Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender

Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

29 reviews

ashton_n's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Stunning work, and I hope to go through it again once I’ve thought about it. I wish there were more books like this.

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rorikae's review

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

'Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender" by Kit Heyam is a thoughtful look at trans history through sections that focus on specific aspects. From clothing to performance, Heyam looks at how trans people have lived throughout time and in different places throughout the world. They do a good job of breaking down important aspects into bite sized pieces and packaging this history in an easy way to understand. With histories, it can be easy to try and focus on too much or end up feeling like more of a timeline than a cohesive narrative. Heyam does a great job of making the history span a good chunk of time and subjects by focusing on specifics and then extrapolating from there. I think this is an important book for many people to read as they learn more about gender and trans history. I also appreciate that Heyman very clearly addresses that they are a white trans man and how this may impact their work. This book feels very open and informative in the best ways.

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hazel_oat's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

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angelfireeast24's review against another edition

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dark informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

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joensign's review

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emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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sophieprime's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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uriah's review against another edition

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5.0

I felt so grounded and at home in my transness when reading this.

Comfort, desperation, love: this is the emotional register in which I, too, experience trans and queer history. Like Shapland, I came to identification with the queer past before I came to full articulation of my queer present: I knew that I felt deep hurt and anger about past injustices against queer men, and deep emotional identification with them, long before I realised that was one aspect of my trans experience.... But it's through such indecorous emotion that history has provided me with some of the most intensely important experiences of my life.

Heyam reifies the watered down arguments I have in my head when I am met with the transphobic rhetoric of transness being a 'new fad'. My copy is tagged, dogearred, and annotated to the brim. I treasure this reading experience and I thank you, Dr. Heyam, for giving us hope in the form of history.

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