by Susan Stryker
Seal Press (CA)
2/3/2026, paperback
SKU: 9781541605886
The groundbreaking guide to trans history in America, revised and updated for a new political era.
Transgender History is the modern classic on transgender life in America since the nineteenth century, encompassing the major movements, writings, and events that shape today's gender revolution.
Susan Stryker's sweeping, intersectional account charts more than a century of history, showing how rising acceptance in the 1960s and 2010s was met with waves of bigotry and intolerance that began in the '70s and continue today.
Through her explanation of central concepts and terms, informative sidebars, and brief biographies of trans pioneers, Stryker reminds readers of one crucial truth: Transgender people have always been here. In good times and bad, they've built supportive and expansive communities, battled for freedom, and transformed American culture and society in the process.
Now completely revised and updated, including a longer, global history and a timely chronicle of the latest wave of anti-trans backlash, Transgender History remains both a vital resource and a powerful testament to the enduring legacy of trans lives.
Reviews:
"This timely and relevant book should be required reading." -- Portland Book Review
"An invaluable text for anyone who wants to better understand evolving concepts of gender. Essential." -- CHOICE
"Transgender History is an essential text in the field of queer history, and Susan Stryker is as much a crucial figure in that history as she is a preeminent documenter of it." -- Hugh Ryan, author of When Brooklyn Was Queer
About the Author:
Susan Stryker is Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, as well as the former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies at the University of Arizona. She is the author of many articles and several books on transgender and queer topics. She won a Lambda Literary Award for the anthology The Transgender Studies Reader (Routledge), and an Emmy Award for the documentary film Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria (Frameline/ITVS).