Teaching Trans History

Created Spring 2019 by the students of Stanford University Femgen 113: Transgender Studies

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Trans History Puzzles

If you enjoyed our first lesson with a trans crossword, try these other two puzzles as well. 

Trans Movies Crossword

Famous Trans People Word Search

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History through Coloring Books

Coloring books are a great way, for kids and adults alike, to see things come alive.

After giving a lesson on trans or LGBTQ history, give students this coloring book to help connect with the material they just learned. 

Coloring book can be found here.

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Project: Researching Trans History

There is limited information about trans history, and what exists is often hard to find and either coded or sensationalized. This activity will teach students how to be critical historical scholars while researching an aspect of trans history.

This activity is meant to be completed after an introductory activity to trans history like the one posted on our website. By the end of this project, your students will have the materials necessary to put on your own trans history event similar to the one our class put on at the end of GLAM.

INSTRUCTIONS

Introduce the assignment and give your students context. Make sure to prepare your students and let them know that many historical representations of transness are presented in a sensational (eg. “Man Living as a Woman!”) manner, and give the subjects of the stories little to no agency in telling their own stories. Many of these accounts are also written following the death of the person in question, ensuring that we cannot hear their voice.

Give students about 10 to 15 minutes to browse resources such as A Gender Variance Who’s Who and the Digital Transgender Archive. Students should use this time to come up with a short list of topics they might be interested in researching. 

After giving students some time to research a topic they are interested in (suggested about a week), come back together as a class and share what you learned from the research process.

When doing research, encourage students to consider the context of which any primary sources are written. Who is getting to tell whose story?

What is easy to find information about? What is difficult to find information about? Why do you think that is?

Gather students into small groups of about 3 or 4 based on who has similar topics. Have them work together to create media (eg. a poster, a video) that synthesizes and presents their research.

If you are interested in holding a history event, you now have all the materials. If you do not want to put together a full-fledged event, you can host a smaller scale version where students present and share their research with each other.

Debrief the process with your students. What went well, and what might you change in the future? What is the biggest thing that you learned? What are you still wondering about?

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BOTH AND NOT EITHER OR: a Trans Manifesto

We make history; history makes us.

         On April 29th of 2019, 13 students organized to present their own introduction to trans histories past and present, and in this way, enact critical interventions to recover the lives, voices, and revolutionary work of marginalized communities who have been and continue to be rendered absent and dismissed from dominant, hegemonic narratives of trans histories and futures. We also recognize the many ways in which our own introduction of trans histories will contain absences in itself, and therefore, name this manifesto to situate this introductory work within a larger framework and movement to reimagine what trans histories and futures can and must be.

We declare…

1.“Transgender” as a Western Concept

Trans history must acknowledge the impact of imposed Western and colonial ideas.

“Transgender” is a concept born in the West and we should be mindful of what we, as people embedded in the West, are considering trans.

Trans history must acknowledge the legacies and continued existence of gender variance within indigenous communities across the globe. This acknowledgement must include recognition of how colonization, including the violent erasure of “queer” identity and expression within indigenous communities, has created a facade of newness and Western claim over queerness when it realistically can only be seen as such because of colonial violence. At the same time, it is important to understand that applying the term “queer” or “transgender” to such indigenous communities - especially to indigenous communities in history - is not always appropriate considering the Western creation of these precise labels, and considering the creation and continued existence of culturally specific terminology such as Two-Spirit.

2. LANGUAGE

Trans history must remember and honor the language used today and in the past.

We know and acknowledge that words and labels have histories, often histories of pain. We recognize and use the words and labels our ancestors used to describe themselves. We give power the power of self-determination to our ancestors, a thing often stolen from them.

Trans history should reflect how language/terminology was (mis)used throughout history, how certain terminology emerged/in what contexts it emerged and also reflect on its own use of language

Trans history should respect the language that activists used to describe and understand themselves and try not to project modern terminology on historical figures who have rejected it, especially in communities of color and working class communities.

3. “Passing,” Privilege and Accessibility to Trans Identity

Trans history must not gatekeep because of passing or dysphoria.

We recognize that to be one does not have to be “passing” to be trans. We understand that not everyone was able to afford the safety of being “out” as trans. We understand that not everyone in our histories knew what being “trans” is/was.

Understanding trans histories should not come with the prerequisite of a college education. These histories should be made with a commitment to learning and teaching folks of all backgrounds.

Trans histories should acknowledge that being able to “pass” (or even desiring to pass) is a product of race, class, and ability and has no bearing on the legitimacy of an individual’s trans experience.

4. Remembering and Honoring

Trans histories are about remembering: remembering languages once used to describe people like us, remembering stories that will help us tell our own, remembering …

Trans history should remember and honor those community members who have lost their lives and point to the continued violence against trans people’s existence today.

Trans history should honor those that were revolutionaries and those that worked within the system, while acknowledging that both options are not always open

5. Trans History as Embodied Identities

Trans history must acknowledge histories embodied, knowledges created through lived experience.

We make our history; history makes us

6. Transphobia as a mechanism of white supremacy and classism.

Trans history is rich and cannot be summarized by any one narrative.

Trans history must acknowledge that trans lives are varied and complex and cannot be represented by a few lives or actions (eg christine jorgensen, lives that are white, wealthy, medically transitioned, and binary)

Trans history should center the histories of racialized People of Color, low-income people, whose lives and experiences are locations and examples of pain and suffering caused by the interlocking forces of white supremacy, classism and capitalism, heteropatriarchy, settler colonialism, and xenophobia, but also survival, resistance, and joy.

We must acknowledge and center the role of white supremacy in the violent creation, imposition, and maintenance of transphobia, both throughout history and in the present. We must especially acknowledge the way that white and upper-class trans people themselves benefit from these systems!

7. LABOR

Trans history should place the onus on cis people to actually do the work of seeking out trans histories. Trans people have done the work of creating, changing, making, living histories and it’s exhausting to ask us to also do the work of presenting these histories to cis people.

8. Abolish Hierarchies within Trans communities based on medical transition history!

Trans history must acknowledge how privilege exists within the trans community.

Trans history should acknowledge the hierarchies constructed by the medical industrial complex that place trans people who medically transition as more valid than those who transition in other ways. We contend that these hierarchies are bullshit, and that One. Does. Not. Need. Dysphoria. To. Be. Trans.

→ We also contend that dysphoria itself is a reductive and dangerous concept that attempts to homogenize diverse and highly individual experiences.

9. Who is trans history for?

Trans history is for trans people and all trans people.

Trans History can never be all-encompassing due to the histories that have been strategically erased, buried, and destroyed. Trans history does not purport to be representative of all experiences, but should decenter whiteness and upper-class narratives.

Trans histories can exist non-linearly, in our relationships to past and future and our processes of healing the present.

Trans histories only exist because of what came before trans history; what comes before Trans History cannot ever be fully contained by Trans History.

Trans histories demonstrate the wide range of strategies people have made to survive

Trans history is for everyone and trans history is ours and trans history is only for us, against us and within us

10. Trans Youth

Trans youth have the right to grow up in a world where all of these tenets exist.

The onus should not be on the youth to create this world for themselves. The onus is on us to create a world where trans youth feel safe and protected. We appreciate and honor those who came before us and look forward to the next generation of trans people and their journeys.

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Introduction for GLAM’s “Trans History in the Bay and Beyond” Event 4/29/19

Hello everyone and welcome to our event!

We are students of Maxe Crandall’s Transgender History seminar here at Stanford, and this event was developed in class and through group activities as a way to culminate G.L.A.M. programming for the month of April. If you look around the room, you will see our rendition of snapshots of long and varied histories that could never be done justice in a single evening. Our goal is not to portray all of trans history, but to demonstrate that we have arrived where we are today through the lives and stories of those who have come before us. Additionally, we emphasize the importance of being aware of where we come from and honoring the actions and sacrifices of those who came before.

We especially focus this session on making trans history more visible, diverse, and accessible. Before we begin, we would like to be transparent about certain difficulties we have come to face when working on this project.

First of all, we are aware of how history construction generally runs the risk of silencing voices and omitting stories, specifically those of oppressed peoples. Trans people were (and are) systemically and systematically denied access to and excluded from canonic history timelines. They were given very little opportunity to tell their personal stories, and when the chance arose, their narratives were often warped into that of dishonesty, inauthenticity, sensationalism, and deceit. And while this program acts as an attempt to create a more diverse portrait of trans history, we know that we do not and could never represent all parts of this history.

Another problem that we face is that we are using terminology and concepts of transness that are very, very Western. We must acknowledge that the term “transgender” was coined in Western society and does very little to convey the complexity of concepts relating to gender identity of other non-Western and indigenous cultures and societies. This naming of the topic of “Trans History” in itself can be an erasure of other identities whose histories deserve just as much programming and inclusion in curriculum as Western identities do.

In the same vein, terminology surrounding gender identity and expression is also a very quickly-evolving terminology such that there are even discrepancies over history within a Western context where people we would refer to as “transgender” today would not have used that language to self-identify in their time period. We must be cognizant of not imposing our language onto these figures simply for convenience sake so that we don’t alter their personal histories and recount their stories as accurately as possible.

If you look around, you’ll see that we have themed booths that each tell a different part of a trans history. The students of each booth will now briefly explain what part they represent. (…) In the middle of the room, instead of a “timeline”, we also have our own “Non-Linear Collaborative Time-Web”, and we invite you to contribute what you know about trans history by adding and rearranging events.

Throughout our time here together, please feel free to move between the booths, ask questions, immerse yourself, and push yourself to learn! Thank you for coming!

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Land Acknowledgement

We stand today as unwelcome visitors on the occupied and unceded land of the Ramaytush Ohlone and Muwekma Ohlone peoples. We acknowledge both the Ramaytush Ohlone and Muwekma Ohlone peoples and pay special respects to elders of these tribes, both past and present.

We want to acknowledge the violence we perpetuate in standing here. Our involvement with Stanford University further enmeshes us in a colonial project that has forever altered local ecologies, human and otherwise. Stanford continues to promote this colonial legacy through land occupation as well as in names of buildings, streets, and language in official business documents. Stanford itself is built on Indigenous land, and Leland Stanford’s fortune came directly from dispossessing Indigenous land and exploiting Indigenous labor. Our presence here at Stanford (and for many of us, presence in our homelands) is only possible because of perpetuated colonial violence.

We want to acknowledge that the colonial project, built on the theft of Indigenous land and ongoing genocide and forced assimilation of Indigenous peoples, lies at the heart of all systems of oppression, including and in particular the violence against trans people in America today. We acknowledge that terms and roles of gender and sexuality were imposed upon Indigenous peoples, including the Muwekma Ohlone and Ramaytush Ohlone, by colonizers bent on subjugating Indigenous peoples, Indigenous women in particular. Trans, Two-Spirit, and gender nonconforming Native and Indigenous people are central to social justice visions of liberation and revolution.

We know that this acknowledgement is only the beginning of understanding – in hopes of dismantling – the ongoing legacies and present projects of colonialism. We encourage those present here today, including ourselves, to actively engage with spaces and programming related to dismantling colonialism that are both led by Indigenous people and open to all. We know that this land acknowledgment is useless and performative without such further action taken on our parts to uphold Indigenous sovereignty and not only decolonize this world, but Indigenize it.

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Teaching Activity: Introduction to Trans History

Often a barrier to including transgender figures and history in our classrooms is not knowing how to start as an educator coupled with the fear that our students won’t know how to react with this new material. This teaching activity is meant to facilitate some of those fears and barriers of teaching trans folks and history.

This teaching activity is a short crossword puzzle with some notable trans figures and events crucial to teaching transgender histories. This crossword is meant to be the introduction to a new unit on trans history. It gives students the opportunity to familiarize themselves with some of the language, history, and people you will be speaking about in the unit. Additionally, it provides students the opportunity to gain comfort in using the Internet as a mode of research, hopefully also gaining comfort and confidence in researching transgender people and issues.

INSTRUCTIONS

Introduce the assignment as the opportunity to learn more about a group of people often left out of history books. This assignment is meant to serve as an introduction to some of the things we’ll be learning about in our new unit. Hopefully on top of learning more about this group of people, we will also learn how to better use the Internet to find answers to our questions.

Be sure to include language about how this is a group of people who are often the butt of jokes and subject to unfair and unequal treatment and how in this classroom we will treat this group and each other with respect. This would be a good place to establish classroom norms like “assume best intent” and “impact over intent”. If the school has a non-discrimination policy, please remind students of said policy.

If possible, include language about how trans and transgender is the preferred group terms and how other terms you may have heard can be disrespectful and hurtful so please refrain from using them (including terms like tranny, transsexual, she-male, etc.). 

Before passing out copies of the crossword, write down some places that students might find answers like Google, Wikipedia, and A Gender Variance Who’s Who. Additionally ask students to jot down anything interesting they find about what they search for a larger class share out at the end.

Pass out crossword and set a timer for 10 minutes (feel free to shorten if you notice students are finishing sooner).

As a class, share out the answers to each question and if anybody found anything interesting about what they searched now would be a great time to have them share it out to the class.

After the activity is over, thank the students for such great work investigating and sharing out. Thank them for being respectful and willing to learn about this community together. After this you can go on to introduce the unit, what you’ll be learning about specifically, timeline of unit, and any other important information.

Crossword puzzle can be found here!

Answers to the crossword puzzle can be

found here

!

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High School English Lesson Guide

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this lesson plan is to use memoirs written by trans authors to examine the importance of language and voice. Additionally, students will leave this lesson with a understanding that everything written is situated in the circumstances it was written, we cannot separate the history of the author from the author’s work.

TEXT

For this lesson plan we will be using the memoir Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen by Arin Andrews. This 2014 memoir was published the same year Arin graduated from high school and focuses on Arin’s experience coming out as a trans man, both to himself and others. This book serves as a great introduction to trans voices, trans experiences, and trans terminology. Written by a high schooler, this book has the potential to connect with students in a more authentic way.

GUIDE

Since this text is a bit long (almost 300 pages), I think it best to split the book across at least two weeks of instruction. However before we begin actually reading the book, it’s important to first establish classroom norms since talking about the trans community requires empathy, understanding, and delicacy. Additionally, I suggest teachers start the unit by creating a trans timeline with their students, based on existing knowledge of the trans community. So without using technology, as a class come up with a timeline or word cloud of the trans community. This will set up one of the WHY’s for reading this text as this text can serve to illuminate new things about this community.

Once the book has been introduced and assigned, one should open the class with a discussion of the last things we read — think of it as a form of book club. We want to see what the students are getting out of this book and if we need to direct them to look for more things in the text. That is, we want to see what the students are learning about Arin’s story and how it relates to our objectives. Are the students seeing how Arin’s voice helps to guide and frame the story? Are the students seeing how Arin’s experience is happening this way because of the circumstances of his life? Are the students connecting with Arin, regardless of gender identity?

As necessary pull in other texts or excerpts that can shine light on our objectives. Perhaps pull excerpts from a trans memoir written by someone older to serve as a point of comparison for Arin’s voice and style. Or perhaps pull excerpts from Rethinking Normal (a memoir written by Katie Hill, Arin’s girlfriend, who writes about her experiences as a trans women) as another point of comparison for Arin’s voice.

Additionally, I would suggest bringing in outside material to help situate Arin as a trans man. This would involve bringing in some events in trans history. Perhaps talk about Magnus Hirschfeld and how his groundbreaking work on trans people was burned by Nazi bookburners. Or perhaps bring in articles about trans celebrities, both contemporary and historical (such as Christine Jorgensen and Caitlyn Jenner) to talk about how trans lives are sensationalized and ogled. Work, throughout the unit, to fill in the blanks that presented themselves in the opening activity.

Once the class has completed the text, introduce an assignment of writing one’s own memoir essay. This assignment will help the students understand the importance of voice by encouraging them to find their own voice and their own story. Additionally, this assignment will hopefully give the students tools that will help them write personal statements for colleges and scholarship committees. To assist in writing, I suggest pulling memoir essays, interviews, podcasts from people across a variety of identities and with different voices to give the students guides and inspirations for writing their own text. The assignment itself will be short (3-5 pages) but will serve as a conclusion to this unit.

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Stanford GLAM 2019 Calendar