Cisgender

In <I>Cisgender</I>, Perry Zurn turns an incisive yet playful eye toward the “norm” against which transgender gets defined. A cisgender person is informally understood as someone who doctors called male or female at birth, became a boy or girl, and finally lived as a man or woman – without fuss. It’s this “without fuss” that anchors the cis/trans binary as it has come to be understood and belies the complex relationship all people have with gender. How did this category arise? And what else might it do? <I>Cisgender</I> is the first book to trace the story of how <I>cis</I> entered contemporary gender lexicons. Utilizing unplumbed archives and fresh interviews, Zurn offers a critical history of the term from the 1990s to the present, deftly defamiliarizing and reimagining cis at the same time. This unique examination of cisgender is a must-read for all readers invested in trans life and the futures of gender.