Transgender History: The Roots of Today's Revolution

It's a valuable book, a really good documentation of this moment in transgender acceptance in the US. But it suffers from being entirely US-centric, and mostly San Francisco at that. Also it's difficult to evaluate as history since so much she's writing about is so recent. This edition was published in Nov 2017 and talks about events as late as 2016. That's not history, although it is good clear reporting on current events.

The best part of the book is the early research, the context on transgender identity starting in the 1850s. There's a lot of interesting historical detail here. I wouldn't have minded some more analysis of the construction of gender and sexual identity in general, although the author is well aware of how complicated those topics are and refers to them frequently.

I was also impressed with all the detail of the transgender movement in San Francisco in the 60s and 80s. Some of this is first hand reporting and a lot seems based on oral history. It will probably be the definitive document for this movement.

I just wish the book had a broader base. And some historical remove to reflect on themes and trends instead of individual people and events.