A?groundbreaking?global history of gender nonconformity?

Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives.

Before We Were Trans?illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present,?whose experiences?of gender have?defied?binary categories. Blending?historical analysis?with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive?trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans?transports us?from Renaissance Venice to?seventeenth-century?Angola, from Edo Japan to?early America, and looks?to the past to uncover new horizons for?possible trans futures.?