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Transgender History Month: Books for Adults

11 Aug
Cover of Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History 1850-1950 by Eli Erlick. Cover features torn images of black and white photographs of various historical trans people surrounded by multicolored strips.
Cover of Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton. Features a photograph of a black couple one in a dress holding a top hat and the other in a tuxedo holding a fan.
Cover of Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam. Features an abstract image of colors forming the shape of people against a black background.

August is Transgender History Month! Take a look at these non-fiction selections from our BCCLS catalog that tell the long, rich history of transgender pioneers. 

Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950
by Eli Erlick (physical)
Eli Erlick shares the stories of 30 trans trailblazers, organized into four deliberate parts: activists, workers, kids, and athletes. 

The Other Olympians: Facism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports
by Michael Waters (physical)
In the mid-1930s, two of European track and field’s most celebrated athletes announced that they were both men despite being assigned female at birth. Waters recounts how because of their transitions, Zdeněk Koubek and Mark Weston influenced the fixation with gender in sports we see nearly a century later.

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender
by Kit Heyam PhD (physical) 
Before We Were Trans highlights the histories of trans and gender nonconforming people across West Africa, Asia, and the Americas, showcasing how the category of gender has been redefined and altered throughout history. 

Female Husbands
by Jen Manion (physical)
This text explores historical material from the American colonial period through 1910, highlighting British and American people assigned female at birth who moved through society as men. The title refers to shifting understandings of gender politics and women’s rights shortly before World War I, labeling such people as “female husbands.” 

Histories of the Transgender Child
by Julian Gill-Peterson (physical)
Before today’s terminology to describe them, transgender children existed. This text explores accounts from the early-twentieth century onward how children and their parents navigated the medical system and other institutions, playing close attention to how race impacted their experiences. 

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity
by C. Riley Snorton (physical, eBook) 
Snorton explores the interconnection between Black and trans identities from slavery, through emancipation up until internet culture of the 1990s using fugitive slave narratives, sensationalist journalism and Hollywood films. 

Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City
by Gregory Samantha Rosenthal (Hoopla eBook) 
Combining historical analysis, theory, and memoir, Gregory Samantha Rosenthal, PhD documents her story of coming out as a trans woman alongside the history of the LGBTQ community in Roanoke, Virginia. 

Trans Historical: Gender Plurality Before the Modern
edited by Greta LaFleur, Masha Raskolnikov, and Anna Kłosowka (Hoopla eBook)
This text’s contributors consider how social experiences of gender functioned as distinct from sex assigned at birth in the medieval and early modern periods. 

The Risk It Take to Bloom: On Life and Liberation
by Raquel Willis (physical, eBook, e-audiobook)
Situated between the Obama and first Trump administrations, journalist and activist Raquel Willis shares her experiences of coming out, influenced by the epidemic of violence against trans women of color, and how that led her to become one of the most formidable Black trans activists in history.

Written by:
Allison Woodley
Information and Digital Services Assistant

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Horror/Thriller June Book Club Pick: Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning

30 Jun

Knock Knock; Nancy is a local campsite story no one takes seriously until knock knock knocks are heard. She was a witch beheaded who now knocks on cabin doors after dark, and takes your head if you answer. One by one, campers are gone, until Willow, playing the classic Final Girl archetype, must investigate and, in true slasher style, learn to swing an axe to save herself and whoever is left.

Book cover for Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning. Against a black background, three roasting sticks are held up - two with toasted marshmallows and the third being a blood-dripping axe. "Heads Will Roll" is printed in large hand-lettered white and red text at the bottom, with the author's name "Josh Winning" below it in orange. A silhouette of a red pine forest runs along the bottom. A blurb at the top reads: "Bloody, uplifting, and fun! Should come with a bucket of popcorn." — Gus Moreno, author of This Thing Between Us.

Maybe it was a bad joke? Maybe it was taken out of context? Maybe you just had a bad day and an even worse impulse? Heads Will Roll begins with Willow’s story when the internet and Hollywood were done with her, canceled her.

​Willow is a sitcom star who responds to a tweet at the wrong time and with the wrong language, and as a result loses her job, her fiancé, her money, and her apartment. So, if you are in an 80s-themed slasher horror, what do you do? You retreat to a secluded camp retreat in remote upstate New York.

​No phones. No social media. No electronics whatsoever.

Josh Winning knows his horror, and there are constant references to past movies, books, situations, and more throughout. Heads Will Roll wears its Friday the 13th hat proudly and takes on cancel culture. Winning explores critical LGBTQIA+ themes that shine a light on hypocritical leanings in our society.

​The campers aren’t teenagers making bad decisions. No, they’re adults making bad decisions, which can get a bit annoying and repetitive at times, but then again, the suspension of disbelief must be activated when reading this book.

​Every one of the characters has been publicly shamed, canceled, or otherwise chewed by the internet, so maybe, just maybe, they aren’t sure what the right decisions are anymore.

​It’s a good concept, and overall, Winning executes it with a classic summer-camp, 80s vibe, but be wary that some of the dots might not be as well connected as you would hope.

​I was suspicious of almost everyone at Camp Castaway, including Willow at one point.

​The social commentary feels real, sometimes intense, but real. Cancel culture as a horror metaphor is powerful.

​That said, the dialogue gets cringe-worthy in spots, almost cliché, and I wasn’t a fan of the omniscient text messages between many chapters. The ending happens quickly, and, as I said before, it leaves things a bit too loose, with unnecessary ambiguity and confusion. Not as tight as I was expecting.

​If you enjoy slashers and a masked killer stalking a camp excites you, Heads Will Roll is worth your time.

​Interested in the Horror/Thriller Book Club? Email reference@hobokenlibrary.org, or register for our next meeting by searching under Events on our website.

​You can reserve it in the BCCLS system here.

​Hit subscribe to get the Hoboken Public Library Blog delivered to your inbox!

​Written by: Sean Willey

Information and Digital Services Assistant

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