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Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender
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, 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.
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, 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.
343 pages, Hardcover
First published September 13, 2022
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March 16, 2024Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
*******************************************
Welp, I’m so late on all my NG reviews, that it’s gone past fashionably late and into just … like … a fucking mess. This is technically a re-read since I read this forever ago, did not quite have the time to formulate my thoughts in a way it deserved, then continued to lose the plot for many months, so here we are again.
This is a thoughtful and fascinating re-evaluation of the history of—for lack better language (and the limitations of language is something the book itself wrestles with continually)—gender-nonconformity. Since the author notes in the book that they find the constant jokes at the expense of historians somewhat hurtful, I’ll do my best not to dwell on the degree which it feels to me, as someone who does have an academic background in the field, that conventional historical approaches to marginalised identities seem more interested in erasing them than exploring them: as Heyam themself observes, no historian has never been required to prove that a historical figure is straight or cis, simply because we take it as read that acting in accordance with the western cisheteropatriarchy is a natural state of being. In any case, part of the stated aim of Before We Were Trans is to explore examples of gender non-conforming / gender disrupting behaviour across history in ways that are less focused on looking for “proof” of indisputable transness or cisness (whatever those things mean and whatever proof of it would look like) and more about formulating, as the subtitle states, an approach to gender that allows for nuance, ambiguity, complexity and—frankly—messiness.
I think, for me, it was the honest exploration of messiness that I found most personally valuable. I think, ironically—and I’m aware I sound like an episode of Black Mirror here—that one of the most difficult aspects of social media is a tendency towards kind of moral binaries, especially when it comes to the complex spaces of identity i.e. that identity is a kind of zero-sum game. Heyam touches on this directly when they discuss their own experiences in wording a commemorative plaque for Anne Lister, inadvertently becoming the subject of a great deal of hurt and hostility for including a reference Lister’s gender non-conforming behaviour (they did, after all, describe their desire for women in specifically masculine terms and dress in masculine-coded clothing) while leaving her attraction to women implicit in the description of her entering a life-long commitment with one equivalent to a marriage. This led some people to interpret the plaque as a rejection of Lister’s lesbianism and an attempt to co-opt her for a trans/nonbinary agenda. Which is exactly the sort of discourse I find most harmful since—while I would never want to cause hurt or grief to others—it seems to me, for Lister in particular, the answer can very comfortably be both? Which may not be the case for other figures, who left behind more definitive statements regarding their self-perception.
In presenting their own take on approaches to gender non-conforming behaviour in historical context and by historical figures, Heyam is at pains to widen spaces of interpretation instead of narrowing them, referring to nearly all of the people they reference by gender neutral pronouns, imposing no conclusive identity upon them, noting the way categories of experience overlap (including the ever-contested butch woman / trans man boundary) and careful to emphasise the impact of different cultural contexts, alongside the danger of assuming western ideas of gender and gender binaries are universal. That the history of gender is inextricable from the history of colonialism is a stark reminder that ideas about gender are also inextricable from ideas about power.
I have seen a few reviews that are inclined to read Heyam’s tone as defensive. Personally, I read it as cautious, as well it might be. This is a complicated, emotive space, one that scholarship is only just beginning to admit reconsideration of, queer people of all sorts have personal investment in, and which has genuine potential to re-shape our current thinking. Before We Were Trans is not, however, a work of polemic. I’m not saying it doesn’t have an agenda—all historical work is carried out with an agenda—but it is an exploratory agenda, rather than one that wishes to seek, demand or present definitive readings. It is, of course not, not for me to challenge other people’s interpretations nor to deny whatever feelings Before We Were Trans might have inspired. But, to me, to draw out of the text a rejection of fluid and/or nonbinary gender expression in favour of binary trans ones or to treat gender disruptive readings as antithetical to feminism or other elements of queer identity, seems to actively reject Heyam’s own stated goals for the book and ignore the consistent care with which they navigate these very fraught topics.
As to the form of the book itself, it’s a fairly slim but not necessarily light read, moving thematically rather than chronically through historical examples of gender disrupting behaviour, either from specific individuals (for example the case of Thomas(ine) Hall) or specific cultural contexts (like World War I interment camps or the floating world of Edo Japan). Of course it is not possible for Heyam to fully de-centre western perspectives—nor do they try—but I personally appreciated this invitation to consider questions of gender, gender expression, and gender disruption from a more global point of view. I think Heyam had to walk something of a tightrope here, in order to neither exclude or erase groups of people, while not attempting to speak for them (or over them) either. For, you know, people like me, it seems fairly clear that Heyam’s book provides (and is probably intended to provide) a useful starting point, but should not be taken as any sort of comprehensive or definitive statement on the experiences of gender nonconforming people across the world.
In general Heyam has a brisk personable, style that neatly navigates both the need for accessibility and precision. I will say, I sometimes found the sheer breath of the book overwhelming—I’ve read it twice now and I still don’t feel like I’ve got a grip on every topic or story touched upon. I can see the advantage of the book not looking like a massive, intimidating tome, but at the same time Heyam took me to places I wasn’t super familiar with and introduced me to people I hadn’t heard of before and while I’m not necessarily saying I needed them to talk slowly for the ignoramus at the back, I did think the book could have potentially benefited from a more measured pace now and then, and perhaps a touch more detail about some of its subjects. After all, Before We Were Trans is dealing quite explicitly with the “lesser knowns” of gender nonconforming history (i.e. those who we might not be inclined to classify as trans to a modern understanding precisely because their lives were ambiguous or complex) which means this could, in fact, be the first time some of these stories have been made available to people without access to research archives.
On a purely personal note, Heyam occasionally lost me a bit when their explorations touched upon fictional portrayals of trans and nonbinary people. This is obviously a topic way beyond the scope of the book and most of the time Heyam is speaking entirely personally, but their choices feel frustratingly limited in a book that is otherwise interested in expanding boundaries. Don’t get me wrong, like all confused queer teenagers who grew up at a certain time, I love The Left Hand of Darkness with all my heart, but it came out in 1969. Modern SFF is full of books that centralise trans and nonbinary protagonists, and sometimes they don’t even have to die! Similarly, Heyam’s recommendation for a fab read with a nonbinary protagonist is The Lauras, a novel which—while it admittedly defies bodily or genital classification of its main character—also contains multiple graphic assaults upon the main character. Again, I’m not saying that it is wrong for writers to address these topics—sexual assault is the reality of many queer people’s lives—nor I am denying Heyam’s right to feel spoken to by this or any other book, but it sort of feels like handing a newly out lesbian a copy of The Well of Loneliness. I was also not super thrilled that the bit of the book that Heyam chose to quote as part of their pitch in favour of this work as a welcome to nonbinary identity was, um, one of the assaults? This felt especially jarring because, while Heyam does not diminish the traumatic experiences of the historical figures they’re discussing (the previously mentioned Thomas(ine) Hall is repeatedly subjected to invasive examination), they go out of their way not to dwell on them or textually replicate them. Obviously the difference is that Alex (the protagonist of The Lauras) is fictional but I’m not sure that necessarily changes the impact upon an unprepared reader.
Our respective tastes in queer fiction aside, I am full of admiration for Before We Were Trans, and Heyam’s passion for their subject. Given the complexity of the entire topic, and the ambitious scope of the work itself, it’s a very readable book that I genuinely found educative and illuminating. Most importantly, however, it contributes to what feels like an extremely necessary, and hopefully on-going conversation, about sex and gender as mutable categories that have historically been subject to disruption just as they are today. In fact, let me give Heyam the last word(s) as they express it far better than I could:
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
*******************************************
Welp, I’m so late on all my NG reviews, that it’s gone past fashionably late and into just … like … a fucking mess. This is technically a re-read since I read this forever ago, did not quite have the time to formulate my thoughts in a way it deserved, then continued to lose the plot for many months, so here we are again.
This is a thoughtful and fascinating re-evaluation of the history of—for lack better language (and the limitations of language is something the book itself wrestles with continually)—gender-nonconformity. Since the author notes in the book that they find the constant jokes at the expense of historians somewhat hurtful, I’ll do my best not to dwell on the degree which it feels to me, as someone who does have an academic background in the field, that conventional historical approaches to marginalised identities seem more interested in erasing them than exploring them: as Heyam themself observes, no historian has never been required to prove that a historical figure is straight or cis, simply because we take it as read that acting in accordance with the western cisheteropatriarchy is a natural state of being. In any case, part of the stated aim of Before We Were Trans is to explore examples of gender non-conforming / gender disrupting behaviour across history in ways that are less focused on looking for “proof” of indisputable transness or cisness (whatever those things mean and whatever proof of it would look like) and more about formulating, as the subtitle states, an approach to gender that allows for nuance, ambiguity, complexity and—frankly—messiness.
I think, for me, it was the honest exploration of messiness that I found most personally valuable. I think, ironically—and I’m aware I sound like an episode of Black Mirror here—that one of the most difficult aspects of social media is a tendency towards kind of moral binaries, especially when it comes to the complex spaces of identity i.e. that identity is a kind of zero-sum game. Heyam touches on this directly when they discuss their own experiences in wording a commemorative plaque for Anne Lister, inadvertently becoming the subject of a great deal of hurt and hostility for including a reference Lister’s gender non-conforming behaviour (they did, after all, describe their desire for women in specifically masculine terms and dress in masculine-coded clothing) while leaving her attraction to women implicit in the description of her entering a life-long commitment with one equivalent to a marriage. This led some people to interpret the plaque as a rejection of Lister’s lesbianism and an attempt to co-opt her for a trans/nonbinary agenda. Which is exactly the sort of discourse I find most harmful since—while I would never want to cause hurt or grief to others—it seems to me, for Lister in particular, the answer can very comfortably be both? Which may not be the case for other figures, who left behind more definitive statements regarding their self-perception.
In presenting their own take on approaches to gender non-conforming behaviour in historical context and by historical figures, Heyam is at pains to widen spaces of interpretation instead of narrowing them, referring to nearly all of the people they reference by gender neutral pronouns, imposing no conclusive identity upon them, noting the way categories of experience overlap (including the ever-contested butch woman / trans man boundary) and careful to emphasise the impact of different cultural contexts, alongside the danger of assuming western ideas of gender and gender binaries are universal. That the history of gender is inextricable from the history of colonialism is a stark reminder that ideas about gender are also inextricable from ideas about power.
I have seen a few reviews that are inclined to read Heyam’s tone as defensive. Personally, I read it as cautious, as well it might be. This is a complicated, emotive space, one that scholarship is only just beginning to admit reconsideration of, queer people of all sorts have personal investment in, and which has genuine potential to re-shape our current thinking. Before We Were Trans is not, however, a work of polemic. I’m not saying it doesn’t have an agenda—all historical work is carried out with an agenda—but it is an exploratory agenda, rather than one that wishes to seek, demand or present definitive readings. It is, of course not, not for me to challenge other people’s interpretations nor to deny whatever feelings Before We Were Trans might have inspired. But, to me, to draw out of the text a rejection of fluid and/or nonbinary gender expression in favour of binary trans ones or to treat gender disruptive readings as antithetical to feminism or other elements of queer identity, seems to actively reject Heyam’s own stated goals for the book and ignore the consistent care with which they navigate these very fraught topics.
As to the form of the book itself, it’s a fairly slim but not necessarily light read, moving thematically rather than chronically through historical examples of gender disrupting behaviour, either from specific individuals (for example the case of Thomas(ine) Hall) or specific cultural contexts (like World War I interment camps or the floating world of Edo Japan). Of course it is not possible for Heyam to fully de-centre western perspectives—nor do they try—but I personally appreciated this invitation to consider questions of gender, gender expression, and gender disruption from a more global point of view. I think Heyam had to walk something of a tightrope here, in order to neither exclude or erase groups of people, while not attempting to speak for them (or over them) either. For, you know, people like me, it seems fairly clear that Heyam’s book provides (and is probably intended to provide) a useful starting point, but should not be taken as any sort of comprehensive or definitive statement on the experiences of gender nonconforming people across the world.
In general Heyam has a brisk personable, style that neatly navigates both the need for accessibility and precision. I will say, I sometimes found the sheer breath of the book overwhelming—I’ve read it twice now and I still don’t feel like I’ve got a grip on every topic or story touched upon. I can see the advantage of the book not looking like a massive, intimidating tome, but at the same time Heyam took me to places I wasn’t super familiar with and introduced me to people I hadn’t heard of before and while I’m not necessarily saying I needed them to talk slowly for the ignoramus at the back, I did think the book could have potentially benefited from a more measured pace now and then, and perhaps a touch more detail about some of its subjects. After all, Before We Were Trans is dealing quite explicitly with the “lesser knowns” of gender nonconforming history (i.e. those who we might not be inclined to classify as trans to a modern understanding precisely because their lives were ambiguous or complex) which means this could, in fact, be the first time some of these stories have been made available to people without access to research archives.
On a purely personal note, Heyam occasionally lost me a bit when their explorations touched upon fictional portrayals of trans and nonbinary people. This is obviously a topic way beyond the scope of the book and most of the time Heyam is speaking entirely personally, but their choices feel frustratingly limited in a book that is otherwise interested in expanding boundaries. Don’t get me wrong, like all confused queer teenagers who grew up at a certain time, I love The Left Hand of Darkness with all my heart, but it came out in 1969. Modern SFF is full of books that centralise trans and nonbinary protagonists, and sometimes they don’t even have to die! Similarly, Heyam’s recommendation for a fab read with a nonbinary protagonist is The Lauras, a novel which—while it admittedly defies bodily or genital classification of its main character—also contains multiple graphic assaults upon the main character. Again, I’m not saying that it is wrong for writers to address these topics—sexual assault is the reality of many queer people’s lives—nor I am denying Heyam’s right to feel spoken to by this or any other book, but it sort of feels like handing a newly out lesbian a copy of The Well of Loneliness. I was also not super thrilled that the bit of the book that Heyam chose to quote as part of their pitch in favour of this work as a welcome to nonbinary identity was, um, one of the assaults? This felt especially jarring because, while Heyam does not diminish the traumatic experiences of the historical figures they’re discussing (the previously mentioned Thomas(ine) Hall is repeatedly subjected to invasive examination), they go out of their way not to dwell on them or textually replicate them. Obviously the difference is that Alex (the protagonist of The Lauras) is fictional but I’m not sure that necessarily changes the impact upon an unprepared reader.
Our respective tastes in queer fiction aside, I am full of admiration for Before We Were Trans, and Heyam’s passion for their subject. Given the complexity of the entire topic, and the ambitious scope of the work itself, it’s a very readable book that I genuinely found educative and illuminating. Most importantly, however, it contributes to what feels like an extremely necessary, and hopefully on-going conversation, about sex and gender as mutable categories that have historically been subject to disruption just as they are today. In fact, let me give Heyam the last word(s) as they express it far better than I could:
This is why it was so important to me to insist that the stories in this book are trans history. They are histories of gender not being binary, fixed, or tied to the body. They show there have always been people who disrupt these norms, and there have always been societies in which they aren’t norms at all.
December 12, 2022
Two things that I love: niche history and accessible academic writing. You will find both of these things in this phenomenal book. Heyam’s writing in thought provoking and conversational but at the same time, extremely well researched. I find Queer theory (and academic writing in general) to be nearly incomprehensible (Judith Butler I love you, but half the time I have absolutely no clue what you are saying) and employ very esoteric terms that can be difficult for anyone outside academia to really engage with. Before We Were Trans, however, is very to the point in the best way possible. Heyam’s explanations of gender theory are very accessible and this book would be a great place to start if you are interested in reading other works of queer/gender theory.
What I also really loved about this book was how Heyam framed the it. This book is a history of disrupting gender. Some of the people in the book *might* have identified as trans if they were suddenly transported to this century, but that’s not really the point. The point is to understand how gender was experimented and toyed with by countless individuals across time and history. Most queer theorists à la Foucault, will scoff at the mere idea of labeling a historical figure with a modern day sexuality or gender identity. But that is not what Heyam is doing. I think they bring an important and thoroughly unique perspective to this discussion.
Another thing I appreciated was their bibliography. They wrote about countries across the globe, places they do not have particular expertise in, but their research focused on works by academics and individuals from those countries.
I think this book is perfect for anyone who loves nonfiction, someone who is interested in reading more queer theory but might be intimidated by the academic lingo, and anyone who reads queer books!
Thank you to Seal Press for the review copy!
What I also really loved about this book was how Heyam framed the it. This book is a history of disrupting gender. Some of the people in the book *might* have identified as trans if they were suddenly transported to this century, but that’s not really the point. The point is to understand how gender was experimented and toyed with by countless individuals across time and history. Most queer theorists à la Foucault, will scoff at the mere idea of labeling a historical figure with a modern day sexuality or gender identity. But that is not what Heyam is doing. I think they bring an important and thoroughly unique perspective to this discussion.
Another thing I appreciated was their bibliography. They wrote about countries across the globe, places they do not have particular expertise in, but their research focused on works by academics and individuals from those countries.
I think this book is perfect for anyone who loves nonfiction, someone who is interested in reading more queer theory but might be intimidated by the academic lingo, and anyone who reads queer books!
Thank you to Seal Press for the review copy!
January 11, 2024
Overall this is 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, theatrical performance, sexuality, and more.
Although it's repeated perhaps a few more times that necessary, I appreciate the point that these histories show that gender all over the world has historically been conceived as fluid, malleable, and much more than binary. Heyam's argument is that these histories are just as much trans history as stories of historical people whose experiences of gender neatly fit into contemporary white western ideas of a stable internal gendered self different from from one assigned at birth.
I learned a lot of cool stuff that I had never heard of before, like amab people in British internment camps during WWI who performed in plays as women and lived as women offstage as well, West African people whose genders were seen differently when they moved into different social/political/economic roles and some of whom became leaders in early colonization by Europeans, and a gender in Japan's Edo period that was seen as belonging to an adolescent age category regardless of the chronological age of someone inhabiting it.
Heyam has a background as a literary scholar in addition to being an historian and so it was a special treat for me to get to read some of their interpretations of texts like Jordy Rosenberg's Confessions of the Fox. I really liked the occasional insertions of thoughts about literature as it intersected with the history they were discussing. I also liked how much time they spent discussing the overlap between intersex and trans history and how Heyam emphasized the dangers of trans people appropriating intersex history and identity. Also: I was glad to read him point that white western trans people have often appropriated two-spirit and hijra people as trans, erasing their cultural specificity and the inherent spiritual nature of their identities.
The epilogue has a really unfortunate analogy made between the institution of police and the discipline of history. It implies that because history is worth changing from the inside as Heyam is doing that policing might be as well?? No!! For a book that often discusses racism in relation to transphobia as well as racism in white trans people's way of seeing gender non conformity in non western cultures and also talks about sex work a lot as it historically has coincided with gender nonconforming, this oversight is disappointing.
Although it's repeated perhaps a few more times that necessary, I appreciate the point that these histories show that gender all over the world has historically been conceived as fluid, malleable, and much more than binary. Heyam's argument is that these histories are just as much trans history as stories of historical people whose experiences of gender neatly fit into contemporary white western ideas of a stable internal gendered self different from from one assigned at birth.
I learned a lot of cool stuff that I had never heard of before, like amab people in British internment camps during WWI who performed in plays as women and lived as women offstage as well, West African people whose genders were seen differently when they moved into different social/political/economic roles and some of whom became leaders in early colonization by Europeans, and a gender in Japan's Edo period that was seen as belonging to an adolescent age category regardless of the chronological age of someone inhabiting it.
Heyam has a background as a literary scholar in addition to being an historian and so it was a special treat for me to get to read some of their interpretations of texts like Jordy Rosenberg's Confessions of the Fox. I really liked the occasional insertions of thoughts about literature as it intersected with the history they were discussing. I also liked how much time they spent discussing the overlap between intersex and trans history and how Heyam emphasized the dangers of trans people appropriating intersex history and identity. Also: I was glad to read him point that white western trans people have often appropriated two-spirit and hijra people as trans, erasing their cultural specificity and the inherent spiritual nature of their identities.
The epilogue has a really unfortunate analogy made between the institution of police and the discipline of history. It implies that because history is worth changing from the inside as Heyam is doing that policing might be as well?? No!! For a book that often discusses racism in relation to transphobia as well as racism in white trans people's way of seeing gender non conformity in non western cultures and also talks about sex work a lot as it historically has coincided with gender nonconforming, this oversight is disappointing.
August 17, 2024
buddy read with S. because I’m not currently reading enough books right now 🙇🏼♀️
Currently reading
March 21, 2024Buddy read with the coolest (Liv).
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September 15, 2022This is an energetic read with many ideas that allows you to agree, disagree, and question without rejecting the larger project. I would call it a critical historical memoir. As the title insists, it is created for the trans reader to learn and understand that the way they understand "trans" existence right now, is not the way it has been lived and responded to historically.
And this argument is made with a wide range of historical examples across culture, time, perspective.
Some of which are fascinating and certainly persuasive. The perspective is very Now, and that is in and of itself interesting, in addition to all the historical material.
One criticism, I wish the names of historians whose original research is used, appeared in the actual text.
Heyam recounts negative experiences that I know are accurate with the "lesbian or trans" question -For people looking for more progressive thinking on this I offer two suggestions:
Nan Alamilla Boyd's article from the end of the 20th century- "The Materiality of Gender: Looking for Lesbian Bodies in Transgender History," Journal of Lesbian Studies 3:3 (1999). Reprinted in Lesbian Sex Scandals: Sexual Practices, Identities, and Politics, Dawn Atkins, ed. (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1999) 73-80. - is helpful in holding a simultaneity of histories that can be both lesbian and trans.
And my piece "Making Lesbian History Possible" from the book Queer Methods https://outhistory.org/blog/making-le... suggests that we look at desire instead of language of identification if we want to find lesbian history.
And this argument is made with a wide range of historical examples across culture, time, perspective.
Some of which are fascinating and certainly persuasive. The perspective is very Now, and that is in and of itself interesting, in addition to all the historical material.
One criticism, I wish the names of historians whose original research is used, appeared in the actual text.
Heyam recounts negative experiences that I know are accurate with the "lesbian or trans" question -For people looking for more progressive thinking on this I offer two suggestions:
Nan Alamilla Boyd's article from the end of the 20th century- "The Materiality of Gender: Looking for Lesbian Bodies in Transgender History," Journal of Lesbian Studies 3:3 (1999). Reprinted in Lesbian Sex Scandals: Sexual Practices, Identities, and Politics, Dawn Atkins, ed. (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1999) 73-80. - is helpful in holding a simultaneity of histories that can be both lesbian and trans.
And my piece "Making Lesbian History Possible" from the book Queer Methods https://outhistory.org/blog/making-le... suggests that we look at desire instead of language of identification if we want to find lesbian history.
August 20, 2022
I haven’t read anything related to trans history before and don’t know much about the topic, so this was both an interesting and eye opening read for me. The author discusses a new kind of methodology to look at the various kinds of gender expression in the past, when there was no language to describe these experiences, and how reading of these experiences through a more inclusive lens can lead to an expansive view of history. I also appreciated how the author talked about the intersection between trans history, intersex history, gender nonconformity and colonialism. Overall, this was both an academic text but also easily readable for a casual reader. However, this also feels more like an introductory book and I think anyone would definitely benefit from reading the various other texts the author refers to within these pages. The audiobook is also well narrated by the author, keeping me engaged throughout.
June 16, 2023
4.5 stars rounded up
This is a very accessible book tracing the history of transness and its intersection with the history of other identities such as intersex, bisexual, non-binary, and two-spirit. It's academically grounded, but thoughtful and clear in how it explores the nuances this quite complex subject. You come away understanding that gender and sexuality are complex and entangled, and they have always been that way. We can't impose our modern understandings of gender identity onto the past, but the way gender and sexuality have been lived in the past can inform how we got to where we are today. Similarly, there are cultural differences to how gender and sexuality are thought about in different parts of the world, and among different groups of people. For instance, two-spirit identities exist among indigenous people in a way that is inextricably tied to spirituality, making it different from people who might identify as non-binary. And while we can see people throughout history dressing or living as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, it has been for many different reasons. For some it might have been playing a role, engaging in sex work, or gaining access to different opportunities or just exploration for fun, while for others it was tied to their own sense of gender identity. And sometimes more than one of these has been true at once. This was interesting, informative, well-researched, and thoughtful in its approach. I received an audio copy of this book from Libro.FM, all opinions are my own.
This is a very accessible book tracing the history of transness and its intersection with the history of other identities such as intersex, bisexual, non-binary, and two-spirit. It's academically grounded, but thoughtful and clear in how it explores the nuances this quite complex subject. You come away understanding that gender and sexuality are complex and entangled, and they have always been that way. We can't impose our modern understandings of gender identity onto the past, but the way gender and sexuality have been lived in the past can inform how we got to where we are today. Similarly, there are cultural differences to how gender and sexuality are thought about in different parts of the world, and among different groups of people. For instance, two-spirit identities exist among indigenous people in a way that is inextricably tied to spirituality, making it different from people who might identify as non-binary. And while we can see people throughout history dressing or living as a gender different from the one they were assigned at birth, it has been for many different reasons. For some it might have been playing a role, engaging in sex work, or gaining access to different opportunities or just exploration for fun, while for others it was tied to their own sense of gender identity. And sometimes more than one of these has been true at once. This was interesting, informative, well-researched, and thoughtful in its approach. I received an audio copy of this book from Libro.FM, all opinions are my own.
September 18, 2023
what a NEAT book. that's honestly the best descriptor i can think of, it's just neat. the author takes history, shakes it, and Gender™ falls out. what's not to like??
the central premise of Before We Were Trans goes something like: "we know that people across history (and across cultures) didn't conceptualize gender in the same way we do today, so we can't point at someone from 17th century Angola and say "this individual was transgender in our modern understanding of the term". however, we can say, "this person did a lot of interesting genderfuckery for a variety of intersecting reasons, and that is neat as fuck, and we should study it and acknowledge it as part of a very long history (and broad spectrum) of gender variance and disruption." i just find the reasoning underpinning this project super interesting and politically salient, and i like that the author doesn't shy away from the political realities that encouraged them to seek out this kind of history. (i will say that certain bits in the introduction where the author reflects on the currect state of affairs were giving me "trans videoessayist 201" vibes, take that as you will! on the other hand, the epilogue was just stellar, the final page legit made me whisper "fuck yeah".)
the book is divided into 6 main chapters which are each approx. 30 pages long and ridiculously readable (i think i'm only used to reading nonfiction in really academic contexts, so taking up a book and having it be explicitly written so as to be understandable and enjoyable to non-professional readers was wild). however, since i am apparently a contrarian, i found this to simultaneously be a feature and a bug - i *loved* the ease and readability, but at the same time i ended the book kinda wanting to read 15-20 really focused and detailed monographs, rather than one book with a little bit of everything thrown in the mix. (as i am writing this i realize this is absolutely a compliment to the author's ability to interest the reader into wanting to learn more, so pop off Kit Heyam, i bet you're an interesting uni lecturer!)
i could keep on writing but honestly my buddy Cait has already said it all (and, more importantly, quoted all the funny bits), so honestly just go read their review.
one more thing i'll add is that this book accomplished one of my fave things ever, i.e. it made me tear up while reading the acknowledgements:
this shit just makes me soft you know??
the central premise of Before We Were Trans goes something like: "we know that people across history (and across cultures) didn't conceptualize gender in the same way we do today, so we can't point at someone from 17th century Angola and say "this individual was transgender in our modern understanding of the term". however, we can say, "this person did a lot of interesting genderfuckery for a variety of intersecting reasons, and that is neat as fuck, and we should study it and acknowledge it as part of a very long history (and broad spectrum) of gender variance and disruption." i just find the reasoning underpinning this project super interesting and politically salient, and i like that the author doesn't shy away from the political realities that encouraged them to seek out this kind of history. (i will say that certain bits in the introduction where the author reflects on the currect state of affairs were giving me "trans videoessayist 201" vibes, take that as you will! on the other hand, the epilogue was just stellar, the final page legit made me whisper "fuck yeah".)
the book is divided into 6 main chapters which are each approx. 30 pages long and ridiculously readable (i think i'm only used to reading nonfiction in really academic contexts, so taking up a book and having it be explicitly written so as to be understandable and enjoyable to non-professional readers was wild). however, since i am apparently a contrarian, i found this to simultaneously be a feature and a bug - i *loved* the ease and readability, but at the same time i ended the book kinda wanting to read 15-20 really focused and detailed monographs, rather than one book with a little bit of everything thrown in the mix. (as i am writing this i realize this is absolutely a compliment to the author's ability to interest the reader into wanting to learn more, so pop off Kit Heyam, i bet you're an interesting uni lecturer!)
i could keep on writing but honestly my buddy Cait has already said it all (and, more importantly, quoted all the funny bits), so honestly just go read their review.
one more thing i'll add is that this book accomplished one of my fave things ever, i.e. it made me tear up while reading the acknowledgements:
"When I was a teenager, I promised myself that if I ever published a book, I'd dedicate it to my caring and inspirational English teacher, Mrs Kay. I thanked her in the acknowledgements of my first academic book, but it bears repeating here: Mrs Kay, I draw strength every time I write from your firm and sure belief in me. I doubt you'll read this - my name's changed since we last met, and this certainly isn't the book either of us expected me to write back then - but if you do, thank you."
this shit just makes me soft you know??
August 10, 2023
wonderful wonderful complex and nuanced discussions of not only history itself but /doing/ trans history and the multifaceted implications and impacts it has. nothing i love more than a personal and political nice history full of care and love. (plus, more widely accessible academic writing!!!!)
March 29, 2023
A good and insightful history that tries to balance a near equal focus on narrative history and historiography but not always successfully. Really great writing, but felt somewhat let down with the book after a really remarkable introduction.
September 24, 2023
I don't have the intellectual background to deliver a well-thought-through review, but here are some things I learned from this book:
1. According to 19th-century race science, sexual dimorphism was more pronounced in more "advanced" "races" -- that is to say, people of African ancestry had less-distinct sexes than white people did.
2. The assumption that, e.g., AFAB people who disguised themselves as AMAB people and fought in wars did so for reasons that had nothing to do with their gender identity (they wanted to be with their husbands or brothers; they were brimful of patriotism) is just that, an assumption.
(I love insights like this -- the kind that cast something I thought I knew into a whole different light while making me smack my forehead and say DUH!)
3. "Fluidity is often used as a reason to dismiss people’s gendered experience as ‘not real’, which harms genderfluid people in particular, but also obscures the ways in which everyone can experience their gender differently in different situations."
4. In precolonial Igbo society, you could have the gender that accorded with your social role -- or, to put it another way, social role could determine gender: "Once a person took the title of Ekwe, they were gendered male."
5. Krafft-Ebing considered that there were four degrees of "inversion," ranging from a condition of being reasonably butch but feeling the urge to bang dudes, to that of experiencing oneself as having actual bodily changes (or at least having what we'd now call body dysmorphia).
But I fear I'm making this book sound like a collection of fun facts, and it's more than that: it gave me substantial food for thought w/r/t what counts as "trans" and how complicated gender fluidity can be. I've had a bee in my bonnet for years now about each individual person having a unique gender (I'm a cis woman; my wife is a cis woman; my friend E is a cis woman -- etc. -- and none of us is "a woman" in the same way as the other two); I can sometimes almost glimpse a world in which it's taken for granted that everyone has the gender they say they do, for a year or a day or an hour or a lifetime.
But then, of course, Texas, Tennessee, Florida ...
One star off for more repetition than necessary of points like how careful we should be in interpreting the experience of people from other times and places. But that doesn't really detract from the value. Many thanks to @cait for their review, which first led me to put this on hold at the library!
1. According to 19th-century race science, sexual dimorphism was more pronounced in more "advanced" "races" -- that is to say, people of African ancestry had less-distinct sexes than white people did.
2. The assumption that, e.g., AFAB people who disguised themselves as AMAB people and fought in wars did so for reasons that had nothing to do with their gender identity (they wanted to be with their husbands or brothers; they were brimful of patriotism) is just that, an assumption.
(I love insights like this -- the kind that cast something I thought I knew into a whole different light while making me smack my forehead and say DUH!)
3. "Fluidity is often used as a reason to dismiss people’s gendered experience as ‘not real’, which harms genderfluid people in particular, but also obscures the ways in which everyone can experience their gender differently in different situations."
4. In precolonial Igbo society, you could have the gender that accorded with your social role -- or, to put it another way, social role could determine gender: "Once a person took the title of Ekwe, they were gendered male."
5. Krafft-Ebing considered that there were four degrees of "inversion," ranging from a condition of being reasonably butch but feeling the urge to bang dudes, to that of experiencing oneself as having actual bodily changes (or at least having what we'd now call body dysmorphia).
But I fear I'm making this book sound like a collection of fun facts, and it's more than that: it gave me substantial food for thought w/r/t what counts as "trans" and how complicated gender fluidity can be. I've had a bee in my bonnet for years now about each individual person having a unique gender (I'm a cis woman; my wife is a cis woman; my friend E is a cis woman -- etc. -- and none of us is "a woman" in the same way as the other two); I can sometimes almost glimpse a world in which it's taken for granted that everyone has the gender they say they do, for a year or a day or an hour or a lifetime.
But then, of course, Texas, Tennessee, Florida ...
One star off for more repetition than necessary of points like how careful we should be in interpreting the experience of people from other times and places. But that doesn't really detract from the value. Many thanks to @cait for their review, which first led me to put this on hold at the library!
September 18, 2024
It took me ages to finish this, but that was very much me, not the book. This book is actually very accessible, perhaps especially as an audiobook.
It might just be one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read. To me, this is the way history should be approached. It was so interesting, so nuanced, so respectful, and so informative. As a non-binary person, it was amazing learning about all this trans history I wasn't previously aware of.
It might just be one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read. To me, this is the way history should be approached. It was so interesting, so nuanced, so respectful, and so informative. As a non-binary person, it was amazing learning about all this trans history I wasn't previously aware of.
April 25, 2023
thank you to libro.fm, the author, and the publisher for an alc of this book
January 27, 2023
Audio ALC received from Libro.FM, thanks!
This book was so, SO good.
I love how the author carefully and thoughtfully looked back through history and found folks who would likely be considered trans today. I think that a lot of times when looking at historical figures, there is either too much speculation without proof, or complete dismissal of very obvious facts, and this book did neither of those things.
Not only did the book look at historical folks who were born as one gender and lived their lives as another, but also at the importance of fashion and theatre, and how some people played with gender in a way that is sort of only happening more recently (with non binary and gender fluid folks).
I also loved that the author took so much care to write this book from an antioppression viewpoint, citing how race and colonization have played roles in repressing different cultures’ values and views on genders, especially within Indigenous cultures, or for religious reasons.
This book has given me a lot to think about, which I think is just about the highest praise you can give a book.
Also, I listened to the audio, which is narrated by the author, and it is so clear how important this topic is to them, their passion clearly comes through. Their narration is engaging and it’s honestly been a while since I was as captivated by an audiobook as I was with this one.
This book was so, SO good.
I love how the author carefully and thoughtfully looked back through history and found folks who would likely be considered trans today. I think that a lot of times when looking at historical figures, there is either too much speculation without proof, or complete dismissal of very obvious facts, and this book did neither of those things.
Not only did the book look at historical folks who were born as one gender and lived their lives as another, but also at the importance of fashion and theatre, and how some people played with gender in a way that is sort of only happening more recently (with non binary and gender fluid folks).
I also loved that the author took so much care to write this book from an antioppression viewpoint, citing how race and colonization have played roles in repressing different cultures’ values and views on genders, especially within Indigenous cultures, or for religious reasons.
This book has given me a lot to think about, which I think is just about the highest praise you can give a book.
Also, I listened to the audio, which is narrated by the author, and it is so clear how important this topic is to them, their passion clearly comes through. Their narration is engaging and it’s honestly been a while since I was as captivated by an audiobook as I was with this one.
November 2, 2022
Interesting subject, but the author's carefulness with inclusive language and attempting not to be revisionist (while in a sense being revisionist because of the inclusive language) makes for some heavy going. I felt like I was teasing out information from a bramble of words. I understand why they did it, but it came at the expense of clarity. As a cis/het person it was interesting to realize how much infighting there is between factions of the LGBTQIA+ community over terms and interpretation. In the end, the book, for me, was tiring, but it did leave me with a greater appreciation for the complexity of the subject of gender identity and expression.
February 11, 2023
Given the political triggering around trans issues, I should probably add a star to assuage any fears of transphobia. But truthfully this book is terrible. It's not history. It's not well written. If I could, i'd give it zero stars.
Heyam attempts to tell a story of trans identity by repurposing history from a feelings based approach. The kernal of the idea is interesting -given that we all create an identify, and historical records could shed light on trans-experience throughout the ages.
Heyam's writings purports to tell a story of history , but instead is something closer to fan fiction. The writing is bad - full of qualifers, political bias, grandiosity, and literally fiction. Heyam writes "the real people in this book rub shoulders with fictional characters - not because I think it's irrelevant whether trans historical figures existed or no, but becuase literature can provide us with a fascinating glimpse into how people in a paritcular society thought about gender" (p.30). Good luck following a narrative, it's Quaker craftwork teachers on page 94, and RuPaul on page 96.
More importantly, the ideas behind the writing are for lack of a better word - confusing. There are often asides to "historians" and their misreading of trans history. Here's a passage reflecitng this."Lack of clarity about motivations - owing to a lack of testimony - menas that the trans possibility of these histories is very often erased. If historians start investigatins of gender-nonconforming people by referring to them as 'women dressed as men', this immediately closes off any possibility of trans history. (p.66).
There is a simplistic view of history that is so reductive to be laughable. Anything resembling classification can be written off as racist. Anything touching traditional values like Christianity is written with unsparring hostility. "Nobel savage" black and white views of colonial Europe and unmarked first peoples are employed. Eyerolling acronymns like AFAB or AMAB are used liberally - as if male/femaleness has no basis in biology. The entire tone toward the reader is blatently defensive.
My hope was to better understand the experiences of trans people. I assumed this would be thoughtful read with some challenging ideas. Perhaps some first-hand accounts or historical understandings of people who have had trans experiences. As a man, I don't claim to understand this experience first hand, but have had friends, roommates, coworkers and people in my communities who identify as trans. My hope of course would be to better understand how they see the world, and see the world through a different lens.
This book ain't it. This is hokum.
Heyam attempts to tell a story of trans identity by repurposing history from a feelings based approach. The kernal of the idea is interesting -given that we all create an identify, and historical records could shed light on trans-experience throughout the ages.
Heyam's writings purports to tell a story of history , but instead is something closer to fan fiction. The writing is bad - full of qualifers, political bias, grandiosity, and literally fiction. Heyam writes "the real people in this book rub shoulders with fictional characters - not because I think it's irrelevant whether trans historical figures existed or no, but becuase literature can provide us with a fascinating glimpse into how people in a paritcular society thought about gender" (p.30). Good luck following a narrative, it's Quaker craftwork teachers on page 94, and RuPaul on page 96.
More importantly, the ideas behind the writing are for lack of a better word - confusing. There are often asides to "historians" and their misreading of trans history. Here's a passage reflecitng this."Lack of clarity about motivations - owing to a lack of testimony - menas that the trans possibility of these histories is very often erased. If historians start investigatins of gender-nonconforming people by referring to them as 'women dressed as men', this immediately closes off any possibility of trans history. (p.66).
There is a simplistic view of history that is so reductive to be laughable. Anything resembling classification can be written off as racist. Anything touching traditional values like Christianity is written with unsparring hostility. "Nobel savage" black and white views of colonial Europe and unmarked first peoples are employed. Eyerolling acronymns like AFAB or AMAB are used liberally - as if male/femaleness has no basis in biology. The entire tone toward the reader is blatently defensive.
My hope was to better understand the experiences of trans people. I assumed this would be thoughtful read with some challenging ideas. Perhaps some first-hand accounts or historical understandings of people who have had trans experiences. As a man, I don't claim to understand this experience first hand, but have had friends, roommates, coworkers and people in my communities who identify as trans. My hope of course would be to better understand how they see the world, and see the world through a different lens.
This book ain't it. This is hokum.
January 11, 2024
I'm very pleasantly surprised with the overall high rating of this book. I can so easily see people hating on this book - especially for "stealing" our lesbian & feminist icons. That obviously isn't what this book does, but... you know this kind of comes from the old clash between the old school middle-class white feminism and transgender movement. Where the feminists say that trans people simply strengthen the gender stereotypes by saying that masculine women are actually trans men. (Which is obviously not true and this simple, in case that wasn't clear.) You can feel this strong tension in the book and Heyam deals with it explicitly and very well in my opinion by saying that those claims* don't have to go against each other and by sort of deconstructing the categories while still using them in ways that are useful.
This really is a great book, focusing on chosen figures & cultures/periods and showing us their trans readings. I love this book format, so there was probably no option of me not liking this book. I would also love for some fantasy writers to read this, because there was so much worldbuilding inspiration! The way the book was structured wasn't always the best for me and I didn't love the audiobook, but it was okay. Overall, I just really liked this, I'll probably buy this for my bookish collection. I would love to have this book on my shelves. (Edit: I actually DID buy it, I don't have the pretty cover though...)
*While also criticising the culture of claiming and using different narrative, but... English isn't my first language and I can't remember now...
BRed at Radical Reading: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
A few resources if you are unsure whether you want to commit to whole book:
An article by the author about reading Joan of Arc as a trans figure: https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/dis...
Article on Wakashu, Japan's third gender: https://daily.jstor.org/the-disappear...
Gender & Music on mediaeval Islamic court: https://daily.jstor.org/music-and-gen...
Genderless 18th century prophet: https://daily.jstor.org/the-genderles...
Podcast episode with the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRqDb...
This really is a great book, focusing on chosen figures & cultures/periods and showing us their trans readings. I love this book format, so there was probably no option of me not liking this book. I would also love for some fantasy writers to read this, because there was so much worldbuilding inspiration! The way the book was structured wasn't always the best for me and I didn't love the audiobook, but it was okay. Overall, I just really liked this, I'll probably buy this for my bookish collection. I would love to have this book on my shelves. (Edit: I actually DID buy it, I don't have the pretty cover though...)
*While also criticising the culture of claiming and using different narrative, but... English isn't my first language and I can't remember now...
BRed at Radical Reading: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
A few resources if you are unsure whether you want to commit to whole book:
An article by the author about reading Joan of Arc as a trans figure: https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/dis...
Article on Wakashu, Japan's third gender: https://daily.jstor.org/the-disappear...
Gender & Music on mediaeval Islamic court: https://daily.jstor.org/music-and-gen...
Genderless 18th century prophet: https://daily.jstor.org/the-genderles...
Podcast episode with the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRqDb...
April 1, 2024
I don't read very much nonfiction. I should read more but a lot of the time it's not super accessible for me.
This was a phenomenal nonfiction book. It is both accessible and understandable well also having a cautious tone to the entire book.
I feel like I really was able to learn a lot and absorb a lot of this information even though I listened to it as an audiobook and wasn't able to highlight or quote or make notations as I was listening. A lot of parts still stuck with me and I look forward to referencing this and recommending it to multiple people. My favorite sections in the sections where I learned the most were the chapters on transness and intersex communities and transness and indigenous communities. It allowed me to confront some of my own biases and reflect on how I refer to trans people both present and historically. As noted in the book, it can be easy for white trans people to want to make things about ourselves without really understanding that there is so much more than white transness and while it is important to find media and representation that relates to you, it's also really important to understand the author of the media and acknowledge that you can both relate to something and understand that it has nothing to do with you.
I know that was a little bit rambly and it felt rambly as I was dictating it but whatever. I read this for the trans rights readathon and just a day before trans day of visibility. I spent most of the trans day of visibility reflecting on this book and about all of our queer and trans elders and those that have come before us. Visibility is great but systemic change is needed and it has been needed for centuries.
This book is packed with a lot of information but it's also packed with a lot of examples of trans people throughout history and we have always been here. We've always been here and we are not going anywhere.
This was a phenomenal nonfiction book. It is both accessible and understandable well also having a cautious tone to the entire book.
I feel like I really was able to learn a lot and absorb a lot of this information even though I listened to it as an audiobook and wasn't able to highlight or quote or make notations as I was listening. A lot of parts still stuck with me and I look forward to referencing this and recommending it to multiple people. My favorite sections in the sections where I learned the most were the chapters on transness and intersex communities and transness and indigenous communities. It allowed me to confront some of my own biases and reflect on how I refer to trans people both present and historically. As noted in the book, it can be easy for white trans people to want to make things about ourselves without really understanding that there is so much more than white transness and while it is important to find media and representation that relates to you, it's also really important to understand the author of the media and acknowledge that you can both relate to something and understand that it has nothing to do with you.
I know that was a little bit rambly and it felt rambly as I was dictating it but whatever. I read this for the trans rights readathon and just a day before trans day of visibility. I spent most of the trans day of visibility reflecting on this book and about all of our queer and trans elders and those that have come before us. Visibility is great but systemic change is needed and it has been needed for centuries.
This book is packed with a lot of information but it's also packed with a lot of examples of trans people throughout history and we have always been here. We've always been here and we are not going anywhere.
August 16, 2022
Big thanks to Libro.fm for granting me this copy.
4,5*
It's been a while since I wrote a review so I won't be long while still trying to do this book justice.
I think my favourite thing about this book is how it managed to convey that those histories of people of the past and their relationships with gender and/or sexuality and in some cases even spirituality were unique to their time and culture and their understanding of gender roles within their societies and we may never comprehend them fully with our modern lenses and modern labels, all the while providing the tread of connection to the past and historical examples to relate to without erasing the complexities of their existence nor exclsion of various groups who see themselves reflected in those people.
My second favourite thing was the statment that the lack of personal testimony is not disqualifying mark of someone not being a part of trans and queer history and a speculation surrounding historical figure's or historical groups' relation to gender should be as much a part of historical discourse as a speculation of any other option. Cis should not be treated as a default until formally stated and trans should not be dismissed until absolutely certain. Speculation and covering multiple possibilities and asking questions is crucial to historian's work.
Won't be getting into details other than that -- read the book and the author will tell the story much better than I can sumrise here -- but I also applaud touching upon the intersections of trans history with classism and sex work, intersex history, and race and the history of gender in non-white, non-western cultures.
Overall -- a must read!
4,5*
It's been a while since I wrote a review so I won't be long while still trying to do this book justice.
I think my favourite thing about this book is how it managed to convey that those histories of people of the past and their relationships with gender and/or sexuality and in some cases even spirituality were unique to their time and culture and their understanding of gender roles within their societies and we may never comprehend them fully with our modern lenses and modern labels, all the while providing the tread of connection to the past and historical examples to relate to without erasing the complexities of their existence nor exclsion of various groups who see themselves reflected in those people.
My second favourite thing was the statment that the lack of personal testimony is not disqualifying mark of someone not being a part of trans and queer history and a speculation surrounding historical figure's or historical groups' relation to gender should be as much a part of historical discourse as a speculation of any other option. Cis should not be treated as a default until formally stated and trans should not be dismissed until absolutely certain. Speculation and covering multiple possibilities and asking questions is crucial to historian's work.
Won't be getting into details other than that -- read the book and the author will tell the story much better than I can sumrise here -- but I also applaud touching upon the intersections of trans history with classism and sex work, intersex history, and race and the history of gender in non-white, non-western cultures.
Overall -- a must read!
June 24, 2022
"This is why it was so important to me to insist that the stories in this book are trans history. They are histories of gender not being binary, fixed, or tied to the body. They show there have always been people who disrupt these norms, and there have always been societies in which they aren't norms at all. These people might not be like me, and I might not be able to speak of them, even equivocally, as trans people, but they are people I can relate to nonetheless."
Sometimes a book comes a long at just the right time, for me this was that book.
I loved this book a ridiculous amount. Kit's writing is absorbing and brilliant. A new history of gender written with an immense amount of warmth & compassion that I couldn't put down.
Each chapter is well thought out and insanely well researched, what I did love was the mixture of history with Kit's personal journey with their gender it made it feel very personal and something I connected with instantly. I really like the chapters about how fashion connects with gender, which included the Anne Lister argument.
The chapters around around different cultures that looked into Two-Spirit & Ogbanje identities (among others) and how gender was more spiritual was fascinating and something I definitely want to look more into in the future.
My only issues with this book is that I didn't want it to end and also the bibliography & books mentioned within will most likely make my TBR pile double.
This will defiantly be one of the books I come back to again and again in the future! Dr Kit Heyam has most definitely gone on my auto-buy writers lists.
God this review probably doesn't do this book justice. I just loved it so much and it's exactly what I needed to read right now.
Sometimes a book comes a long at just the right time, for me this was that book.
I loved this book a ridiculous amount. Kit's writing is absorbing and brilliant. A new history of gender written with an immense amount of warmth & compassion that I couldn't put down.
Each chapter is well thought out and insanely well researched, what I did love was the mixture of history with Kit's personal journey with their gender it made it feel very personal and something I connected with instantly. I really like the chapters about how fashion connects with gender, which included the Anne Lister argument.
The chapters around around different cultures that looked into Two-Spirit & Ogbanje identities (among others) and how gender was more spiritual was fascinating and something I definitely want to look more into in the future.
My only issues with this book is that I didn't want it to end and also the bibliography & books mentioned within will most likely make my TBR pile double.
This will defiantly be one of the books I come back to again and again in the future! Dr Kit Heyam has most definitely gone on my auto-buy writers lists.
God this review probably doesn't do this book justice. I just loved it so much and it's exactly what I needed to read right now.
December 16, 2022
Kit Heyam's Before We Were Trans offers a series of case studies of what Heyam terms 'trans history' across the globe, from seventeenth-century West African female kings to contemporary South Asian hijra to figures like Jemima Wilkinson, who rose from their deathbed as the genderless Public Universal Friend in 1776 and preached Quaker ideology throughout the northwestern United States. Heyam's definition of 'trans history' is 'deliberately expansive': he argues that trans history must include 'people who've troubled the relationship between our bodies and how we live; people who've taken creative, critical approaches to gender binaries; people who've approached gender disruptively or messily.' Rather than trying to figure out whether people from the past were 'really' trans, therefore, he argues that we can make room for a much wider range of experiences of gender non-conformity, and also that many of these histories can belong to women's history, or to lesbian and gay history, at the same time as belonging to trans history.
This trans 'reading' of the past makes a lot of sense to me - even if I don't think it's the right approach for all history at all times - and Heyam's introduction to this book is extremely useful and insightful, making a number of key methodological points. They note that focusing solely on trans people who fit into a modern binary understanding of gender identity means that we are only going to make the histories of white Western trans people who follow a medical model of transition visible. It also privileges modern understandings of gender as being about an internal sense of 'gender identity' rather than how other people understand you and how you present yourself. Following lesbian theorists, they argue that assuming people in the past were 'cis' is just as ahistorical as assuming they were 'trans'. Finally, they criticise the language of 'reclaiming' LGBT+ histories, arguing that this is a 'capitalist way' of thinking of history as a 'scarce resource' that LGBT+ people have to fight over: we don't have to choose whether a historical figure was 'really' trans or gay or lesbian.
The methodological points Heyam makes in his introduction are followed through in a couple of especially insightful chapters. Heyam is careful to show that intersex histories, for example, should not simply be appropriated by trans people, talking through the example of Roberta Cowell, a British trans woman who had gender reassignment surgery in 1948. Cowell always claimed that she was really intersex rather than trans, and had 'developed along the wrong lines'. However, in order to support her own story, she relied on homophobic and transphobic tropes to present herself as a 'real woman', rather than a male 'sissy'. She also argued she was fundamentally different from Christina Jorgensen, an American trans woman, whom she called a 'transvestite' who pursued transition 'entirely through artificial means'. Cowell's appropriation of an intersex identity was therefore actively harmful. Another strong chapter concerns the experiences of men who lived and performed as women in First World War internment camps. Heyam effectively uses these histories to show how many different motives people in the past might have had for gender non-conformity, whether it was to 'legitimise' homosexual attraction, to participate in music-hall traditions of drag, or to seize the opportunity to express their true gender.
This book, then, is almost more about the methodology of doing trans history than it is about trans history. Given its wide chronological and geographical scope, Heyam is obviously not an expert on all of these histories. To an extent, this is inevitable and understandable - if we're ever going to have popular global histories, like Lucy Delap's excellent Feminisms, then we have to accept that one writer can't be a professional historian of everything. However, I did have problems with Heyam's approach. I found their attitude to the past inconsistent. Heyam refuses to use a lot of modern terms that they judge are ahistorical, but then frequently uses very recent terms like 'AFAB' or 'cis' that are equally ahistorical, without justifying why they think this is a different case. This feels especially uncomfortable when Heyam discusses Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí's brilliant book The Invention of Women, where Oyěwùmí argues that in Yoruba society, social roles are not traditionally linked to biological roles, so our idea of 'woman' as a sex/gender category does not work for Yorubas. Heyam glosses this by talking about 'AFAB and AMAB' [assigned female at birth, assigned male at birth] people in Yorubaland, but this is not the language that Oyěwùmí uses in her book; she instead speaks of obinrin and okunrin, making it clear that these Yoruba categories don't line up with our ideas of female and male, or indeed AFAB and AMAB.
(Heyam's selective use of modern terminology also influenced their controversial decision (as part of a committee) to omit the word 'lesbian' from Anne Lister's blue plaque in favour of calling Lister 'gender non-conforming'; they argue that, at the time, 'the plaque was going to say they married a woman, so what did it matter whether we used the word or not?... everybody knew Anne Lister was a lesbian'. This seems to me to be both ignorant and disingenuous given that fact that lesbian history has been marked by invisibility and erasure; Lucy Allen-Goss's excellent blog post on Lister explains this better than I can.)
This links to another issue I had with how Heyam treats the intersection between lesbian and gay histories and trans history. In short, he sets up a false binary between simplistic histories of homosexuality that are focused solely on who you sleep with, and the more expansive trans history that he advocates. I like Heyam's umbrella definition of trans history but it ignores the ways in which lesbian historians, in particular, have drawn on lesbian activism to present similarly expansive definitions of lesbian history that overlap with Heyam's trans umbrella. Judith Bennett, for example, argues that by using the term 'lesbian-like', 'we might incorporate into lesbian history sexual rebels, gender rebels, marriage-resisters, cross-dressers, singlewomen’. This draws on earlier activist ideas from groups like Radicalesbians who argued that lesbians are positioned in a specific way in relation to patriarchy; being a 'lesbian' is to step outside the acceptable boundaries of what it means to be a woman, and therefore to face the full force of patriarchal oppression, as well as making as the choice to orientate your energies towards other women rather than men. As historians, we might sometimes find 'trans' or 'lesbian' history to be a more useful umbrella term, but it's not true that one is inclusive and one is not: they include different people.
Heyam argues that there is an emotional case for trans history; that it is important for trans people to see themselves in the past. 'We're... trying to reassure ourselves that our genders are real'. While I completely agree, I thought this book did treat some histories with less care than others, especially Global South and indigenous histories, and the histories of lesbians/wlw. (Heyam does reflect on the problems of white Western trans people appropriating terms like 'two-spirit', but then goes on to include these kind of histories in their book on trans history; there's something not quite right here). In short, I'm totally behind Heyam's ideas about trans history, but they don't always play out convincingly in practice, and the book ends up sitting uneasily between popular history and academic theory.
I received a free proof copy of this book from the publisher for review.
This trans 'reading' of the past makes a lot of sense to me - even if I don't think it's the right approach for all history at all times - and Heyam's introduction to this book is extremely useful and insightful, making a number of key methodological points. They note that focusing solely on trans people who fit into a modern binary understanding of gender identity means that we are only going to make the histories of white Western trans people who follow a medical model of transition visible. It also privileges modern understandings of gender as being about an internal sense of 'gender identity' rather than how other people understand you and how you present yourself. Following lesbian theorists, they argue that assuming people in the past were 'cis' is just as ahistorical as assuming they were 'trans'. Finally, they criticise the language of 'reclaiming' LGBT+ histories, arguing that this is a 'capitalist way' of thinking of history as a 'scarce resource' that LGBT+ people have to fight over: we don't have to choose whether a historical figure was 'really' trans or gay or lesbian.
The methodological points Heyam makes in his introduction are followed through in a couple of especially insightful chapters. Heyam is careful to show that intersex histories, for example, should not simply be appropriated by trans people, talking through the example of Roberta Cowell, a British trans woman who had gender reassignment surgery in 1948. Cowell always claimed that she was really intersex rather than trans, and had 'developed along the wrong lines'. However, in order to support her own story, she relied on homophobic and transphobic tropes to present herself as a 'real woman', rather than a male 'sissy'. She also argued she was fundamentally different from Christina Jorgensen, an American trans woman, whom she called a 'transvestite' who pursued transition 'entirely through artificial means'. Cowell's appropriation of an intersex identity was therefore actively harmful. Another strong chapter concerns the experiences of men who lived and performed as women in First World War internment camps. Heyam effectively uses these histories to show how many different motives people in the past might have had for gender non-conformity, whether it was to 'legitimise' homosexual attraction, to participate in music-hall traditions of drag, or to seize the opportunity to express their true gender.
This book, then, is almost more about the methodology of doing trans history than it is about trans history. Given its wide chronological and geographical scope, Heyam is obviously not an expert on all of these histories. To an extent, this is inevitable and understandable - if we're ever going to have popular global histories, like Lucy Delap's excellent Feminisms, then we have to accept that one writer can't be a professional historian of everything. However, I did have problems with Heyam's approach. I found their attitude to the past inconsistent. Heyam refuses to use a lot of modern terms that they judge are ahistorical, but then frequently uses very recent terms like 'AFAB' or 'cis' that are equally ahistorical, without justifying why they think this is a different case. This feels especially uncomfortable when Heyam discusses Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí's brilliant book The Invention of Women, where Oyěwùmí argues that in Yoruba society, social roles are not traditionally linked to biological roles, so our idea of 'woman' as a sex/gender category does not work for Yorubas. Heyam glosses this by talking about 'AFAB and AMAB' [assigned female at birth, assigned male at birth] people in Yorubaland, but this is not the language that Oyěwùmí uses in her book; she instead speaks of obinrin and okunrin, making it clear that these Yoruba categories don't line up with our ideas of female and male, or indeed AFAB and AMAB.
(Heyam's selective use of modern terminology also influenced their controversial decision (as part of a committee) to omit the word 'lesbian' from Anne Lister's blue plaque in favour of calling Lister 'gender non-conforming'; they argue that, at the time, 'the plaque was going to say they married a woman, so what did it matter whether we used the word or not?... everybody knew Anne Lister was a lesbian'. This seems to me to be both ignorant and disingenuous given that fact that lesbian history has been marked by invisibility and erasure; Lucy Allen-Goss's excellent blog post on Lister explains this better than I can.)
This links to another issue I had with how Heyam treats the intersection between lesbian and gay histories and trans history. In short, he sets up a false binary between simplistic histories of homosexuality that are focused solely on who you sleep with, and the more expansive trans history that he advocates. I like Heyam's umbrella definition of trans history but it ignores the ways in which lesbian historians, in particular, have drawn on lesbian activism to present similarly expansive definitions of lesbian history that overlap with Heyam's trans umbrella. Judith Bennett, for example, argues that by using the term 'lesbian-like', 'we might incorporate into lesbian history sexual rebels, gender rebels, marriage-resisters, cross-dressers, singlewomen’. This draws on earlier activist ideas from groups like Radicalesbians who argued that lesbians are positioned in a specific way in relation to patriarchy; being a 'lesbian' is to step outside the acceptable boundaries of what it means to be a woman, and therefore to face the full force of patriarchal oppression, as well as making as the choice to orientate your energies towards other women rather than men. As historians, we might sometimes find 'trans' or 'lesbian' history to be a more useful umbrella term, but it's not true that one is inclusive and one is not: they include different people.
Heyam argues that there is an emotional case for trans history; that it is important for trans people to see themselves in the past. 'We're... trying to reassure ourselves that our genders are real'. While I completely agree, I thought this book did treat some histories with less care than others, especially Global South and indigenous histories, and the histories of lesbians/wlw. (Heyam does reflect on the problems of white Western trans people appropriating terms like 'two-spirit', but then goes on to include these kind of histories in their book on trans history; there's something not quite right here). In short, I'm totally behind Heyam's ideas about trans history, but they don't always play out convincingly in practice, and the book ends up sitting uneasily between popular history and academic theory.
I received a free proof copy of this book from the publisher for review.
April 20, 2024
Well. This is the book I didn’t know I needed when I was 14. Wow. Ok the whole thing isn’t that emotionally powerful but it is filled with useful information and insight. 4.7 stars
August 12, 2023
these people might not be like me, and I might not be able to speak of them, even equivocally, as trans people, but they are people I can relate to nonetheless. in malatino's words, discussing the artist claude cahun, they're a history that somehow "slant rhymes with your present."
so very good. I think this is really quite phenomenal. I want to buy a copy so I can highlight passages to reference in conversation with, say, those who do not yet understand but who are perhaps also not completely hopeless (my mother). (I also want to buy a copy because that cover is beautiful.)
I think one of my most favorite elements is heyam's repeated and no-nonsense insistence that there are figures from history who may engender feelings of sameness and resonance with modern people from discrete groups, as this puts into better words than I can come up with about what bothers me about, say, what heyam in wry consternation refers to as the "butch lesbian–transmasculine border wars."
I name this one as the one closest to my own experiences, but heyam is also writing at the overlaps between trans and intersex experiences—including the ways in which the trans community has historically appropriated from and contributed to the erasure of the intersex community—transness and spirituality, and so on.
you know when you finally hear someone say something that you've been trying to get at for years, but they just do it so well that you can only sigh in relief and say thank you and then point at them and say "that's my smart friend"? yeah. in my head, ancillary justice is the spiritual successor to and provides the answer to a niggling question raised by the left hand of darkness (see the comments here for more thoughts in this vein), and such is before we were trans to inseparable , at least in terms of the questions it raised for ME lol.
basically, what I'm saying is that I am, have always been, and remain a female husband thanks for asking.
people can have multiple motivations at once. a person in the past who was assigned female at birth and presented as male for a term in the army might well have been motivated both by a desire to overcome patriarchal assumptions about women's roles and from the affirmation they drew from being seen as male and might well have struggled to separate the two. I challenge anyone today to separate out the external and internal motivations for the way they present themselves.
↯
thinking in this capitalist way also leads us to see historical representation as a scarce resource we need to fight over rather than as something we can expand, reshape, and share. instead, I want to propose that we use the language of community. in real life we don't “own” or “claim” the members of our communities; we certainly don't forbid them to be members of multiple communities at once. instead, we make space for them.
↯
in fact, they tell us about how sexuality and gender have often intersected, in a way that complicates attempts to tease out a separate narrative of trans history. they're important examples, because they show us just how easy it is to erase trans history by framing it as "just" lesbian or gay history, when the reality is that those categories overlap.
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writing a rebuttal to this transphobic narrative [that transmasculine people are erasing butch women out of existence] is tricky, because the truth is nuanced and complicated. it is simultaneously true that some of the people in the past who've lived as butch women might, if alive today, have preferred to live as nonbinary people or trans men and that some of them would still have preferred to live as women. it's true that some lesbians have used and continue to use male names and he/him pronouns while identifying as women and that knowledge of this fact sometimes leads to the inadvertent or deliberate erasure of trans men's history. it's true that some butches today see butchness as a type of womanhood and that some see it as a different gendered category. it's true that butches share some aspects of their experience with all women and that they have some distinct experiences that the majority of women don't share. it's true that butches can be cis or trans women and that the gendered experience of these two groups, particularly how they experience the misgendering that often comes along with butch presentation, is not always identical. it's true that the version of history that says "people who used to identify as butch now identify as trans" is oversimplistic—in fact, trans and butch experience have long coexisted and have been easier or harder options for individuals depending on multiple factors, including as race or class—and that some people alive today have chosen to transition after realizing that living as a butch woman wasn't right for them and have found this a viable option because of greater tolerance toward trans people and easier access to medical transition. it's true that this might mean that there are fewer people who identify as butch in our contemporary world than in the twentieth century and that many butch women continue to exist, being women while disrupting normative notions of what womanhood should be. it's true that some butch women see shifts around butch identity as a loss, that some have responded to this loss by attempting to police trans identities, and that the vast majority of butches, whether they're grieving that loss or not, are vocally trans-affirming and recognize that trans people and butches share many of the same oppressions.
(I will say that the book started to lose me sliiiiightly in the final chapter, in which heyam begins to reference, among other people, akwaeke emezi, and while I think this in part just due to the whiplash that comes with seeing contemporary literary/cultural/pop cultural figures referenced in a way that somehow reminds me of people "breaking the fourth wall of the internet" by, say, talking about tumblr offline in 2015 or whatever, I also think this exposes the limits of my own cultural comfort and the ways in which it would be good for me to continue pushing my understanding further.)
tag urself moll frith edition:
- “A creature… nature hath brought forth / To mock the sex of woman”
- “a thing / One knows not how to name”
- 'someone whose “birth began / Ere she was all made”'
- “woman more than man, / Man more than woman”
- 'someone who, in the sun, has “two shadows to one shape”'
tag urself, icons of history edition (you only get two options this time):
- 'one, edward kynaston—who gained a reputation as "the last male leading lady of the renaissance stage"—was described by samuel pepys as both "the prettiest woman in the whole house" and "the handsomest man in the house" in the same performance.'
- 'in response to one inquiry about why they wore women's clothing, thomas or thomasin had replied, intriguingly, "I go in women's apparel to get a bit for my cat." this curious phrase refers [...] probably to the french slang pour avoir une bite pour mon chat. translated colloquially, this means "to get a cock for my pussy," a display of courtroom bravery that gives us a tantalizing glimpse of thomas or thomasin's defiance.'
tag urself hilarious cishet opinions edition (it's still a tag urself with one option if I say it is because this made me laugh and I couldn't therefore not include it!!!):
- this caused some anxiety to venetian authorities, who were worried that heterosexual anal sex would prove a gateway drug to anal sex between men.
disrupt! expand! move away from the gender you were assigned from birth for however long you'd like! have fun!
makes me want to go out and buy a DOUBLET, baby (or sew my own. I just need to relearn my long-unused sewing machine first).
January 20, 2024
How can I not give 5 stars to a book with a Le Guin reference at the end??
This book was powerful--I want a copy of this book to own and look back on. The historical analysis and gender studies work here is beyond thoughtful and extensive. I appreciate this authors care with each story in history, and each person. They know what they're talking about. This care is apparent on every page.
The focus on WHY each story was in this history was important too. Even if the people weren't trans in our sense of the word, their stories are important to the expansiveness of gender, and that culture may define identity and meaning to ones gender. Beyond that to, that gender can be disrupted against the cultural norms.
Truly a fascinating read.
This book was powerful--I want a copy of this book to own and look back on. The historical analysis and gender studies work here is beyond thoughtful and extensive. I appreciate this authors care with each story in history, and each person. They know what they're talking about. This care is apparent on every page.
The focus on WHY each story was in this history was important too. Even if the people weren't trans in our sense of the word, their stories are important to the expansiveness of gender, and that culture may define identity and meaning to ones gender. Beyond that to, that gender can be disrupted against the cultural norms.
Truly a fascinating read.
March 22, 2024
Informative, eye-opening, and emotional.
Thank you to LibroFM for the ALC.
Thank you to LibroFM for the ALC.
July 14, 2023
Returned my overdue copy to the library yesterday evening, bought myself a copy this afternoon, and finished it over lunch. Highly, highly, highly recommend. Very accessible and yet very broad and deep history. Does that fabulous thing where we as westerners think we understand what the European morals around gender roles are from studying our history in school but wait! the past is a different country, and it's actually way more strange and different than you assumed.
July 31, 2023
Thorough, thoughtful and absorbing history of gender-expansiveness in many global cultures. Self-aware and honest in its examination of controversial interpretations of trans and intersex history.
June 17, 2023
This Pride Month, I have focused on reading more books about gender identity. These books are more important than ever given that trans rights in the US are under a prolonged attack, and education is an essential first step (but not the only step) toward advocacy.
I thought this book was an excellent introduction to the history of gender. People who have not fit into the gender binary have always existed, and it’s in large measure due to the efforts of academics and historians like Kit Heyam and others that we are beginning to understand and celebrate that history. This book taught me about so many historical figures that I had never heard of before, and it made me eager to learn more.
In particular, I thought this book excelled when it talked about how trans people have historically been erased from the narrative. Often, we’re made to think that trans people are “new,” that no one until modern history, identified as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, and that is not the case. I loved how the author used examples like fashion and theater to show how this might have been a haven for self-expression that would otherwise have been strictly persecuted.
I also loved the discussion about the complicated history between the intersex and transgender communities. There has been some overlap, but there are also ways in which injustice has been perpetuated on both sides. In addition, there was a truly excellent chapter about gender and spirituality, especially Indigenous and non-White spirituality, that I want to go back and reread physically. The author also pointed out how White trans people have often glossed over the essential histories of BIPOC trans people. I loved the intersectional approach of this book, even to the point of naming their own biases when excavating this history.
I did think there was a rather unfortunate metaphor about history and policing at the end of the chapter that, at best, was a bit tactless. However, I do think this book is an excellent way to begin studying gender, and I look forward to reading more books like this one.
I thought this book was an excellent introduction to the history of gender. People who have not fit into the gender binary have always existed, and it’s in large measure due to the efforts of academics and historians like Kit Heyam and others that we are beginning to understand and celebrate that history. This book taught me about so many historical figures that I had never heard of before, and it made me eager to learn more.
In particular, I thought this book excelled when it talked about how trans people have historically been erased from the narrative. Often, we’re made to think that trans people are “new,” that no one until modern history, identified as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, and that is not the case. I loved how the author used examples like fashion and theater to show how this might have been a haven for self-expression that would otherwise have been strictly persecuted.
I also loved the discussion about the complicated history between the intersex and transgender communities. There has been some overlap, but there are also ways in which injustice has been perpetuated on both sides. In addition, there was a truly excellent chapter about gender and spirituality, especially Indigenous and non-White spirituality, that I want to go back and reread physically. The author also pointed out how White trans people have often glossed over the essential histories of BIPOC trans people. I loved the intersectional approach of this book, even to the point of naming their own biases when excavating this history.
I did think there was a rather unfortunate metaphor about history and policing at the end of the chapter that, at best, was a bit tactless. However, I do think this book is an excellent way to begin studying gender, and I look forward to reading more books like this one.
September 14, 2024
4.5 stars!!! Such a beautiful beautiful book, so well researched with love and care. I especially loved the last chapters.
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