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Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity
The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.
Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.
Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.
Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.
Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 5, 2017
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12936 people want to read
About the author
C. Riley Snorton
9 books65 followersC. Riley Snorton is associate professor of Africana studies and feminist, gender, and sexuality studies at Cornell University and visiting associate professor of American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He is author of Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (Minnesota, 2014).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 186 reviews
February 2, 2021
Trans history in the US tends to focus on white trans people like Christine Jorgenson, who was one of the first to publicly undergo gender confirmation surgery in the 1950s. While Jorgenson quickly rose to fame, many Black trans people – and especially Black trans women – were disappeared in her shadow. White trans women like Jorgenson began to achieve acceptance by appealing to the dominant norms of white womanhood (domesticity, respectability, heterosexuality) and differentiating themselves from Black gender variant people. The media often ridiculed Black trans women as failed imitations of Jorgenson. Combatting historical erasure, Dr. C. Riley Snorton highlights an expansive tradition of Black trans life and resistance.
In 1836 Black trans sex worker Mary Jones was charged with larceny for stealing the wallets of her clients. On June 16, 1836 Jones showed up to court wearing a wig, white earrings, and a dress. Everyone in the audience and the court mocked her for her appearance – someone even tried to grab the wig off her head. When asked why she was dressed this way she said,” I have always attended parties among the people of my own Colour dressed in this way – and in New Orleans I always dressed this way.” Jones pled not guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. A week after her trial a lithographic portrait called “The Man-Monster” began to appear in print shops in NYC and became widely circulated as a way to demonize Jones.
In 1945 Lucy Hicks Anderson was a Black trans woman who was arrested and convicted of perjury. The government accused her of lying about her sex on her marriage license. In the face of virulent racism and transphobia during the trial, Anderson had the conviction to argue: “I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman,” and “I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.” When asked if she wore a wig she responded, “If I think I look better with a wig, I do.” Prosecutors kept asking if she had male sex organs and Anderson refused to answer. After Anderson was arrested she was forbidden from wearing women’s clothes in men’s prison.
In the 1950s Ava Betty Brown was a Black trans woman tried for the charge of female impersonation and fined one hundred dollars. The local news reported her home address after she was charged. The case was written about in the Black press like Ebony and Jet magazines where she was labeled the “Double-Sexed Defendant.” In response to being misgendered Brown declared: “If I’m a man, I don’t know it!”
Jim McHarris was a Black transmasculine person who began to exclusively wear male clothing in 1939. He lived in Memphis, Chicago, and other midwestern cities working a host of jobs as a cook, auto mechanic, and shipyard worker. In 1953 he moved to Kosciusko, MS where he became engaged to marry a woman. In 1954 he got pulled over by the police at a traffic stop and underwent a pat down search, accusing McHarris of being female. McHarris was forced to strip off his clothes and reveal his breasts and genitals in front of the judge and arresting officers. After serving thirty days in jail he argued, “I ain’t done nothing wrong and I ain’t breaking no laws.”
Our ability to exist in public today is thanks to Black trans leaders like this who paved the way. Their self-knowledge, determination, and everyday resistance in the face of criminalization led cities to mostly stop enforcing cross-dressing laws in the 1970s.
In 1836 Black trans sex worker Mary Jones was charged with larceny for stealing the wallets of her clients. On June 16, 1836 Jones showed up to court wearing a wig, white earrings, and a dress. Everyone in the audience and the court mocked her for her appearance – someone even tried to grab the wig off her head. When asked why she was dressed this way she said,” I have always attended parties among the people of my own Colour dressed in this way – and in New Orleans I always dressed this way.” Jones pled not guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. A week after her trial a lithographic portrait called “The Man-Monster” began to appear in print shops in NYC and became widely circulated as a way to demonize Jones.
In 1945 Lucy Hicks Anderson was a Black trans woman who was arrested and convicted of perjury. The government accused her of lying about her sex on her marriage license. In the face of virulent racism and transphobia during the trial, Anderson had the conviction to argue: “I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman,” and “I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.” When asked if she wore a wig she responded, “If I think I look better with a wig, I do.” Prosecutors kept asking if she had male sex organs and Anderson refused to answer. After Anderson was arrested she was forbidden from wearing women’s clothes in men’s prison.
In the 1950s Ava Betty Brown was a Black trans woman tried for the charge of female impersonation and fined one hundred dollars. The local news reported her home address after she was charged. The case was written about in the Black press like Ebony and Jet magazines where she was labeled the “Double-Sexed Defendant.” In response to being misgendered Brown declared: “If I’m a man, I don’t know it!”
Jim McHarris was a Black transmasculine person who began to exclusively wear male clothing in 1939. He lived in Memphis, Chicago, and other midwestern cities working a host of jobs as a cook, auto mechanic, and shipyard worker. In 1953 he moved to Kosciusko, MS where he became engaged to marry a woman. In 1954 he got pulled over by the police at a traffic stop and underwent a pat down search, accusing McHarris of being female. McHarris was forced to strip off his clothes and reveal his breasts and genitals in front of the judge and arresting officers. After serving thirty days in jail he argued, “I ain’t done nothing wrong and I ain’t breaking no laws.”
Our ability to exist in public today is thanks to Black trans leaders like this who paved the way. Their self-knowledge, determination, and everyday resistance in the face of criminalization led cities to mostly stop enforcing cross-dressing laws in the 1970s.
February 15, 2024
This book presents interesting and important intersections between Blackness and transness. Several in-depth case studies that highlight the prominence of anti-Black racism in U.S. history as well as how race and gender are often intertwined, such as through misogynoir. I agree with other reviewers that the writing felt hard to follow and comprehend. The prose gave academic jargon. Still, looking forward to what one of my Philly book clubs has to say about this one!
March 12, 2018
Organized around a series of events that provide occasions for bringing both signs—blackness and transness—into the same frame, Black on Both Sides is not a history per se so much as it is a set of political propositions, theories of history, and writerly experiments.
If I had absorbed the above quote properly before I bought this book, I probably wouldn't have bought it. Snorton works in cultural studies methods, with connections and theories zinging around every second sentence and the reading of symbolism and revelatory meaning. Snorton revels and excels in this, exploring the intersection how concepts of fungibility and transition exist in the construction of blackness, and how Blackness, as a condition of possibility that made transness conceivable in the twilight of formal slavery, would require “revision” to engender itself as modern.
So if what you are looking for is a history of African-Americans who identify as trans, this is not really that at all. If you like your history, as I tend to, as straight down the line than this, it might not be what you are looking for. This kind of analysis tends towards exploring coelescence in themes - for me, it ends up making wild leaps to explain individual circumstances and events which might easily have gone differently. This kind of process drove me nuts in literary studies, where meaning seemed always to be derived from events that had a specific set of factors leading up to them, without necessarily accounting for those factors. So, for example
In prosecutor James Elworth’s closing argument at the Nissen trial, his injunction to the jury included these words: “Consider Phillip DeVine. If you can imagine the terror of Phillip DeVine sitting in that room, this young amputee, sitting in that other room listenin[g] to two people die and knowing—he had to know—he—he was next.” Here, one encounters an evocation and description of DeVine as a figure in wait of his ultimate and untimely demise, a condition which Fanon aptly defined as a consequence of colonial violence, wherein waiting is the resultant expression of a “history that others have compiled.”The decision of a prosecutor designed to elicit empathy from a jury takes on bigger symbolic portent of enshrining the state of colonial dispossession and theft of power. I hate this stuff.
But Snorton is undoubtedly good at it. I certainly do understand how this language might be described as beautiful. He dances around concepts and ideas - they come fast, which is hard if you are not used to the precision of this language and analysis, but the fastness is a method of exploration. This is not my thing at all, but if it is, I think you'll love it.
In many ways, this has turned into a strange review. My dislike of cultural theory, and the primacy of text and language that entails really does mean I pretty much hate read most of the book. But the fact that this isn't a form of academia which helps me towards understanding doesn't mean it never will be for someone else. I genuinly believe truth emerges from interaction between both individuals and knowledge frameworks. So this book probably has a place, but it isn't on my (virtual) bookshelf.
Now will someone who likes this stuff review it so I can stop feeling guilty for the two stars?
November 9, 2018
I enjoyed this but it was extremely academic and difficult to read. It did get a lot better towards the end which is why it got an additional star. I just cant give it more than three stars because I feel that there is a point when over use of academic language intimidates and bogs down the message and can even make the point an author is trying to make impossible for non-academics to grasp. I do think the point this author was making, what I could understand of it, was interesting. I do feel this was a well researched and very well written book.
Anyway, I enjoyed this and I thought it was well written and it really got so interesting at the end. It was worth sticking it out and I am glad I put in the effort, but I am not sure I grasped the point the author was making as well as I would have liked to.
Anyway, I enjoyed this and I thought it was well written and it really got so interesting at the end. It was worth sticking it out and I am glad I put in the effort, but I am not sure I grasped the point the author was making as well as I would have liked to.
March 24, 2023
3.5 stars rounded up
It's important to know that this is an academic text written with a very academic audience in mind. The language is often quite theoretical and difficult to parse for the average reader. And, while the subtitle is "A Racial History of Trans Identity" the actual content is less a history of Black trans people and more a look at how the history of race in the United States is tied to the gendering and un-gendering of Black people (particularly through enslavement and medical experimentation), the linking of cross-dressing and escape narratives during slavery, and the ways that Black trans narratives were treated as a joke in the 1950's.
The reader might also come away seeing the difference in how white versus Black trans narratives are treated, but the author doesn't make those connections very explicit. I think there are interesting and valuable ideas contained it this book, but they are couched in such abstruse academic language and so much loosely linked theory, that it's not going to be widely accessible. I would love to see a book that takes what's contained here, expands upon it, and then writes it for a general audience. Because I can see how the content of this book has important connections to the modern construction and treatment of transness, the treatment of Black women in general, and more. But none of that is really put together in this book, though I think it's clear the author is aware of it. I'm glad I read it, but it's hard to recommend widely.
It's important to know that this is an academic text written with a very academic audience in mind. The language is often quite theoretical and difficult to parse for the average reader. And, while the subtitle is "A Racial History of Trans Identity" the actual content is less a history of Black trans people and more a look at how the history of race in the United States is tied to the gendering and un-gendering of Black people (particularly through enslavement and medical experimentation), the linking of cross-dressing and escape narratives during slavery, and the ways that Black trans narratives were treated as a joke in the 1950's.
The reader might also come away seeing the difference in how white versus Black trans narratives are treated, but the author doesn't make those connections very explicit. I think there are interesting and valuable ideas contained it this book, but they are couched in such abstruse academic language and so much loosely linked theory, that it's not going to be widely accessible. I would love to see a book that takes what's contained here, expands upon it, and then writes it for a general audience. Because I can see how the content of this book has important connections to the modern construction and treatment of transness, the treatment of Black women in general, and more. But none of that is really put together in this book, though I think it's clear the author is aware of it. I'm glad I read it, but it's hard to recommend widely.
June 17, 2019
I really wanted to like this book, but it’s written in such academic jargon that it practically needs to be translated, and also spends surprisingly little time talking about trans people at all, let alone black trans people.
November 11, 2019
The subtitle of this book, "Black on Both Sides," is misleading and not in a particularly positive way. Claiming to be a racial history, in the first few pages the author outright expresses he won't be doing historical work. Though the starting point for each of the chapters in the book is historical archival materials about the lives of a variety of black trans and gender non-conforming people, each chapters veers far away from history to begin making grandiose cultural and theoretical claims.
Much of this could be forgiven were it not for one additional serious problem in Snorton's book: his prose. Falling into the trap so many academics in the humanities tend to fall into, Snorton uses unnecessarily dense and verbose prose in a way that fully obscures the meaning of much of what he is trying to say. I understand that academic writing is going to be more challenging and have an added layer of depth - but I also fully believe that academic writing should work to actively clarify itself, especially when discussing issues of some import.
A book that could have been especially interesting if it had fulfilled the mission it lays out in its title, "Black on Both Sides" fails to do the things you really want it to do: tell us the histories, long forgotten, of black trans lives.
Much of this could be forgiven were it not for one additional serious problem in Snorton's book: his prose. Falling into the trap so many academics in the humanities tend to fall into, Snorton uses unnecessarily dense and verbose prose in a way that fully obscures the meaning of much of what he is trying to say. I understand that academic writing is going to be more challenging and have an added layer of depth - but I also fully believe that academic writing should work to actively clarify itself, especially when discussing issues of some import.
A book that could have been especially interesting if it had fulfilled the mission it lays out in its title, "Black on Both Sides" fails to do the things you really want it to do: tell us the histories, long forgotten, of black trans lives.
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March 26, 20232nd finished read for #TransRightsReadathon!
While I appreciated the project of this book, I feel like I only digested 50% of the content. And this is not the fault of the author! This is definitely written for an academic audience in mind, so it’s not necessarily meant to be accessible. The ideas were definitely enlightening: how gender has been/continues to be racialized, how this realization sheds light on gender’s variability/flexibility, how Black folks explored gender pre and post slavery…all of it was eye opening. Regardless, I was struggling to follow the ideas being explored because they were expressed in both dry and very academically dense language. It was still a valuable read (and honestly needs a reread in the future) but I wouldn’t recommend for those looking for a straightforward history of Black trans experiences in the US.
While I appreciated the project of this book, I feel like I only digested 50% of the content. And this is not the fault of the author! This is definitely written for an academic audience in mind, so it’s not necessarily meant to be accessible. The ideas were definitely enlightening: how gender has been/continues to be racialized, how this realization sheds light on gender’s variability/flexibility, how Black folks explored gender pre and post slavery…all of it was eye opening. Regardless, I was struggling to follow the ideas being explored because they were expressed in both dry and very academically dense language. It was still a valuable read (and honestly needs a reread in the future) but I wouldn’t recommend for those looking for a straightforward history of Black trans experiences in the US.
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August 6, 2024
An important piece of nonfiction work.
This was way too academic for my brain to handle—and although I enjoyed it and learned a lot I do wish that the author had stopped with the 2 page intro each each chapter telling me what the chapter was going to do and prove and show. Just launch right into it, I don't need a 2 page abstract before each chapter.
This was way too academic for my brain to handle—and although I enjoyed it and learned a lot I do wish that the author had stopped with the 2 page intro each each chapter telling me what the chapter was going to do and prove and show. Just launch right into it, I don't need a 2 page abstract before each chapter.
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March 18, 2020Honestly, I’m not sure how to review books like this that have a very academic nature to them. I don’t think I have the knowledge background to really appreciate the full scope of what he is writing about, as there are chapters which analyze events or books assuming the reader already knows the facts/has read the books. Still, I did learn some things so.
November 21, 2017
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity is an exceptional and beautifully written book in which C. Riley Snorton explores the intersections of blackness and transness. The range of archival materials is astounding and Snorton's analysis is just mind blowing. His resistance of the dominant periodization of trans as emerging with the clinic is incredibly compelling.
Though the book’s title offers a “a racial history,” Snorton claims that “the problem under review here is time” (xiv) and that the book “is not a history per se so much as it is a set of political propositions, theories of history, and writerly experiments” (6). In searching for a vocabulary for Black and trans life, Snorton argues that “blackness finds articulation within transness” (8) while Blackness is “a condition of possibility that made transness conceivable in the twilight of formal slavery” (135). The two share connections which Snorton calls “transversal,” yet there are also transitive connections that unite the two in “moments of transition” (9).
Central to Snorton’s discussion is Hortense Spillers and her formulation of flesh, which demonstrates how “sex and gender have been expressed and arranged according to the logics that sustained racial slavery” (53). Further, the fungibility of flesh enables fugitive action, as he notes in chapter two, while in chapter three, he analyzes the Black mother figure as a “zone of nonbeing” and an “onto-epistemological framework for black personhood” (108). Putting Blackness and transness in conversation with one another is not only necessary, but yields “insights that surpass an additive logic” that may cultivate “strategies for inhabiting unlivable worlds” (7). Following Fanon, Snorton is interested in the “mechanics of invention” and thus seeks “to understand the conditions of emergence of things and being that may not yet exist” (xiv).
Though the book’s title offers a “a racial history,” Snorton claims that “the problem under review here is time” (xiv) and that the book “is not a history per se so much as it is a set of political propositions, theories of history, and writerly experiments” (6). In searching for a vocabulary for Black and trans life, Snorton argues that “blackness finds articulation within transness” (8) while Blackness is “a condition of possibility that made transness conceivable in the twilight of formal slavery” (135). The two share connections which Snorton calls “transversal,” yet there are also transitive connections that unite the two in “moments of transition” (9).
Central to Snorton’s discussion is Hortense Spillers and her formulation of flesh, which demonstrates how “sex and gender have been expressed and arranged according to the logics that sustained racial slavery” (53). Further, the fungibility of flesh enables fugitive action, as he notes in chapter two, while in chapter three, he analyzes the Black mother figure as a “zone of nonbeing” and an “onto-epistemological framework for black personhood” (108). Putting Blackness and transness in conversation with one another is not only necessary, but yields “insights that surpass an additive logic” that may cultivate “strategies for inhabiting unlivable worlds” (7). Following Fanon, Snorton is interested in the “mechanics of invention” and thus seeks “to understand the conditions of emergence of things and being that may not yet exist” (xiv).
October 22, 2024
informative but also not quite what I expected.
pros: some reviewers complain that the prose is impenetrably dense; I did not find it so, perhaps because I listened to it on audiobook (as narrated by the author, who—as should be obvious—has a tremendous familiarity with and love for the work but also maybe didn't get, or know to demand, the same edit most narrators would get: why am I hearing you swallow???).
cons: I think that by listening to the audiobook I may have missed out on some cool pictures?
some really great historical tidbits, though, like the married couple who escaped enslavement, or another person who eluded recapture by darkening their skin rather than attempting to pass as white as their former enslavers expected them to, or the multiple people who used humor as a massive fuck-you to law enforcement and the courts. in general, just a lot of really fucking incredible trans and trans-adjacent people who lived lives of dignity and with pride in spite of the world's banal cruelties (did you know that louis farrakhan started his first career, as a calypso singer, under the name "the charmer," under which ironic moniker he put out such early hits as the transmisogynistic "is she is, or is she ain't" under the name "the charmer"? 🙄 now you do!)
pros: some reviewers complain that the prose is impenetrably dense; I did not find it so, perhaps because I listened to it on audiobook (as narrated by the author, who—as should be obvious—has a tremendous familiarity with and love for the work but also maybe didn't get, or know to demand, the same edit most narrators would get: why am I hearing you swallow???).
cons: I think that by listening to the audiobook I may have missed out on some cool pictures?
some really great historical tidbits, though, like the married couple who escaped enslavement, or another person who eluded recapture by darkening their skin rather than attempting to pass as white as their former enslavers expected them to, or the multiple people who used humor as a massive fuck-you to law enforcement and the courts. in general, just a lot of really fucking incredible trans and trans-adjacent people who lived lives of dignity and with pride in spite of the world's banal cruelties (did you know that louis farrakhan started his first career, as a calypso singer, under the name "the charmer," under which ironic moniker he put out such early hits as the transmisogynistic "is she is, or is she ain't" under the name "the charmer"? 🙄 now you do!)
August 22, 2018
This is an EXCELLENT text, a necessary contribution to trans studies, black studies, and black feminism -- it's worth the read, no matter how long it takes (it's a hard one - not just because of the depth of thought in every sentence written, which could land as dense for some readers*, but also because of the weight of the text. It's hard because it should be - reading about the ways antiblackness actually undergirds/has historically undergirded the systems of power that structure US national relationships to "gender" and "sexuality" is not something most (at least nonblack) scholars and readers, especially those coming from gender/sexuality studies, will be used to, but it's necessary. But I digress).
*This leads to my one potential critique, which is that this text might be a bit dense for folks outside of the academy, but I still think it's worth the effort/read all around. At the very least Snorton's work can lead the "average" (white) reader to canonical black feminist texts (Spillers, Lorde, etc).
*This leads to my one potential critique, which is that this text might be a bit dense for folks outside of the academy, but I still think it's worth the effort/read all around. At the very least Snorton's work can lead the "average" (white) reader to canonical black feminist texts (Spillers, Lorde, etc).
August 5, 2025
As Greg Thomas argues in his trenchant analysis of the coloniality of gender and sexuality, Foucault's history of sex refuses to understand "sex categories as explicit categories of empire" wherein "the colonial vocabulary of sex is part and parcel of the modern production of heterosexuality as a defining feature of Occidentalism."This is a difficult work: such is what inevitably happens when an academic like Snorton chooses to disrupt mainstream characterizations of marginalized (Black, trans) figures while simultaneously critiquing the languages and knowledge systems that commonly (or perhaps inevitably) pin and mount such figures to the cross of public narrative in the interest of maintaining hegemonic power schemes (white supremacy, cisnormativity, capitalism, kyriarchy). More importantly, this work approaches being trans through being Black (largely in the US sense of the word) when looking at the death cult both categories are forcibly conscripted by (and yet live), which will make it more difficult for the majority demographic of this site. For Snorton asks questions of sex and gender with full regard to the transatlantic slave trade, Black Modernism, and the erasure of Black bodies from canonized (white) Trans narratives, where gender is vivisection, passing is the Fugitive Slave Act, and self-actualization is questionable when the choices are Marvel of White Imperial Power, footnote of a footnote to a (white) true crime podcast, or oblivion. For a more concrete layout of what I mean, here are some authors/works that I hadn't imagined would be useful going into this but am now glad I read/perused to some extent:
I have also declined to reproduce some aspects of the stories that might read as reasonable within contemporary journalistic standards, such as the name the person was given at birth, or a detailed account of when and how that person came to identify as differently gendered. These details, which are fairly commonplace in discussions of trans people, perform gender as teleology which I ask my reader to suspend.
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present - Harriet A. Washington
Black Skin, White Masks - Frantz Fanon
The Souls of Black Folk - W.E.B. Du Bois
Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California - Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Édouard Glissant (fragments)
Michel Foucault (fragments)
Judith Butler (fragments)
Note that all of these is in addition to whatever I've scrounged up through Tumblr during the last fifteen years, scatterings which must have included at least one convincing treatise on the white colonialism that is modern cisheteronormativity, the vital importance of disability theory in intersectionality, breakdowns of just how deeply fucked up the movie Boys Don't Cry truly is, and so much else. So, hate to break it to you, but if you're looking for the narrative equivalent of a Buzzfeed list of Black trans figures of the last 150 years, Snorton is not your guy. If, however, you are sick and tired of being blasted with the constant "To be Black is to perish, to be trans is to perish" background noise inherent of a white cishet settler state and want to not just memorize yet another litany of names but to unsex you here and screw your courage to to the sticking point, this is a deeply rewarding place to congregate.
As Walter Benjamin writes in his eighth tenet in "Theses on the Philosophy of History," "[T]he tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule." Benjamin continues: "We must attain a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism."P.S. Some words I have a newfound appreciation for: restive, imbricate, anxiogenic.
As [Roderick] Ferguson notes, "Doubtless, she knows that her living is not easy. But that's a long way from reducing the components of her identity to the conditions of her labor."
October 18, 2022
theory make my head go “ow”
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November 18, 2023Not sure how to rate! Tremendously important and with a compelling set of arguments and readings, but often difficult to read (both in terms of content and style of writing, use of undefined terminology, blanket assumption of prior knowledge of Spillers, Wynter, Weheliye, Fanon, Marriott, and others). Some of the more micro-level readings of texts and archival moments could feel stretched, or at least rushed and so not fully earned, even if I was on board with where they each arrived in the end. Nonetheless there is more to praise and return to than critique (thinking about chapter 2 of my dissertation, perhaps…), though I do feel like it’s the kind of book you have to read multiple times and that it’s also definitely not designed for readers who don't already know much of the critical conversation.
March 2, 2023
This book was so extremely difficult. Like, the language was difficult. I had to look up so many concepts and words. The author does not do a great job making this book accessible. Sometimes I would understand what’s going on and other times I would have to look up so many things.
April 5, 2019
An extremely complex and academic book discussing the intersections of Blackness and transness by reviewing historical accounts of Black gender nonconforming and trans people, photographs, films, etc. Snorton has some amazing ideas regarding race and gender theory. However, many of the references they make are not explained and therefore to understand the book you may have to do some digging into the things they are referring to. It's very dense and can require multiple passes over a section to understand it. But overall, this is an amazing book with concepts that are really inventive.
February 18, 2019
Just an incredible book; Snorton carefully hammers home his points again and again, drawing together transness and blackness through fungibility, movement, and transversality. It's a book that is so beautifully couched in the works of women of color feminism, queer of color and trans of color critique, and it's something I'm going to be chewing on for a really long time as I think about ways to teach and also write trans history broadly. Just a magnificent book, truly.
October 7, 2018
This text is an absolute must for critical engagements of race and gender in academia and beyond.
March 8, 2024
real rating: 4.5 stars. whew. tough read. vocab and language used is v academic, very dense. subject matter/s of each part of this book are super heavy. however, this is on saidiya hartman levels. the way the author explores transitivity as “an animation of blackness”, and gender as a racialised position that isn’t fixed but almost always moving was pretty mind blowing. this took me AGES to finish. i feel like i still don’t quite understand this text (or a fair bit of the language used) in its entirety but that room for possibility is really exciting? idk feel like i’m rambling but this was fucking sick.
here’s the pdf for those without a copy (my copy was a gift- big up nishat👆🏼- but buy from black or independent bookshops if you can): https://transreads.org/wp-content/upl...
**edit: big time inspired to read work of hortense spillers after this. her lecture ‘to the bone: some speculations on touch’ was a perfect watch alongside reading this: https://youtu.be/AvL4wUKIfpo?si=SOf4v...
**ALSO, this podcast episode featuring an interview with the author c riley snorton discussing this book really helped me to make sense of a lot of the book’s themes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3uHN...
here’s the pdf for those without a copy (my copy was a gift- big up nishat👆🏼- but buy from black or independent bookshops if you can): https://transreads.org/wp-content/upl...
**edit: big time inspired to read work of hortense spillers after this. her lecture ‘to the bone: some speculations on touch’ was a perfect watch alongside reading this: https://youtu.be/AvL4wUKIfpo?si=SOf4v...
**ALSO, this podcast episode featuring an interview with the author c riley snorton discussing this book really helped me to make sense of a lot of the book’s themes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3uHN...
June 16, 2023
So the way author presents his idea of history is based more in mythology and theory (fiction) than it is in fact. Which, ok, I'm fine with a Saidya Hartman approach if I know that's what I'm getting. But I will say that the title really doesn't signal this, and the genre the title does signal (a more standard idea of historical writing) is mostly not present.
For that reason, I will say that the chapter "A Nightmarish Silhouette" was (to me) by far the strongest and clearest articulation of the author's thesis, and the other chapters were a mix of interesting-but-how-is-this-related and frustrating, depending on how deep into the gender studies jargon it got.
I probably wouldn't recommend this to anyone who gets frustrated with pomo literary analysis or Glissant.
For that reason, I will say that the chapter "A Nightmarish Silhouette" was (to me) by far the strongest and clearest articulation of the author's thesis, and the other chapters were a mix of interesting-but-how-is-this-related and frustrating, depending on how deep into the gender studies jargon it got.
I probably wouldn't recommend this to anyone who gets frustrated with pomo literary analysis or Glissant.
October 29, 2023
This book was very impressive. I wish I had read it in a class because I think I would’ve gotten more out of being able to really deconstruct each chapter. It was written in a very academic way which is great but also made it hard for me to keep up at times.
April 30, 2024
review academic book feels silly … enjoyed but felt some language inaccesible ( opaque at times for no reason) for a broader audience (me) that would be into the topics at hand / generally taking away from points made.
Lots to think about / would have loved to read with others/ read again a must to fully grasp all this book has to offer .
Lots to think about / would have loved to read with others/ read again a must to fully grasp all this book has to offer .
come-back-to-this
February 19, 2025read chapters 1-2 and 4-5 for class; pausing to come back to the intro + middle section when school isn't beating my ass all the time because this is so fucking good
March 26, 2025
3.5 I really was not an intended audience for this. This is for academics in the same field that already have subject matter expertise on the subject.
August 2, 2020
This book was clearly well researched, I only wish it had been more meticulously edited and that the author had done more to connect the historical evidence and his conclusions.
March 24, 2023
luin trans rights readhatonintakii
February 9, 2018
Spotted this book as a new addition to the library's collection and thought it would be an especially topical read for Black History Month. The premise that author Snorton would explore the intersections of the histories of transness and blackness sounded really interesting. Black trans women in particular are at risk for violence and while this book is not specifically about that topic it seemed like it would be a good topical read for the moment.
Honestly, it was a difficult book to read. The book follows different paths of history, from medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women to cross-dressing for various reasons (including to escape detection). Although well-researched with lots of references, the text was too academic and unapproachable for me. This could certainly be an issue of my own unfamiliarity but I found it bizarre to see reviews who describe the writing as "beautiful". The cover also seemed misleading as a "racial history of trans identity" since the book really isn't that broad.
There is good material here and maybe it's a matter of what I needed (a more approachable/readable text) vs. what the author was trying to convey. Janet Mock's 'Redefining Realness' is a very readable book (although hers is a memoir of her own experiences vs. Snorton's book as an overview and looking at specific topics) and would recommend Mock's book instead if you haven't read it.
I'd skip this or at least take a look at it to see if it's something you'd really want to purchase or need to read.
Honestly, it was a difficult book to read. The book follows different paths of history, from medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women to cross-dressing for various reasons (including to escape detection). Although well-researched with lots of references, the text was too academic and unapproachable for me. This could certainly be an issue of my own unfamiliarity but I found it bizarre to see reviews who describe the writing as "beautiful". The cover also seemed misleading as a "racial history of trans identity" since the book really isn't that broad.
There is good material here and maybe it's a matter of what I needed (a more approachable/readable text) vs. what the author was trying to convey. Janet Mock's 'Redefining Realness' is a very readable book (although hers is a memoir of her own experiences vs. Snorton's book as an overview and looking at specific topics) and would recommend Mock's book instead if you haven't read it.
I'd skip this or at least take a look at it to see if it's something you'd really want to purchase or need to read.
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