Product Description

Although the term "transgender" itself has achieved familiarity only within the past decade, this authoritative collection of articles demonstrates that the study of behaviors, bodies, and subjective identities which contest common Eurocentric notions of gender has a history stretching back at least to the early 20th century.
Before the First World War, European sexologists began to devise new terminology to describe gender-atypical individuals. By mid-century, feminist scholars had appropriated scientific paradigms that posited a distinction between bodily sex and psychosocial gender, and deployed them in politically radical ways that envisioned greater equality between genders. In the closing years of the last century, an upstart generation of queer theorists further disarticulated the presumed coherence of heteronormative personhood to create a broader awareness of just how diverse gendered identity can be.
The Transgender Reader encompasses all these critical and conceptual developments, gathering roughly fifty influential texts that, taken together, document the evolution of transgender studies in the English-speaking world. By bringing together the voices and experiences of transgender individuals, doctors, psychologists and academic theorists, this volume will be a seminal text for transgender studies and related queer theory.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #551060 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 758 pages

Review

As both a prefix and an adjective, trans goes over, across, and beyond, making the possibilities seem endless for trans(gender) studies. However, to advance or progress requires some point of departure. For trans(gender) studies to evolve, we must have a solid understanding of where it all began. The Transgender Studies Reader is indispensable for its ability to encapsulate the century of dialog that has become what appears to be a decade-old phenomenon.

— Brice Smith, Womens Studies Quarterly

About the Author
Susan Stryker is the Executive Director of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society, and currently holds a Social Science Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Sexuality Studies in the History Department at Stanford University. Stephen Whittle is Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and coordinator of the United Kingdom FTM Network.

Customer Reviews

The Essential Text for Trans Issues and Theories.
The depth and breadth of the articles included in this compendium are astounding to say the least. In one large volume the authors have included samples of writings representing the theoretical to the practical and the lived experience in a time line from the 19th century through the present. The Reader gives a sense of our shared history from a wide variety of view points which affirms all of our lives. As a transgendered person and college student, I recommend the The Transgender Reader to anyone looking for clues to our hidden culture and the world we struggle in everyday.

Transgender (Studies) Reader
The book arrived promptly. It was needed for a course reserve so the prompt service and delivery were greatly appreciated.