A New History of Gender

Kit Heyam gives inspiring impulses in “Before We Were Trans” into trans* history and how we think about it nowadays. Based on individual case studies, Heyam analyses under which specific instances people and groups were counted to trans* history and which weren’t. The book problematizes not only transphobic attitudes but also for example appropriations by white and/or endo trans* people with non-European history and/or inter* history. Therefore, the book is able to give a nuanced perspective into the past and is also able to continuously reflect this perspective. Even though a few points are repetitive in the last chapters, Heyam is able to write in a very clear, personal and most importantly respectful manner when it comes to historical figures. - TW: Discussions of colonial conquest, war, internalization, forced medical examinations and treatment, inter*-, trans*- and queerphobia (Übersetzung von Jamie - es folgt die Rezension auf Deutsch und dann die englische Verlagsbeschreibung)

/ Kit Heyam bietet in „Before We Were Trans“ inspirierende Impulse zu trans* Geschichte und dazu, wie wir heute darüber nachdenken können. Anhand von einzelnen Fallstudien betrachtet Heyam verschiedene Vorbehalte dahingehend, welche Personen(-gruppen) zur trans* Geschichte gehören und welche nicht. Problematisiert werden damit nicht nur trans*-feindliche Einstellungen, sondern auch bspw. Aneignungen durch weiße und/oder endo trans* Personen von nicht-europäischer Geschichte und/oder von inter* Geschichte. Somit kann das Buch helfen, einen nuancierteren Blick in die Vergangenheit zu werfen und diesen Blick stets zu reflektieren. Auch wenn sich einige Punkte vor allem in den letzten Kapiteln wiederholen, schreibt Heyam dabei sehr flüssig, persönlich und vor allem respektvoll gegenüber historischen Personen.

TW: Besprechung von kolonialistischer Eroberung, Krieg, Internierung, erzwungenen medizinischen Untersuchungen und Behandlungen, Inter*-, Trans*- und Queer-Feindlichkeit (Rezi von Aiden)

Verlagsbeschreibung:

These people have a rich history - but one that is often left behind by narratives of trans lives that focus on people with stable, binary, uncomplicated gender identities. As a result, these stories tend to be recent, binary, stereotyped, medicalised and white. Before We Were Trans is a new and different story of gender, that seeks not to be comprehensive or definitive, but - by blending culture, feminism and politics - to widen the scope of what we think of as trans history by telling the stories of people across the globe whose experience of gender has been transgressive, or not characterised by stability or binary categories.

Transporting us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to North America, the stories this book tells leave questions and resist conclusions. They are fraught with ambiguity, and defy modern Western terminology and categories - not least the category of 'trans' itself. But telling them provides a history that reflects the richness of modern trans reality more closely than any previously written.

Before We Were Trans is a history and celebration of gender in all its fluidity, ambiguity and complexity.