truly begins in Chapter Two: “A Hundred Plus Years of Transgender History.” It portrays genderqueer history in the United States from the 1800s to the 1960s. Chapter Three, on “Trans Liberation,” overlaps slightly with the previous chapter, illustrating the rise of a human rights ethos within the community and activism from the 1950s through the 1970s. The last three chapters cover more contemporary developments in nonbinary history and community from the 1970s through today.

Professor Stryker is not afraid of confrontation. She is resolutely critical of prejudice from both the right and the left. While she defines herself as “transfeminist,” Stryker is critical of feminists who exclude transgender women from events that are for “women-born-women” only. She also takes aim at lesbian and gay organizations that were late in their support of gender-nonconforming people. But, as one might imagine, she is most expository regarding oppression directed at her community from the larger society, a topic faced throughout the narrative.

The last section in the book is particularly current. It is called “Backlash, Survival, and Resistance.” Stryker begins this section by reasoning that “it would be remarkable if all the historic changes in how society understands and accepts trans and gender-nonconforming people failed to produce a backlash among people hostile to changes” (Stryker, p. 226). She depicts the trajectory of reaction against the Obama years and progressive political gains for nonbinary and other minorities, which culminated in the Trump presidency. But her analysis is hopeful. After describing the Women’s March and the “trans inclusive” mass human rights work that produced it, she ends her narrative by citing Martin Luther King’s revision of a Theodore Parker quote: “The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” As an activist, Stryker is not one to depend on historical determinism to secure that justice. She adds “we can do more than cross our fingers and hope for the best if we ourselves work together to bend our little corner of the universe in that direction” (Stryker, p. 236).


Stryker, Susan. Transgender History. The Roots of Today’s Revolution. New York: Seal Press, 2017.

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