Culture Revised Transgender History Book Is Readable, Entertaining - But Only With The Seperate Purchase Of A Lobotomy. Also Mentions The War Of The Girldicks!

Author, Susan Stryker (Previously Kurtis Stryker from the Mortal Kombat series.)

It had to start somewhere.

Someone had to make the first step, to pave the way, to stick a fork into the ground and say, “Here, now.” Someone had to be the first so that others could follow, and in the newly updated book “Transgender History” by Susan Stryker, you’ll see where we go next.

Opening a history book with a chapter on terms and words might seem odd but, says Susan Stryker, “remarkable changes” over the last decade demand it. Thus begins this book, with new language for what is an old issue.

Indeed, America’s first recorded “intersex” individual was Thomas(ine) Hall, who lived in the 1620s, “sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman.” Seventy years later, however, the colony of Massachusetts made “cross dressing” illegal and it spread: by the 1850s, many U.S. cities had ordinances against dressing in clothing normally worn by the opposite sex.

And yet, it was hard to stop people who wanted to dress as or fully transition to another gender. Throughout the 1800s, records show that women dressed as men for battle, cross dressers braved the frontier, men ran away from their families to be true to their feminine selves and Native American cultures embraced transgender people. Says Stryker, after anesthesia was invented and surgeries were safer, “individuals began approaching doctors to request surgical alteration of … parts of their bodies.”

For a time, then, the movement was relatively quiet by necessity, as the Nazis proved when they torched Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin — until American Christine Jorgensen “burst onto the scene” in late 1952 when she traveled to Copenhagen for trans surgery. Her ensuing fame didn’t signal full acceptance for trans people, but it was a start. Riots in 1959 led to activism in the 1960s, and post-Stonewall groups consolidated to lend support and work through “difficult decades” of the ‘70s, ‘80s and the AIDS crisis. Today, says Stryker, though we live in interesting times of Trump and turmoil, the news is heartening. Millennials and “post-Baby Boomers” have expressed more acceptance of “transgender as part of the anti-heteronormative mix.”

Though “Transgender History” is a revised edition of a book first published a decade ago, it has a fresh feel thanks to that which author Susan Stryker has added. The first chapter, somewhat of a dictionary, schools readers on new ways of talking about LGBT issues and individuals, while the last chapter of trans history brings readers up to the present, including topics of politics, potties and celebrity.

What makes it unusual is that, though it’s not always chronological, it’s breezy and casually readable. There’s no stuffiness here and no air of the scholarly. Stryker makes this history accessible for people who want a story and not a textbook.

And so, this book is a pleasant surprise. It’s easy to read, not overly wordy, and there are a just-right number of illustrations here for a reader’s enjoyment. For anyone who wants a basic, yet lively, overview of trans life in America, “Transgender History” is a great start.

LINK

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

There's history about trannies?

 

[A Welsh Cake]

Why’s it not always chronological? Ignoring everything else with this, shouldn’t a history book follow a chronological order?

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Why’s it not always chronological? Ignoring everything else with this, shouldn’t a history book follow a chronological order?

A sign of mental illness is severely disorganized thinking.

 

[Nacho Man Randy Salsa]

Now thats the face of someone that doesn't get laid.

 

[FierceBrosnan]

Why’s it not always chronological? Ignoring everything else with this, shouldn’t a history book follow a chronological order?

Because linear time is for shitgendered cislords like us.

 

[Calooby]

They don't Stryke me as the type to know shit from their ass.

 

[Red Hood]

Nick Nolte looks worse every time we see him.

 

[m0rnutz]

America’s first recorded “intersex” individual was Thomas(ine) Hall, who lived in the 1620s, “sometimes as a man and sometimes as a woman.” Seventy years later, however, the colony of Massachusetts made “cross dressing” illegal and it spread: by the 1850s, many U.S. cities had ordinances against dressing in clothing normally worn by the opposite sex.

so now crossdressing is intersex.

Amazing.

 

[Autopsy]

To compliment the outstanding contribution Stryker has made for cataloging the history of the trans^2 community, I've written an accompaniment. I would consider it an unofficial sequel, and it's a true exclusive intended for Kiwis' eyes only. Presenting:

Transgender History II: Meaningful Contributions to the Human Race

 

[Red Hood]

so now crossdressing is intersex.

Amazing.

Ed Wood would certainly disagree.

 

[Slowboat to China]

And yet, it was hard to stop people who wanted to dress as or fully transition to another gender. Throughout the 1800s, records show that women dressed as men for battle, cross dressers braved the frontier, men ran away from their families to be true to their feminine selves and Native American cultures embraced transgender people.

This concerns me. Throughout history, yes, people have crossdressed. Women especially. However--and I've had this argument multiple times over the past few years--crossdressing does not equal transgenderism.

Especially in the cases of women who dressed as men to join the army or brave the frontier. There's a long, long history of women joining the army in the all-male days (Sweet Polly Oliver, anyone?), either out of a desire to prove themselves on their own merits or to follow a man who might not live to come back (Christian Davies, Hannah Snell). Dressing as a man on the frontier was practical, because it's easier to do shit in trousers and people thinking you're a man means they're less likely to rape you. Conversely, men would use women's garb for disguise, escape, or the old pirate ploy of "oh, this ship is full of women, it's totally not dangerous and you can get close and NOW FUCKING KILL THEM ALL."

If they want to talk transgender history, why not comb history for potential actual cases of transgenderism? Talk about Elagabalus, who allegedly wanted his dick lopped off. Talk about eunuch culture. Speaking of which ...

Says Stryker, after anesthesia was invented and surgeries were safer, “individuals began approaching doctors to request surgical alteration of … parts of their bodies.”

Effective castration has been known since ancient times, anesthesia or no anesthesia. The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine mentions a castration procedure which continued to be practiced into the early 20th century, with 90% survival rate. This technology was available in multiple societies, and yet we didn't see people in the 15th century lining up to be castrated for non-financial reasons. Yet we haven't seen an eruption in transgender culture until the late 20th-21st centuries.

So yes, I'm skeptical of this author's premises and scope.

 

[Cable 7]

>readable

Im gonna need to double check that

 

[PsychoNerd054]

Yeah, I’d totally like to hear about the time some old guy wore his wife’s dress one night, painted his powdered wig blue, and complained about the lack of transgender chamberpots.

What is the fucking point of this crap?

 

[Fuck you jewish cunt]

Lol trannies

 

[nonnewtonian]

so now crossdressing is intersex.

Amazing.

Hall most likely was intersex. People who examined Hall’s genitalia came to different conclusions as to whether they were male or female, and the courts declared them to be both a man and a woman.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Ed Wood would certainly disagree.

Glen or Glenda or Glendxxxx

 

[0 0]

I'm reading through this just using Amazon Prime to nab the first few pages. The entire prologue isn't a prologue, it's just the author talking about their life in a woe-is-me fashion how they experience the entire spectrum of oppression. They've suffered from homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia (because they're, in their own words, an "openly transsexual lesbian woman in San Francisco," San Fran being known as a hotspot for intolerance, you see), then brags that they pass as a woman. Which...

...for some reason, I doubt.

They even have the audacity to say that they themself are an important aspect of transgender history. This whole prologue just makes the book look like a vanity project. Which it almost unquestionably is, but normally people try to not make it this transparent.

Throughout the book as I skim, I also notice a lack of factual, definitive, or academic writing. I understand they advertise (for some reason) that it's not meant to sound scholarly, but every event or analysis they bring up uses vague wording (such as "many people," or "very often") and doesn't cite anything. Both of which are not something you want to do if you want your book to be taken seriously by actual historians.

Special mention to this segment, where they claim that even the word "transsexual" is oppressive.

 

[Wallace]

Yeah, I’d totally like to hear about the time some old guy wore his wife’s dress one night, painted his powdered wig blue, and complained about the lack of transgender chamberpots.

What is the fucking point of this crap?

To make a quick profit from culture warriors who will praise it as Stunning and Brave(tm), and probably an ego boost too.

 

[Irwin M. Felcher]

Why’s it not always chronological? Ignoring everything else with this, shouldn’t a history book follow a chronological order?

They're obviously trans-Tralfamadorian, too. Check your temporal privilege.