other networks

This month’s book is The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet by Avery Dame-Griff. We invite you all to share your thoughts as you read along here or on Mastodon/Instagram/Bluesky!

About the book:

The Two Revolutions explores how the rise of the internet shaped transgender identity and activism from the 1980s to the present. Through extensive archival research and media archeology, Avery Dame-Griff reconstructs the manifold digital networks of transgender activists, cross-dressing computer hobbyists, and others interested in gender nonconformity who incited the second revolution of the title: the ascendance of “transgender” as an umbrella identity in the mid-1990s.

Dame-Griff argues that digital communications sparked significant momentum within what would become the transgender movement, but also further cemented existing power structures. Covering both a historical period that is largely neglected within the history of computing, and the poorly understood role of technology in queer and trans social movements, The Two Revolutions offers a new understanding of both revolutions–the internet’s early development and the structures of communication that would take us to today’s tipping point of trans visibility politics. Through a history of how trans people online exploited different digital infrastructures in the early days of the internet to build a community, The Two Revolutions tells a crucial part of trans history itself.

About the Author:

Avery Dame-Griff is Lecturer in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Gonzaga University. He founded and curates the Queer Digital History Project (queerdigital.com).