Precedented

A groundbreaking new history of trans families. Precedented writes against the prevailing narrative by showing how family has never been the unchanging, biologically essentialist tradition it's often presented as. Trans and queer people aren't threatening to destroy an ancient, natural institution: they've been complicating it from the very beginning. Greek and Christian myths of birthing fathers, adopted sons of gender-nonconforming Roman emperors, clandestine eighteenth-century trans marriages, sisterhoods forged in the pages of twentieth-century newsletters - all of them show us that while the idea of family has been leveraged against trans people, trans people have never stopped building families of our own. It shows trans and gender-nonconforming people today that, if we want family, it is possible for us; that we have a point of connection, solidarity and inspiration in history. Drawing on stories ranging from that of the sixteenth-century Swiss philosopher who wanted to grow his own baby, the trans children of East and Southeast Asia, and the drag mothers of the US black ballroom scene, Precedented shows that trans families have always existed and that presenting them as unprecedented prevents trans people from being fully recognised or their experiences and needs being taken into account. Kit Heyam frames this narrative within the story of their own pregnancy providing a unique combination of history, social analysis and memoir. Precedented shows us different, better ways of thinking about the relationship between gender, biology and family. Combatting contemporary political narratives, Kit Heyam explores how feminist struggles are entangled with struggles for trans liberation, and that women stand to gain the most from thinking about family differently. Western culture today has much to learn not just from our own past, but from the glorious variety of many-gendered families across the world.