Book Talk: Before Gender by Eli Erlick

Join the Center for the Study of Women and Society for our upcoming Book Talk with Eli Erlick. Attendees will have the chance to talk to Erlick about her work with the Trans Archives, the research process for a large-scale project, the publishing process, and more. To learn more about Eli Erlick and her new book, read below. 

Eli Erlick is an activist, author, and educator working as the program director of the NYC Trans Archives, the largest transgender archive on the East Coast. Her first book, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950 (Beacon Press/Manchester University Press, 2025), uncovered thirty trans narratives that radically disrupt popular ideas about transgender people. Her forthcoming book, Outcasts Within: Understanding the Transgender Far Right (University of Chicago Press, 2027), explores why right-wing transgender people adopt their views and what we can do to prevent others from joining them. She holds a PhD in Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she researched the political philosophy and transgender movement strategy. Erlick’s work and writing have been featured in hundreds of outlets, including The New York Times, Time Magazine, and The Washington Post. You can learn more about her work at elierlick.com.

Before Gender: 

Before Gender explores the lives of 30 trans people who radically change everything you’ve been told about transgender history. Highlighting influential individuals from 1850-1950 who are all but unknown today, Eli Erlick shares 30 remarkable stories from romance to rebellion and mystery to murder. Between a 1930 LGBTQ+ riot later covered up by the Nazis to trans teens with the support of their family in the 1860s, Before Gender chronicles the grit, joy, and survival of trans people long before gender became an everyday term. Connecting debates in public and academic history, Erlick proposes a new lens for interpreting figures from the past. Gender helps readers understand the enduring reality of transgender existence while reckoning with the social construction of identity through the exciting narratives missing from the historical canon.

To purchase, go to elierlick.com/beforegender for library and Bookshop.org links, or to Hive Mind Books' page!

Email Csws@gc.cuny.edu with any questions.