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Trans Kids is a trenchant ethnographic and interview-based study of the first generation of families affirming and facilitating gender nonconformity in children. Earlier generations of parents sent such children for psychiatric treatment aimed at a cure, but today, many parents agree to call their children new names, allow them to wear whatever clothing they choose, and approach the state to alter the gender designation on their passports and birth certificates.
Drawing from sociology, philosophy, psychology, and sexuality studies, sociologist Tey Meadow depicts the intricate social processes that shape gender acquisition. Where once atypical gender expression was considered a failure of gender, now it is a form of gender. Engaging and rigorously argued, Trans Kids underscores the centrality of ever more particular configurations of gender in both our physical and psychological lives, and the increasing embeddedness of personal identities in social institutions.
“Trans Kids shows us how stories are social actions and how description can let us understand the lived struggle of trans kids as they find themselves defined within any number of social forms. In this book, new stories make for new knowledge and new forms of care. This thoughtful work helps bring an expansive sensibility into the world.”—Judith Butler, author of Gender Trouble, Bodies that Matter, and Undoing Gender
“This is the leading edge of trans today.”—Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw
“A major, clear-eyed, and beautifully written contribution to thinking intelligently and empathetically about gender today.”—Don Kulick, author of Travesti
“Carefully researched, deeply thoughtful, and beautifully written. This book captures the fear, love, and hope that swirl around these lives and tells us something important—and new—about gender itself.”—Raewyn Connell, author of Masculinities