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
Hoboken Public Library Blog 