Before We Were Trans A New History of Gender

This book had a great set up. Exploring the historical exploration and presentation of gender would have been very interesting. To look at people and how they didn’t fit into the society’s definition of what a woman or man is and how these people acted outside of it. But instead of looking at the complexities of the human experience with gender, Heyam argues that they had to be trans in our current understanding of the word, even though they argue that they want to use trans for the many complex experiences of gender in history as an umbrella term. Hayem should have focused on what they specialized in because their lack of understanding of certain periods and places is noticeable. Also they argue that lesbian history isn’t inclusive and argues that it can’t do justice to people like Anne Lister. Heyam simply ignores the work of lesbian historians and fields like lesbian/queer studies, gender studies as well as many important works of feminist theory… this book could have been a great one… showing the societal narratives surrounding gender and how women used them to gain political power, the limitations that the definition of what a woman or a man should be put on people, societies who understand gender/sex differently from our western society and people who were transgender in the past. With these varied and complex experiences they could have written an amazing book on gender and trans history. Heyam wanted to do too much with this book and couldn’t deliver. I was so excited to read this book and sadly left disappointed.