A Short History of Trans Misogyny

An accessible, bold new vision for the future of intersectional trans feminism, called "one of the best books in trans studies in recent years" by Susan Stryker

“A beautifully written and argued book.” –Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

There is no shortage of voices demanding everyone pay attention to the violence trans women suffer. But one frighteningly basic question seems never to be answered: why does it happen? If men are not inherently evil and trans women do not intrinsically invite reprisal—which would make violence unstoppable—then the psychology of that violence had to arise at a certain place and time. The trans panic had to be invented.

Award-winning historian Jules Gill-Peterson takes us from the bustling port cities of New York and New Orleans to the streets of London and Paris in search of the emergence of modern trans misogyny.

She connects the colonial and military districts of the British Raj, the Philippines, and Hawai’i to the lively travesti communities of Latin America, where state violence has stamped a trans label on vastly different ways of life. Weaving together the stories of historical figures in a richly detailed narrative, the book shows how trans femininity emerged under colonial governments, the sex work industry, the policing of urban public spaces, and the area between the formal and informal economy.

A Short History of Trans Misogyny is the first book to explain why trans women are burdened by such a weight of injustice and hatred.

Jules Gill-Peterson is US-based writer, activist, and the author of the award-winning book Histories of the Transgender Child, published in 2018. Gill-Peterson is a tenured associate professor of History at Johns Hopkins University and a General Editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, the journal of record in the field. She has earned a public reputation for fiercely advocating for transgender children and women, with interviews in outlets from NPR, to ABC, to New York magazine. She was profiled by the Guardian and published an op-ed on trans kids in the New York Times in 2021. She has also written for the New Inquiry, Jewish Currents, the Baffler, the Funambulist, Parapraxis, and more. Gill-Peterson is the cohost of Outward, Slate's LGBT podcast, and a member of the Death Panel podcast. She is also the narrator of the award-winning documentary Framing Agnes (dir. Chase Joynt, 2022), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.