Trans Lives

Trans Lives by Raewyn Connell brings to light the challenges and diversity of trans experiences across the globe. In recent years, trans people have been thrust into the spotlight worldwide as never before. Trans groups have become targets of intense online abuse and hostile political and religious campaigns. The media often focuses on a few glamorous trans women or anti-trans attacks, but provides little insight into the everyday realities or global diversity of trans lives.

In this book, Raewyn Connell, a world-leading sociologist and gender researcher, gathers evidence and writes about the lives of trans women and men, hijra, travesti, and other groups worldwide. She examines the forces shaping trans lives, including medicine and its limitations, precarity and poverty, unequal gender relations, the role of sex work, and encounters with the state and the corporate economy.

Connell also explores the reasons behind anti-trans campaigns, criticising the simplistic notion that ‘transphobia’ is the sole explanation, and suggests more potent underlying causes. By delving into the creative ways trans groups have organized, she argues for the significant contributions they can and should make towards resolving our shared contemporary crises.

Written in clear and vivid language, Trans Lives offers illuminating new perspectives on gender transitions and gender itself.