Book Review: Trans/Forming Feminisms: Trans- Feminist Voices Speak Out

The relationship between feminist praxis and trans subjectivities within and beyond academe is fraught with tensions. Since the early 1990s, “trans studies ” has emerged as an independent interdisciplinary field through critical engagements with theories of sex, gender and sexuality developed by women’s studies and queer theory. Initially, trans intellectuals sought to counter radical feminist assertions, such as those of Janice Raymond (1994) that trans individuals were dupes of the system whose expressions of hyper-normative femininity and masculinity buttressed patriarchy (Stone 2006; Stryker 2006). To do so, much emphasis was placed on celebratory descriptions of trans identities existing in spite of the rigid sex/gender binary. Recently, the focus of trans commentary has shifted towards problematizing trans identities in terms of their emergence out of systemic power relations that privilege heteronormative masculinities, femininities, whiteness, nationalism and citizenship status, as well as middle class professionals (Spade 2006; Feinberg 2006). It is here that we witness the influence of feminism and the possibilities of rekindling alliances between feminist and trans scholars that will enrich all aspects of critical analysis of sex an