Transgender Rights [Paperback]

Paisley Currah (Editor), Richard M. Juang (Editor), Shannon Price Minter (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0816643121 | ISBN-13: 978-0816643127 | Edition: 1

"Transgender Rights packs a surprising amount of information into a small space. Offering spare, tightly executed essays, this slim volume nonetheless succeeds in creating a spectacular, well-researched compendium of the transgender movement." -Law Library Journal

Over the past three decades, the transgender movement has gained visibility and achieved significant victories. Discrimination has been prohibited in several states, dozens of municipalities, and more than two hundred private companies, while hate crime laws in eight states have been amended to include gender identity. Yet prejudice and violence against transgender people remain all too common.

With analysis from legal and policy experts, activists and advocates, Transgender Rights assesses the movement’s achievements, challenges, and opportunities for future action. Examining crucial topics like family law, employment policies, public health, economics, and grassroots organizing, this groundbreaking book is an indispensable resource in the fight for the freedom and equality of those who cross gender boundaries. Moving beyond media representations to grapple with the real lives and issues of transgender people, Transgender Rights will launch a new moment for human rights activism in America.

Contributors: Kylar W. Broadus, Judith Butler, Mauro Cabral, Dallas Denny, Taylor Flynn, Phyllis Randolph Frye, Julie A. Greenberg, Morgan Holmes, Bennett H. Klein, Jennifer L. Levi, Ruthann Robson, Nohemy Solórzano-Thompson, Dean Spade, Kendall Thomas, Paula Viturro, Willy Wilkinson.

Paisley Currah is associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College, executive director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, and a founding board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute.

Richard M. Juang cochairs the advisory board of the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in Washington, DC. He has taught at Oberlin College and Susquehanna University. He is the lead editor of NCTE's Responding to Hate Crimes: A Community Resource Manual and coeditor of Transgender Justice, which explores models of activism.

Shannon Price Minter is legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a founding board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"With Transgender Rights, Paisely Currah, Richard M. Juang, and Shannon Price Minter have edited a complex, coherent, and necessary collection of articles that navigates these questions with great agility.  Bringing together a group of highly respected and well-known lawyers, academics, and advocates who work within transgender communities, the collection serves as a snapshot in time of the analysis offered by a movement's leaders on that movement's future." —Law and Policy Book Review

"These informative essays will not only provide guideposts for the transgender individual, but will offer information on the legal, historical, and political aspect for their questioning family, friends, and allies." -Lavender Magazine

“Transgender Rights is a magisterial collection of essays covering cutting-edge legal developments, movement histories, and political theory, written by some of the most celebrated names in both trans activism and scholarship. In addition to the three editors—all national figures in the transgender movement—contributors include some of the leading lights in gay and lesbian legal scholarship, such as Kendall Thomas and Ruthann Robson. The collection even includes an essay by Judtih Butler, whose pioneering work using the practices of drag to understand gendering makes her both celebrated and controversial. The essays are all relatively short and accessible to a wide audience, yet they are also uniformly theoretically challenging and conceptually rich, suggesting heroic labor on the part of the editors. This is an indispensable collection.” —Women’s Studies Quarterly

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press; 1 edition (August 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816643121
• ISBN-13: 978-0816643127
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #312,024 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #27 in Books > Law > Legal Theory & Systems > Gender & the Law
  • #80 in Books > Law > Constitutional Law > Civil Rights
  • #86 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Transgender

More About the Author

Paisley Currah is professor of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. His current book project, The United States of Sex: Regulating Transgender looks at contradictions in state definitions of sex. He is co-editor of Corpus: An Interdisciplinary Reader on Bodies and Knowledge (Palgrave, forthcoming in 2011) and Transgender Rights (Minnesota, 2006). Recent articles include, "'We Won't Know Who You Are': Contesting Sex Designations on New York City Birth Certificates," co-authored with Lisa Jean Moore (Hypatia 2009) and "The Transgender Rights Imaginary," in Feminist and Queer Legal Theory: Intimate Encounters, Uncomfortable Conversations (Ashgate Press 2009). He is a founder and board member of the Transgender Law and Policy Institute and served as the executive director of the Center for Lesbian Gay Studies from 2003-2007.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Transgender Movement as social movement September 26, 2006

By Jillian T. Weiss

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This volume of essays conceives transgender as a global social movement for rights, including discussions of law, politics and economics. It is academic in tone, but much of it is accessible to a lay audience. While its essays are wide-ranging, covering such diverse topics as multiculturalism, disability laws and Argentinian concepts of citizenship, there is, to my mind, a theme to these essays: the social contradictions that arise from the attempts of supposedly liberal Western societies to assimilate transgender identity. The title of Jan Morris's gender transition autobiography, "Conundrum," comes to mind. Paisley Currah's discussion of the transgender movement refers to it as one "that seeks the dissolution of the very category under which it is organized." Judith Butler's article about the psychiatric diagnosis of "gender identity disorder" notes that "the price of using the diagnosis to get what one wants is that one cannot use language to say what one really thinks is true." Dean Spade's critique of political economy and the gender compliance it demands discusses how the movement for gender identity non-discrimination constitutes a strategy of normalization that opposes, rather than furthers, the right of gender self-determination central to liberation.

One of the best features of the book is that many of the essays are written by transgender authors, and most of the other authors nonetheless reflect an intimate understanding of the lived experiences of transgender people, rather than an outsider's anthropological perspective. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a broad view of the early 21st century transgender movement.

(originally published at the Transgender Workplace Diversity Blog)

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for transfolk and their allies October 5, 2006

By David N. Parker VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Transgender Rights

Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang, and Shannon Minter, Editors

Transgender Rights is a must for any transperson, family member, or parent who is concerned with transgenders' legal rights.

The book is separated into three sections: Law, which includes examination of recent and current laws and the application. History, which deals with gains achieved during this same period. Politics, which outlines the political actions taken or needed and their repercussions.

Is gender variance a mental or physical condition? Is it fair to consider transgendered individuals disabled? Can these answers and questions be used independently, intermittently, or in conjunction to gain favorable decisions when petitioning authorities?

The authors point out that many states' laws define disability in a fashion that includes gender variance, thus allowing transgenders to sue for protection and/or accommodation under disability laws. Marriage questions similarly vary by state. Some will change the sex designator after gender confirmation surgery and thereby allow the transgender individual to marry in their self-identified gender. Some will insist on using their original birth sex designator through out their lives, regardless of GAS. Finally, some - the Supreme Court of Kansas, for example - refuse to consider transgendered individuals ANY gender; they are neither male no female. This results in NO law that specifies male or female applying to them. They cannot legally marry at all.

All three parts contain a mix of what has been done, what could or should be done, and ideas on how to get from one to the other.

Transgender Rights is at times a difficult read. Based on standard evaluations of writing style and readability, it appears to be targeted on a well-educated audience. Most of the transgender community and their allies are accustomed to researching their needs via books, conferences, and web sites. They are self-educated in everything relating to their experience. This book will enhance their knowledge. Whether they encounter legal challenges or engage in political advocacy, this work can be their guide.

Dave Parker

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars important information you need to know January 4, 2007

By P. J. Mansfield

Format:Paperback

this book was jam-packed with information for people like myself and also gave web sites to do more reasurch. It explained the laws and basic rights we have and ways to help overcome discrimination.