BLACK ON BOTH SIDES: A RACIAL HISTORY OF TRANS IDENTITY - C. RILEY SNORTON

Not sure where I heard of this one, tho I have been meaning to read more contemporary theory as well as getting my head around the abstract implications of trans identities. I hadn’t heard of Snorton before this but this book is really good. Part of it has to do with its unique (at least to me) format, where Snorton straddles the line between history and theory. He does get deep into the philosophical and political ramifications of Black trans identities in a way that’s very theoretical, jargon-y, and far-out in the manner I expect from theory. But he also devotes tons of time to locating and highlighting forgotten Black trans ancestors. Snorton comments on cases from the mid-1800s up to one of the other victims of the Brandon Tenna (of Boys Don’t Cry “fame”) killings. There is a very intriguing story about a person referred to has Beefsteak Pete/Mary James who was a mid 19th century sex-worker that, apparently, had crafted some sort of girdle devise, possibly made out of leather or meat, that allowed men to fuck her. The story was so scandalous that the local papers reported the story in Latin. Snorton must have devoured Black papers to find these amazing trans ancestors. He finds a trans man in mid century Mississippi who is sent to a male prison for cross dressing. That guy also created his own binders and convinced the reporter of his masculinity by lighting a match off of his shoe. Snorton finds a handful of Black trans women in the Jorgensen-era that I had simply never heard of before. I’m more a history guy than a theory guy so I found these sections a bit more interesting. On the theory front, there is amazing stuff about the infamous J. Marion Sims and the ways in which Black women are brutally abused in order to create the scientific foundation of “femaleness” and how US slave law intersected with gender. There’s lots of interesting neologism like “tranifesting” or “anatomopoisesis.” Quotes like, “..ways to be trans, in which gender becomes a terrain to make space for living, a set of maneuvers with which Blacks in the New World had much practice,” make the connections that Snorton is trying to draw clear and interesting. Overall, an engaging read, I made it through much faster than I typically do with theory, I believe because he peppered in the fascinating historical stuff. I’ll leave you with a quote that manages to be something of a mission statement, “Yet theory, at its best, is nothing more than dreams/myths/histories aimed at giving expression to new ways of seeing and ways of being in the world.” 1883 New Genders