Before Gender: Lost stories from trans history 1850-1950 - Eli Erlick

Highlighting influential individuals from 1850 to 1950 who are all but unknown today, Eli Erlick shares thirty remarkable stories from romance to rebellion and mystery to murder. These narratives chronicle the grit, joy and survival of trans people long before gender became an everyday term.

Organised into four parts, paralleling today’s controversies over gender identity – kids, activists, workers and athletes – Before Gender introduces figures whose forgotten stories transform the discussion. These ground-breaking histories include two of the first teens to access gender-affirming medical treatment, a countess who instigated an LGBTQ+ riot forty years before Stonewall and the greatest female billiards player of the 1910s.

Manchester University Press, 2025 
Hardcover, 272pp 
234 x 156mm