Before Gender Quotes

“History has always been a malleable tool used for political ends. Only when we establish a widespread desire to teach the histories of the oppressed can we finally access the broader breadth of our human past and fight for a fairer future.”
― Eli Erlick, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950

“Nature sometimes doesn’t know her business thoroughly and gets conflicting elements mixed in the same body,” a paper commented on Willie in early 1892.121”
― Eli Erlick, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950

“His doctor appeared to be the only one to know his trans status”
― Eli Erlick, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950

“We refused to operate because we considered that at the age of sixteen the [boy’s] mental development was not complete. A few days later”
― Eli Erlick, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950

“Talking about the ‘first case’ also denies agency to earlier trans people”
― Eli Erlick, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950

“The term gender only came into common usage around 1955.3”
― Eli Erlick, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950