Cisgender

Disorienting a Category

By: Perry Zurn

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Paperback | 7 July 2026

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Paperback
288 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
15.0 x 22.8 x 2.0

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In Cisgender, Perry Zurn turns an incisive yet playful eye toward the “norm” against which transgender gets defined. A cisgender person is informally understood as someone who doctors called male or female at birth, became a boy or girl, and finally lived as a man or woman – without fuss. It’s this “without fuss” that anchors the cis/trans binary as it has come to be understood and belies the complex relationship all people have with gender. How did this category arise? And what else might it do? Cisgender is the first book to trace the story of how cis entered contemporary gender lexicons. Utilizing unplumbed archives and fresh interviews, Zurn offers a critical history of the term from the 1990s to the present, deftly defamiliarizing and reimagining cis at the same time. This unique examination of cisgender is a must-read for all readers invested in trans life and the futures of gender.

Industry Reviews

"This is the definitive book on the genealogies, uses, and panics that inform and animate the circulation of the term cis-. With engrossing prose and an expansive archive, Cisgender offers readers the opportunity to reflect on what was, what is, and what could have been. A must-read for anyone interested in gender and politics!"-C. Riley Snorton, co-author of A Black Queer History of the United States

"Perry Zurns Cisgender gives voice to that important moment in a minority discourse where the discourse turns back to critique the dominant frame that minoritizes it. But it does far more than that - it deconstructs the cis/trans binary, in a welcome way, to open new conceptual worlds within and between both terms. May it launch many productive conversations." -Susan Stryker, author of, Transgender History

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