Transgender History Quotes

“When people struggling against an injustice have no hope that anything will ever change, they use their strength to survive; when they think that their actions matter, that same strength becomes a force for positive change.”
― Susan Stryker, Transgender History

“Many people believe that gender identity...is rooted in biology...Many other people understand that gender is more like language than like biology; that is, while they understand us humans to have a biological capacity to use language, they point out we are not born with a hard-wired language "preinstalled" in our brains. Likewise, while we have a biological capacity to identify with and learn to "speak" from a particular location in a cultural gender system, we don't come into the world with a predetermined gender identity.”
― Susan Stryker, Transgender History

“When trans and gender-nonconforming lives are lived joyously and unapologetically in plain sight or their hard truths and dangers are spoken out loud, when the knowledge that comes from living those lives is channeled into music and dance, written about and written from, played with and fantasized over, when their beauty and weirdness, their sharp edges and dark recesses are creatively explored and collectively experienced, that is equally as important as heavy political activism.”
― Susan Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution

“Breaking apart the forced unity of sex and gender, while increasing the scope of liveable lives, needs to be a central goal of feminism and other forms of social justice activism. This is important for everybody, especially, but not exclusively, for trans people.”
― Susan Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution

“Rooted in black and Chicana feminist thought, intersectional feminism calls into question the idea that the social oppression of women can be adequately analyzed and contested solely by concentrating on the category “woman.” Intersectional feminism insists that there is no essential “Woman” who is universally oppressed. To understand the oppression of any particular woman or group of women means taking into account all of the things that intersect with their being women, such as race, class, nationality, religion, disability, sexuality, citizenship status, and myriad other circumstances that marginalize or privilege them—including having transgender or gender-nonconforming feelings or identities.”
― Susan Stryker, Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution