An excellent little book that’s very intersectional in terms of race and class in its history of trans-femininity. I thought the distinction the author makes between today’s definition of transgender and how it’s anachronistic to apply it to historical figures who called themselves street queens, drag queens, transvestites, feminine gay men, and more was well done, providing definitions and giving examples of the blurriness of gender and labels. There obviously isn’t really a clear answer to this since these people can’t speak for themselves, but the author does a good way of challenging how people assign labels to groups of people in order to paint them as martyrs or victims, such as referring to the street queens from Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, Cooper’s Donuts, and Stonewall broadly in terms like “trans women of color” to make these people’s gender expression more palatable or understandable to today’s audience, regardless of how they would have realistically identified themselves. Language is a tricky business for historical LGBTQIA+ people, and this book really highlights that. I think it’s really interesting how trans feminine people in history referred to themselves in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways, and how class and race inform that! Additionally, the author makes clear that not everyone from non-western cultures is “trans” just because western audiences view them that way or see similarities in gender expression, such as hijras and travestis, which is definitely something I saw come up when Monkeyman came out and people referred to the hijras in the film as transgender. Also makes me think of Joshua Whitehead having to turn down an award for transgender literature because he is 2 Spirit and does not identify as trans, and there was some confusion on that by the people who gave him the award.
The way this book delves into how people who don’t identify as trans can still experience trans misogyny if they’re perceived as trans feminine was also super interesting. I had no idea that bell hooks and Judith butler wrote those pieces on Venus Xtravanga after Paris is Burning came out, deep-diving into the few clips of her from the documentary and trying to problematize her dreams of domesticity?? And right after she was murdered too?? Like have some fucking respect and leave her alone.
Overall this was an excellent refresher of my trans studies class. Loved the Tourmaline shout-out also!