Abstract
The central question of The Remarkable Rise of Transgender Rights is: “How has the transgender movement, despite its small size and political marginalization, been able to secure a remarkable amount of transgender-inclusive policy in just a few decades?” (p. 12). This singular lens is one of the book’s greatest strengths. Unpacking the factors enabling one small-in-numbers, underfinanced, and underresourced marginalized community to achieve so much progress so quickly offers guidance for other oppressed communities, the social workers within them, and all those advocating on behalf of these groups. Taylor, Lewis, and Haider-Markel’s book is an exciting new resource for teaching community-engaged practice, policy, advocacy, and human rights courses within social work education. The inclusion of a transgender author and voices of trans community leaders moves the work from being one of many texts written by cisgender, or unidentified and assumed “neutral” outsiders, and thereby strengthens the integrity of the work.
For those for whom this population is new, the book begins by describing both historical and current conceptualizations of sex, gender roles/expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation, as well as the evolution of relevant terms and vocabulary. It describes the shift away from the medicalization and pathologizing of trans identities to the development of a collective transgender identity and how this contributed to the emergence of an increasingly effective social, political, and advocacy movement.
Drawing on interviews with community leaders, the authors offer a complex description of the evolving relationship between trans communities and the gay and lesbian rights movement, factors that led to alliances between these groups, and those that impeded collaboration. Thorough yet concise, this overview is valuable even for those well-versed in transgender issues.
While they address the growing shifts in public awareness and attitudes toward transgender people, as political scientists, the authors view public opinion as a contributor to policy change, though not the primary objective. They hold that the real success of a social movement rests in the degree to which it effectively creates legislative, judicial, and executive policies that benefit the lives of those within that community—policies that create greater access within societal institutions, provide equal benefits, and protect against discrimination.
Given this standard, the bulk of the book focuses on numerous areas of policy change (e.g., health care, education, criminal justice) and how these were achieved. The well-organized and comprehensive discussion of pathways to social change includes direct democracy contests such as referendums and ballot initiatives, legal and judicial processes and decisions, and advances within legislative bodies and executive branches of government on local, state, and federal levels. The authors’ portrayal of routes to social change provides an excellent road map for students. Given the volume and density of material presented, the book is best suited for graduate- and doctoral-level coursework.
The greatest limitation of this text is the absence of material exploring intersections of race and class. The authors discuss ways the lesbian and gay rights movement jettisoned transgender people and their needs early on yet fail to address who is and is not included within mainstream lesbian and gay and transgender rights movements in terms of race and class. Consequently, they also fail to explore how achieved policy changes differentially impact trans people of color and those living in poverty. While the discussion of hate crimes laws acknowledges the high incidence of violence in communities of color, this section fails to address intersections of gender, given that trans women of color are most at risk. The book’s central question would be strengthened by exploring the dramatic progress in attaining trans rights, not only in terms of the community’s small size and political marginalization but also the widespread discrimination, poverty, and violence experienced by so many in trans communities of color.
While the current federal administration has rolled back many previously implemented policy changes and is already reshaping the judiciary through anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender appointments, the authors call these short-term setbacks and argue that the transgender rights movement has “developed into a robust and institutionalized social movement that can ‘outpunch its weight class’ through its inclusion in the LGBT rights coalition and in the Democratic Party” (p. 306). Their “cautious optimism for the future” injects a welcome note of hope for all those working for equity and social justice.
