Book Review: Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution
- alexanderrpreston7
- Nov 1, 2024
- 4 min read
By Al Preston
Of the many transgender academics I have read, Susan Stryker was one of the first and one I have looked up to. In the early years of searching for myself in history, I was writing a paper about the language of the LGBT+ movement. Stryker was one of my sources, and so was her story.
Stryker was an academic who transitioned in the midst of study who was seeking the same history as me. Who was proof I wasn’t playing a losing game, that I could succeed in finding history and telling people about it. Finally, someone nearly exactly like me.
Years later, I still admire Stryker, and I adored reading Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution. This is an excellent book for newbies to the history of today’s transgender movement. It covers a wide and reaching history succinctly and without losing the reader in group specific movements.
Stryker covers the good and the bad of transgender history, where organizations were lost in the national narrative and where successes occurred in the efforts of those organizations to gain more rights for transgender people. All with an easy to consume writing style that keeps everyone engaged.
As a fellow historian, there were moments where I wished she would have gone deeper into the topic, but this wasn’t that book for that. This book was an introduction to a mostly silent history about transgender people, not a deep dive into specific parts of the movement. As an introduction, it hits the mark really well. As a jumping point for specific moments in transgender history, Stryker covers a lot of people and organizations that you wouldn’t normally hear about. There were organizations and people I hadn’t heard about either and I now have a nice long list of new topics to learn more about.
From how language is used to the explanations of court cases, Stryker paints a typically silent history. Transgender people have been left out of the conversation when it comes to LGB history quiet often. She includes these organizations because they were doing good work and progressing the stance of transgender people in society and with LGB groups. For the most part, organizations like the Daughters of Bilitis or the Mattachine Society either ignored or were very harsh towards the transgender community, leaving them to take care for themselves.
Often, these transgender groups and people get buried by the ‘greater’ LGB movement. Transgender folks, especially transgender women, were considered too extreme for those groups or were seen as the exact stereotypes straight society hated them for. Stryker highlights their work and struggles, and it was amazing to see them.
Stryker covered the ups and downs of the community effectively as well. Especially in the early years of the movement, it had struggled to define what being transgender was and what counted as ‘trans’. She also acknowledges that not all of the activists had the best interest of everyone in the community in mind. However, the good work they were able to do and the positive consequence for all transgender people are not to be ignored.
No one group is a monolith. Everyone has a different opinion about what is ‘good’ for everyone, and those people can gain followings and do a lot of good work and also say a lot of bad things or have terrible opinions on members of their own community. However, the work they did could be foundational for aiding the same members of the community that were originally excluded. All of this history is important to talk about, regardless of the poor opinions of those involved. Context matters. Despite harmful opinions, good things came out of the work done. If these folks were being cruel just to be cruel, that would be different. However, if they worked for one section of the community and ended up causing a benefit for the whole community, it’s still worth talking about that work.
I read the second edition, published in 2017. This edition was a near total rewrite of the first edition from 2008. Stryker updated much of the book with new knowledge and understanding of the past and of language. She also added another chapter about the continued history from 2008 to 2017. Stryker did an excellent job of acknowledging the tough work of individual transgender folks and of the community as a whole.
Perhaps my only complaint would be the sectioned off pieces of related information—things she probably could not include in depth in the main body of work. These sections appeared mid-reading and took up entire pages. I have no issue with the content of these sections, but more with their placement.
Some of these blocks could be more than one page in length and even break up paragraphs, making both they and the main writing awkward to read at times. I would have preferred for them to appear at the end of sections instead, or even between paragraphs, just to make reading them as they appear a little easier.
At the end, Stryker’s message is that, as a group and force of activism, transgender people have fought hard and succeeded. However, there is much more to be done. Now, in 2024, I feel that drive to push further, do more, and to earn a place on the shoulders of giants. Reading my own history encourages me—drives me forward. I highly recommend this book for all who wish to learn from history and who want to be activists.
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