NOTE: This week’s update is a transcription of a live interview done as part of the Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays podcast. Special thanks to Kate Rascali for the transcription!
Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This week we have TRANS HISTORY 3, INTERVIEW WITH ALEX L. COMBS AND ANDREW EAKETT, creators of the graphic novel, Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day.
Tilly Bridges: Hi! I’m Tilly Bridges, your host, and I’m joined by my writing partner, my best friend, my wife, our token cis representation, the lady who puts the graphic in my novel, Susan Bridges.
Susan Bridges: Hello!
TB: Our guests this week are Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett, a married trans couple and creative team living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Making a graphic novel about trans history was a dream project, and they can’t wait for more people to read the good news: trans people are not new, and we are here to stay. Welcome, Alex and Andrew!
Alex L. Combs & Andrew Eakett (together): Hi Tilly!
TB: Oh, that was nice! You kind of harmonized in there.
Alex L. Combs: Thanks so much for having us.
Andrew Eakett: Yes, thank you.
Tilly Bridges: Of course! I’m so excited to get to talking about your book. But first, I want to help folks out there that are listening get to know you a little bit better. So, I wanted to ask for the two of you, what do you think has been the best thing about transitioning?
Combs: For me, definitely the best thing is just getting to openly live and express a part of myself that is essentially a dream come true. There were points that I thought it was just a secret, or a few people might sort of know. I never thought I would be here at 40 years old getting to just share that part of myself with the world.
TB: Yeah, it’s it’s magic actually getting to just be yourself every day, right? You wake up and you’re like, I get to do this again. I just get to be me. It’s so cool.
Combs: Exactly.
Eakett: Yeah, that’s that’s pretty much it, my answer wouldn’t be much different from that. It’s just that having the life that I didn’t really know was possible, become a real, possible thing, that makes me part of society in a way I didn’t feel like I was before, because I was in this like limbo, this identity limbo.
TB: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Eakett: Yeah, and knowing who I am and being who I am, it’s definitely made everything different before transitioning and after transitioning. And it’s like night and day and I’m glad to be in the day.
TB: Oh, you said it so perfectly. Oh, my heart, yes, exactly right. Because, you know, pre-transition, I just felt like everything was so dull and muted and awful, and it was just like you didn’t know that everyone didn’t feel that way. At first, you’re like this is just what life is, right, and no, it’s not, and it doesn’t have to be that way. And that’s beautiful.
Combs: Yeah, yeah.
TB: Okay. So on the other side of that, are there aspects of transitioning that you found to be particularly difficult to deal with?
Eakett: I know I do have one. And this is something I don’t hear talked about enough and that is the amount of paperwork and bureaucracy involved after you change your name.
TB: Yes, there’s so much.
Eakett: The havoc that was wreaked upon my credit report, and it’s just a lot. We focus a lot on just getting it done, which is great. Like, getting the name change is great. But then I feel like we’re kind of left out there to try to figure it out. Well, what do I do now? Because it’s not like everyone knows that your name has changed. You know the credit card companies don’t know, the report companies don’t know. All these accounts don’t know, and they all have different methods and protocols and processes for changing names, and some of them are quicker on their feet than others. Some lose the paperwork more often than others. And that’s something, I think, that it’s just to kind of brace yourself for that, even after you’ve done that bureaucracy of changing your name with social security and the government, and getting a driver’s license. There’s a whole other step that I’m not even done with, and it’s been a long time. So yeah, that’s what I… Bureaucracy.
TB: Yeah, it’s something that just goes on and on. You don’t know how much there is that has your legal name on it, that once you change that, it’s just like, Oh, God! Another thing, oh, no! Another one. I’ve got to come out to another group of strangers through an email and say, “Hey, fix your company stuff for me.”
SB: Or then you get something weird years later that pops up with your deadname on it, and it’s just out of nowhere. And you’re like what the…?
TB: I didn’t even remember these people, and now they have my wrong name. And do I care? Is this worth it to fix it with them?
Eakett: Yeah, yeah.
SB: The mental calculus of it.
TB: Yeah. There’s so much.
Eakett: What about you, Alex?
Combs: I’m just gonna go with a simple answer. Transphobia. It’s awful.
TB: It’s the worst, it’s the worst!
Combs: Can we just stop?
TB: Right? It’s not hard. We’re not hurting anybody. Just leave us alone.
Combs: I know, right? Sheesh.
SB: Have you tried not sucking?
TB: They have not!
SB: Mind giving it a shot?
TB: That should be step one.
SB: Just making a suggestion.
Eakett: Yeah.
TB: Okay, well, if you had any advice for people just starting their transitions, what would it be? Or maybe even what do you wish you knew going in ahead of time? Like, is there some piece of advice you wish someone had given you that would have helped you a lot?
Eakett: I think my advice would be to really get to know yourself as well as possible. Like, while you’re learning about trans things and thinking about coming out, and getting excited about the possibilities, don’t neglect those parts of you that have nothing to do with trans stuff. It can be really tempting to find a label and feel like that kind of explains everything.
TB: Sure.
Eakett: But the label is- that’s a shorthand for something that’s a lot more complex and nuanced, and you can’t. You’re not gonna. I wish it were easy enough to just find the people who have the same label as you and those are your people. And I think that’s some advice I guess I would give, is… don’t just think that labels are everything. Try to get to know yourself on a more nuanced individual level.
TB: I think that’s great, because also you may find a label that you feel fits you or mostly fits you. But you may find that none of them do. And that’s okay, too. We’re all individuals, and you don’t have to conform to anyone else’s expectations of whatever flavor of trans you are, is.
Eakett: Absolutely. Yeah.
Combs: I guess mine would just be don’t feel pressured to reach any kind of endpoint. I feel like that’s just a common sort of misconception, or at least it was when I was coming out, and probably still is. And it’s not that people have a bad intention thinking it. But I just remember, I was doing a photo shoot, part way after I’ve been on hormones. But I hadn’t had top surgery, and I wanted to like get some glamour shots, and my photographer was like, “Oh, well, I want to get you before and after” and I’m like, “Well, this is after.” This is me, you know. She was trying to just be really supportive. That’d be my advice to trans people just coming out like try not to feel like there’s necessarily a set end goal.
TB: Yeah, it’s a journey, and it’s about finding yourself along the way, and you may- who knows where it’s gonna end? If it ever does. It may be a lifetime journey for most of us. And that’s okay.
Combs: Yeah, everyone changes over time and–
TB: Yes!
Combs: Context and everything. So what’s working at one point might not always be how you feel. You might want to change your pronouns again. It doesn’t matter. It’s fine.
TB: Yeah, that’s all cool. Whatever you decide at the beginning, you think is right, doesn’t have to be the final thing. You can still adjust as you go.
Combs: Or it can be, but it doesn’t have to be.
TB: Right! Exactly. Okay. Before we get into talking about your book. Do you want to let folks know where they can find you online if they’d like more information after listening?
Combs: Sure. I have a website that’s just my name, alexlcombs.com. And any social media that I’m on is also Alex L. Combs… whatever at Bluesky, and Instagram. Those are the ones I’m most active on.
Eakett: And I’m not active on anything, so don’t look for me.
TB: Oh, wow! You’re smarter than all the rest of us.
Combs: But I post pictures.
Eakett: But he does post pictures of me. Yeah. So my face shows up occasionally.
TB: Okay. Well, I have done two previous episodes on Trans history for those listening. You may want to check out TRANS HISTORY 1: HOW AND WHY WE NAME TRANS PEOPLE IN HISTORY and TRANS HISTORY 2: EXAMPLES OF TRANS PEOPLE IN HISTORY. Which leads us right into talking about this fabulous new book. Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. It releases on May 13, 2025, and can be pre-ordered right now on bookshop.org.
TB: Okay, here’s part of the description. “What does trans mean? And what does it mean to be trans? Diversity in human sex and gender is not a modern phenomenon, as readers will discover through illustrated stories and records. In addition to individual profiles, the book explores some of the societal roles played by trans people beginning in ancient times, and shows how European ideas about gender were spread across the globe. It explains how the science of sexology and the growing acceptance of, and backlash to, gender nonconformity have helped to shape what it means to be trans today. Illustrated conversations with modern activists, scholars, and creatives, highlight the breadth of current trans experiences, and give readers a deeper sense of the diversity of trans people, a group numbering in the millions.”
TB: All right. I want everybody listening to know that I was sent an ARC of this book to read, and I thought it was fantastic and so badly needed right now, and it makes learning about our history so incredibly accessible. And that’s huge, because history can often be daunting to some people, doubly so when you want to learn about trans folks who are often erased from history for reasons I talked about back in TRANS HISTORY 1. So I think I want to start by asking the two of you that what made you want to write this book? Where did it come from?
Combs: So I actually went to art school for comics, and at that time, around 2017, I knew I wanted to do potentially something with LGBTQIA+ history, but I didn’t know what. I ended up doing more of an autobiographical slice of life comic for my thesis for school. But, right after graduation, I had that desire to go back to history, and living in San Francisco, there’s a lot of great archives, and we have the LGBT History archives of Museum.
TB: Oh, that’s cool. I didn’t know that.
Eakett: or the GLBT.
Combs: GLBT, I think, yeah, yeah. And you can make an appointment and go look in their archives. And, so we did that, because we learned that Lou Sullivan, who was a local gay trans man in San Francisco, in the eighties and nineties, kept a diary his entire life and donated them all to the GLBT Historical Society, and you can just go read them. It’s like from when he was like a little kid all the way up to the end of his life. And it’s so cool. So we went and there is now a really great collection of his diaries that’s been published. But at the time that wasn’t out yet, so it just was so exciting to go and get access to this really amazing resource. And so I made a zine about it, which I took to SF Zine Fest. Or maybe it was an East Bay Zine festival, and was just giving them out. I was just so excited to share this story.
SB: That’s so pure.
TB: I love it.
Combs: Yeah, it was really fun. I just had so much energy for it. Andrew and I have both done the research together, and much like how we did with our book, I illustrated it, but he did a lot of art direction and helped with the writing, and we had so much energy and enthusiasm, and it was just so rewarding. We were like… we just want to keep doing trans history. Let’s just do a trans history book. ‘Cause there’s not quite one out there. There’s comics out there that look at queer history, or like LGBTQIA, two-spirit plus history. But we were like we want to do one that’s trans history, specifically.
Eakett: Yeah, there’s a lot of misconceptions specifically around trans history. Related to the misconceptions around larger, queer history, but I felt like a lot of queer history projects would have one or two trans people in it, but never really be able to delve into what’s going on with trans people and history. So that was one reason it felt really particularly important to just spend, however many hundreds of pages just on trans people, specifically.
TB: Yeah, that was really beautiful to read. To just see so many of them and see our history going back so far, you know? I wanted to ask, do you feel like there’s something about the comic or graphic novel format that lent itself better to this project? Because, we write comics, too, and it’s such a unique sort of art form all on their own. They’re so different from everything else. And do you feel that that helped with what you were trying to do?
Combs: Oh, absolutely, because you can put the maximum amount of information into a comic, because you’ve got the visuals and the writing. So it really lends itself to packing in a lot of information without making people have to read, you know, paragraph upon paragraph of describing what the scene looks like. They just can glance at it and know what the scene looks like. And it only takes a split second.
Eakett: And I also like how it kind of softens the the history aspect. You know, history can be kind of intimidating to people or sound dry, or they think it must be very technical. It doesn’t have to be. There are technical aspects, there are some complex concepts in the book, but I feel like the the visual style is welcoming. If you’re afraid of history… you don’t have to be afraid of history. It’s a graphic novel. See? It’s fine.
SB: It’s Fun!
TB: It is fun! It is a fun, breezy read, and it’s so educational, and I love it. It’s a joy to read that book. I can’t wait to see it in color.
Combs: I can’t tell you like how happy it makes me to hear you say those words like “breezy,” like “easy to read.” We wanted that so much, and for it to be educational.
TB: Right? Yeah.
Combs: So you’re getting the information, but it doesn’t feel like a slog. That’s what we wanted, and to hear you saying that, it’s just so exciting.
TB: Yeah, I think that’s an issue that I think a lot of books about history can accidentally fall into, even if they’re not intending it, because it can be a very scholarly thing, you know, what you’re talking about… many different things and context and details from history that people don’t know about. And I think a lot of people do get intimidated that way. But when you read this book, with the art and the way it just flows from page to page, and you’re learning about all of these trans people that have always existed and always been here with us… and it’s fun, it’s exciting. And it’s just page after page, you’re just flipping through it, it goes so quick, and in a really good way. So I think you’ve done a really great job of making this accessible not just to other adults, but I think so kids, especially trans kids, can see this. And they can say, “people like me have always existed” and they can learn about it. It’s not going to be inaccessible to them, even. You know, there’s concepts in there that maybe they won’t fully understand, but they’re going to get so much out of it, that it’s… I don’t know. That’s could change a kid’s life, you know? It’s really, really amazing that you put that out there.
Combs: Thank you so much. Yeah, we wanted it to be for all ages.
Eakett: Yeah, because the information is important to everyone, right? It can change trans people. And cis people. It’s history that no one is really learning in a cohesive, clear way. And I think it benefits everyone to get what they can out of it.
TB: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you touched on this a little bit before, but the book is extensively researched, and I know how difficult and frustrating it can be to find information, much less accurate information, on trans people from the past, due to the presumption of cisness that a lot of historians view the world through, or their inability to see (or choice to outright ignore or hide) the transness that’s right in front of them. So how tough was the research process, for you, of finding all of these people? Did you have difficulty locating accurate information that you could pull from?
Combs: I was actually kind of surprised at how much I was able to find that was accessible. A lot of it was transphobic, but it was there. I mean, you have to just read it with a grain of salt. But then, at the same time, a lot of the research that I used, I was surprised to see how much had just come out in the past, maybe like three or five years or something, before we were researching it, between the years of 2017 and 2019, when we pitched the book. Like people have been working on this. They’ve been putting together the raw information, they’ve been writing papers. I have access to the San Francisco Public Library, so I have access to Jstor and all these other academic journals that they pay for, which is awesome because they’re a really great library. And I was surprised at just how much I could find online. I use the Internet Archive a lot. They had a lot of free books. Right now, only as of very recently, they have had to shut off access to a lot of those books that I actually used. Right now, I’m working on the extended bibliography, and I wanted to put links where people could go read the books, and it would say, “this book isn’t accessible except for if you have print disabilities.” So they had been sued a while back for having the online library. But they’re working on it hopefully. The books will be backed up. I’m putting all those links that I can find for those for people on the extended bibliography, which is not up yet, but will be up on my website by the time the book comes out.
TB: In one of my past episodes about trans history, I talked to some trans historians that were talking about the difficulty that they’ve had in the field, because all of the rules for what you are, and aren’t, supposed to do as a historian were established by basically all cis white men. And so that there’s been a big pushback in recent years from trans historians trying to make progress through all of that, and so it rings true. Yeah, in the past couple of years, there’s suddenly so much more. So, yeah, they’re they’re fighting the good fight for us all out there.
Combs: Yeah, I’d be like, “Oh, my God, this article is amazing. When was this written? Oh, like last year?”
Eakett: Okay, that was another thing that made it so exciting about getting the book out. It’s like, well, the information’s there. People just need to be able to read it, in a form that’s not a scholarly article.
TB: Right, that is- most people can’t find it, and if they do, it’s very intimidating to read.
Combs: Exactly, yeah.
TB: Yeah, you’ve done a really good job translating that into everyday stories that people can easily absorb and understand, so that’s really cool. Did you run into any problems finding a publisher? Because I know trans projects can often have trouble getting past cis gatekeepers and finding a home. I’ve had that difficulty with some of the stuff that we write, and I was just wondering if you encountered any roughness there?
Combs: I’m happy to say, no. We got a really good offer right away. We didn’t get a lot of offers, but the one that I think we have maybe like two but–
SB: That’s better than none!
Eakett: It was like 2 or 3 or something.
Combs: The one we ended up going with, they were amazing. Yeah. Candlewick Press. Turns out we got their best editor. I had a feeling that she was like, really good, while we were working with her. And then we met some more of the staff and they were like, “Oh, yeah, yeah. Andrea, yeah, she’s like, really, really good.” So I think in a way, we just either got really lucky, or I think, also, maybe they were on the beat of it. Maybe they had already had discussions about picking up a similar book, I don’t know. But it certainly seemed like they were all all on board.
Eakett: They were on board from the beginning, and were really supportive, which was something we kept kind of doubting, you know, as the political situation got worse and worse, and things are getting weirder and weirder. And we’re just like, are they gonna drop us? Are they gonna decide this isn’t worth it? If anything, they just got- their support seemed to strengthen. So that was, really, that has a lot to do with it. I think how good the book is right now is that Candlewick Press was very supportive.
TB: That’s amazing. And it’s also cool to hear you talk about the magic of a good editor, because, wow! The things that they can do, right? Like angels from above.
Combs: Oh, I completely agree. That’s what it felt like.
TB: Yeah. Okay, so! In the course of putting this book together, did either of you have a favorite historical trans person, somebody that you really connected with, or were drawn to, over the course of making it?
Eakett: Only one favorite?
Combs: Every every single one that I was studying at the time was the one I was most obsessed with.
SB: You can have a lot of favorites. That’s fine.
Combs: I was gonna say, Hatshepsut, because it was so… Okay, like many, I don’t know, Western, like, white people, I guess, I grew up obsessed with ancient Egypt. I was just, like, so enchanted by it. I saw Stargate when I was in middle school. It’s terrible, not culturally accurate at all, but like, I would look at all the Egyptian stuff in the museums whenever I would get a chance, and I would try to like draw some of it, and just like kind of, you know… let it like take my imagination. So when we studied about Hatshepsut, the Pharaoh, it was like, okay! I knew it was sort of a controversial figure, because some people throughout the history of sexology, even going all the way back to Magnus Hirschfeld in Germany, had speculated that Hatshepsut was a trans masculine person, and there’s actually been debate, like a fair amount of debate about it, I guess, in small circles. So I went in like… I’m probably gonna find that this was not similar to a modern trans person at all, and you know it was probably, like, all politically motivated and stuff. It certainly was political, you know, political motivation is completely inseparable from this story of this Pharaoh. Because… you’re a Pharaoh! But the more details I read, I was just like… this person does not seem like a cis person. And I kept trying to, like–
Eakett: Talk yourself out of it.
Combs: Yeah, stepping way back from it. But then I kept reading more and more details, and I’d be like, none of this refutes this not being a cis person. And in fact, I feel like I could, like, almost relate to some of these things, yeah. So like, I just feel like I got really, really obsessed into that story, and I would love to go see some of the statues. I think they’re at like the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yeah, I think they have a huge collection there.
TB: Yeah, that’s amazing. Because I’m doing this really big research project on a person from history who may have been trans.
SB: You can mention it, you’ve mentioned it on the internet.
TB: No, not until it’s done. People know who I’m talking about if they follow me. But you know, I keep doing the same thing where I’m reading lifelong diaries, and letters and things that this person wrote, and I’m- I would see things and be like, “wow, that is so trans.” And you know, I put it down, I read something else and then I’m like… were they really, though? Were they really that trans? And I pick up the next thing… I’m like, “this is so trans!”
Combs: Right? That’s exactly what happened.
SB: Yeah and sometimes I think it’s really funny, though, like, cause it’s like he spent all of this time with this woman he admired so much, and… “he must have been in love with her.” But they never did anything, and I mean, it’s just weird.
TB: Yeah, like all the reports about it, you know from cishet people, will be like, “well, clearly, he was madly in love with this woman, despite the fact that it doesn’t resemble any other form of romantic love you’ve ever seen.” And I’m like, that’s because he wanted to be her, not… okay, anyway.
Combs: There was kind of like, almost a figure like that in Hatshepsut’s life, too. Because there was this man, Senenmut, who was like part of their family, and mothered Hatshepsut’s daughter from before she became Pharaoh or anything. And Hashepsut never got pregnant from this person or anything, which you know- it was like, well, were they lovers? I’m kind of for queer found family, like, it makes more sense.
Eakett: …than if they were just pining for each other, and nothing ever happened.
Combs: Yeah, there’s these loving statues of him, with Hatshepsut’s daughter, nurturing her, hugging her. He obviously cares a lot and it reminds me more of, like, a gay uncle situation, but I can’t say for sure.
SB: But it happens all the time! Like even now, they found some people from the Vesuvius eruption from, like, two thousand years ago.
Eakett: Yeah, yeah!
SB: They were like, “we always assumed these people in this room were a family, but we found out none of them were related to each other.”
Eakett: There were five unrelated men.
SB: Right. And they were like, “they probably didn’t know each other.” And I’m like… they were-
TB: That’s the popular thing, right? They were “roommates.”
SB: “Strangers. They needed comfort in a disaster.”
Eakett: Oh my god.
SB: It’s wild to me.
TB: Yeah. Okay, well, Andrew, what about you? Did you have any anybody that was a favorite, or that you really like connected with.
Eakett: Did I have a favorite? I just liked all of them. It was just so fun to learn about all of them like… what do you think? Did I? Do you notice me having a favorite Alex? Nope, he’s like “Nope.” I would just get excited, you know? Kind of like with Alex, whoever I was working on at the time. I’d be gushing about them, although I will say it was fun to find all the different transmasc people in history, because you don’t hear a lot about them usually, and that was fun. But then, as soon as I’d start saying like, “Oh, he’s my dude”, that’d be like Lily Elba or something, and I’d be like, “Oh, but, Lily, you know,” and it’s like, I go- yeah, I love them all.
TB: It’s very understandable. One of the things that I really connected with, actually, was the two of you! And the way that Andrew talked about starting by “assisting” with the book, but then became a full on co-creator. Because that’s really similar to how Susan and I started writing together, and I never found that kind of connection with anyone before. And so that is really cool.
Combs and Eakett: Oh, cool!
TB: See, you’re you’re part of trans history right now.
Alex Combs: Oh, that’s so rad.
TB: Yeah, it’s really cool. But I wanted to ask, is this the first project that the two of you worked on together to this extent, where you were both co-creators of it?
Eakett: The first one we finished. For sure we’ve, you know, plotted and schemed, and had grand visions that didn’t get very far in the past, like back in the day. This was a more sustained effort, where we’ve really had to figure out what our roles were and what our strengths were gonna be, and how the work flow was gonna evolve. And so, yeah, that was a huge learning process and it was very rewarding, though it made me realize just how much fun it is to work with Alex, and to finish a big ambitious project.
TB: Yeah, we got that a lot when we tell people that we write together and we’re married. And they’re like, “How can you? I could never work with the person I married to. I could never. I don’t understand.”
SB: Maybe its- we’re associating with better people now.
TB: Maybe.
Combs: No, I’ve heard people say similar stuff about us.
TB: Yeah, it’s like… I don’t understand that. It works so good for us. And it clearly works really good for you, too.
Combs: Yeah. I mean, I feel like it’s a matter of luck, both luck of finding that person, but also perseverance of figuring out over time… just learning each other intimately, and learning how you can support each other, and how you can, like, shift responsibility in ways that you’re both comfortable with.
TB: Yeah, yeah.
Eakett: Yeah, and I guess, learning how to fully appreciate each other’s contributions in a way that facilitates backing off of your own ideas.
TB: Yes, yes. Setting your own ego aside if they have a better idea.
Eakett: Yeah, I think that might be it, yeah. I think that might be one of the things that gets in the way with people who are saying, “How could you do that?” is because art can sometimes be such a personal, individualistic process, that to truly collaborate and to truly let go and let it be the combined vision can be really hard. That’s like a next level thing, I think.
TB: It’s a really hard thing to do. You are wise. You have summed that up perfectly. Well done. Okay, so what is next for you two after this? Do you have another big project you’re working on?
Combs: Well, I’ve got some ideas of smaller sort of topical comics that I want to do. We definitely want to just keep doing stuff with the book and trans history, because there was so much that we had to cut from the book that I think it’d be cool to share some more of that information, in either comic format or some other way.
Eakett: Yeah. We definitely want to keep spreading the trans history gospel. But we’ve also been… I would, personally, would love to do another big project sooner rather than later. We’ve been batting around ideas about conspiracy theories and just the general misinformation landscape.
TB: Yeah?
Eakett: That’s a big, of course, other big idea that would have to be broken into some sort of smaller thing.
TB: Sure.
Eakett: But that’s kind of what we’ve been- I think we’ve been talking about a lot.
Combs: Yeah, I feel like that could be a big comic, like a graphic novel.
Eakett: …something about why people fall into conspiracy theories, or- or a story of someone who did or who lost a loved one through to it, or I’m not sure exactly what. But that’s what’s kind of bouncing around right now, which ties into trans history, too, because a lot of the misinformation about trans people going around is linked to conspiracy theories.
Combs: And I mean, it’s not something I share a lot, but I have family members who have gone down the conspiracy rabbit hole. And so I’ve seen over the years… I’ve had a front row seat to some of the ways that the conspiracy theories are linked to anti-trans sentiment. And they really are, it’s really weird.
TB: Yeah, I think when you dig into them, they’re sort of all wrapped up in a bunch of different bigotries, they sorta comingle. There’s a lot of white supremacy in them, too.
Eakett and Combs: Oh, yeah.
SB: I think it’s really important, too… one of the things I really liked were the parts of the book that talked about different cultures and the different ways that trans people have been seen throughout history, from that perspective that isn’t white, straight, hetero, Christian. And like, really like, that one viewpoint has just been crushed onto the entire world.
TB: Yay colonialism!
SB: Yeah when, you know, so many other cultures honor and understand and have words for trans people, and do not think it’s wrong or sinful.
TB: It’s just the way some people are, right.
SB: And I always want more on that.
TB: Yeah, yeah.
SB: That was the thing that left me wanting more. I love that.
Combs: We were like thinking about putting more of that, like a whole chapter about that, in. But then we quickly realized that we would have to dig a lot deeper and become really proficient in these other cultures, and we just weren’t. And we didn’t want to get that stuff wrong.
Eakett: Yeah.
Combs: And a really good book that I can recommend if you’re wanting more of that is called Before We Were Trans. Was it, Kit? Heyam?
Eakett: I think so. Yeah.
TB: Yes, yeah, I’ve read- I haven’t read that whole book, but I’ve read parts of it. And it is really good, yeah. I referenced it in one of the trans history episodes I did before.
Combs: Yeah, definitely, it more straightforwardly goes into details about the culture and the different cultural gender identities and stuff, Whereas in ours, we were sort of like, okay, we know this exists. We don’t fully, necessarily understand the subtleties and the cultural context, but we can say what the Europeans thought when they showed up and saw these people, because they wrote about it! And, like, you don’t have to know all the details, as interesting it would be, to show, well… clearly these people existed.
TB: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it is so so important for trans and non-binary people to know that we have always existed and that we’re not a fad or a trend. We’re just a normal way some humans can be. And this book is going to help normalize that, for everyone. I think it’s going to help a lot of trans folks feel seen. And hopefully, a lot of cis folks know that there’s nothing new about being trans. So, I want to thank you both for making this book, because I think it’s going to help a lot of people. And you’ve done a really good thing.
Combs: Thank you so much. It’s so reassuring to hear you say that.
TB: I love this book, and I’m so glad that you were both willing to come on here and talk about it. It’s been lovely having you, so thank you so much for joining us to talk about this.
Combs: It’s so nice to see you again, Tilly, and to meet your wife. It’s nice to see and meet both of you. Thank you so much for having us.
Eakett: Yes, thank you both.
TB: Of course! And to the folks listening, once again, the book is Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, by Alex. L. Combs, and Andrew Eakett. Go pre-order it from bookshop.org right Now! We need books like this, so very much right now. It deserves your support.
Read it, because trans people have always been here, and we’re not going anywhere.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
Transcribed by Kate Rascali – summerknights.bsky.social