This discussion draws upon research conducted in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad in 2014 with approximately 30 members of trans communities and examines the historical and contemporary politics of naming and its consequences in British India and contemporary Pakistan. I maintain that the colonial state’s view of these communities coincided with regional reformist attempts to curtail…
The acknowledgment that sexuality was constituted differently in the ancient world than in our own (and differently, indeed, between Greece and Rome) has helped in the struggle to de-essentialize contemporary models of sexual behavior and expose the arbitrariness of the labels ‘normal’ and ‘deviant’ or ‘perverse.’ And yet the way ancient sexualities tend to be…
This article provides an overview of the literature written about individuals who are referred to today as transgender people, with a focus on material from the United States. Influential studies are discussed, particularly works by trans people. The article concludes by suggesting useful directions for future research, including the need to document trans political, legal,…
This chapter tracks the development of the field of transgender history over the past three decades and considers some of the ways in which its emergence has reshaped lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer history, histories of sexuality, and women’s and gender history more broadly. Susan Stryker has published Transgender History, which offers readers both a…
In the summer of 1953, the United Daily News (聯合報) in Taiwan announced the sex change surgery of the “first” Chinese transsexual, Xie Jianshun (謝尖順). Xie’s story soon triggered an avalanche of media sensationalism in postwar Taiwan. This article adds greater historical depth to this episode of trans-culturation by examining other accounts of unusual bodily…
“I believe I know more female impersonators than most people do, therefore I speak with a certain amount of authority when I say that, as entertainers, they are a serious, sincere, hardworking group, in addition to which, they are ‘nice people’.” Featuring: Sonne Teal, Mario Montez, Lynne Carter, Minette, Leslie Marlowe, Chris Moore, Julian Eltinge,…
Throughout recorded history, oppressed groups have organised to claim their rights and obtain their needs. Homosexuals, who have been oppressed by physical violence and by ideological and psychological attacks at every level of social interaction, are at last becoming angry. To you, our gay sisters and brothers, we say that you are oppressed; we intend…
Two prominent representatives of the sexual emancipation movement in Germany, John Henry Mackay (1864–1933) and Magnus Hirschfeld (1868–1935) launched significant attacks on sexual binarism and its combinatories. Although Mackay defended the “nameless love” against seminal Christian and subsequent secularised misconstructions of its nature, he was unable to overcome the fundamental scheme of binomic sexuality. Hirschfeld,…
Emphasizing an intersectional and transnational approach, this collection examines how social media and digital technologies have impacted the sphere of LGBTQ activism, advocacy, education, empowerment, identity, protest, and self-expression. This edited collection adopts a critical and cultural studies perspective to examine queer cyberculture and presence. Through the lens of representation and identity politics, it explores…
From law reform to Lesbian Sex Wars, from Young Gays to Grey Gays, via demos, drag and dancing. For 40 years, Australian lesbians, gay men and their friends have struggled to change the way homosexuals are treated and thought about. And they have been remarkably successful. Laws dating back to King Henry VIII have been…