Discover the trailblazing lives of thirty trans people who will radically change everything you've been told about transgender history.Highlighting influential individuals from 1850 to 1950 who are all but unknown today, Gower Street invites you to this wonderful opportunity to hear some remarkable stories from author Eli Erlick. The narratives you hear this evening will chronicle the grit, joy and survival of trans people long before gender became an everyday term.
Organised into four parts, paralleling today's controversies over gender identity - kids, activists, workers and athletes - Before Gender introduces figures whose forgotten stories transform the discussion. These ground-breaking histories include two of the first teens to access gender-affirming medical treatment, a countess who instigated an LGBTQ+ riot forty years before Stonewall and the greatest female billiards player of the 1910s.
Bold and visionary, Erlick's debut uncovers these lost stories from the depths of the archives to narrate trans lives in a way that has never been attempted before.Eli Erlick is an internationally acclaimed activist, author and educator. In 2011, she founded Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER), an organisation dedicated to transforming the educational environment for trans students. Since then, she has been at the forefront of social justice issues through her research, organising and cultural criticism. Erlick's work and writing have been featured in hundreds of outlets, including the New York Times, Time Magazine and the Washington Post. She lives in New York City, where she continues to fight for trans liberation.
