Transgender Marxism
Edited by Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O’Rourke
(Pluto Press, £16.99)

BILLED as a watershed moment in transgender theory, this book seeks to explore the relationship between transgender identity and revolutionary politics.

Its editors, Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O’Rourke, begin by noting the extraordinary growth in numbers and visibility of trans people over the last decade or so and celebrate what they see as the growing popularity of transgender culture as it goes mainstream.

Yet in their introduction they quickly inform the reader that the aim of the collection is not to “birth a new perspective” or, extending the reproductive metaphor, to “bring into being a coupling of transgender theory and Marxist politics.”
 
Rather, the collected essays, mainly by writers based in the US and Britain, cover such topics as transgender identity development, union organising, the politics of disability and varieties of trans work including gaming and the tech industry, the retail sector and HIV services.