Recommended by Jen Manion
These two books are among my favourites – I teach them all the time and they’re also really accessible. One is
Transgender History by Susan Stryker (Seal Press, 2017), which is an introductory overview of the transgender rights movement in contemporary US society.
The other is probably lesser known, but it’s called
Queer Injustice (Beacon Press, 2011) and it was co-authored by historians, lawyers and activists. It’s a beautiful synthesis of queer history and experience in the US in relation to the criminal justice system. And part of what it does is capture a more diverse group of our communities’ experiences. But it also reminds [us] that, up until very recently, being queer was criminalised: people were incarcerated for their love, and that it’s actually just a very new phenomenon that homosexuality does not subject one to criminalisation, even in modern times.