Abstract

Since the 1990s, in connection with the eruption of transgender movements and the emergence of the interdisciplinary field of transgender studies, a new way of approaching the history of gender variance has emerged. The specificity of the researches that belong to the field of trans- history is not only the fact of taking gender variance and transness as objects of enquiry: indeed, sexologists, anthropologists and historians of gender/women and homosexualities had already approached the topic of gender nonconformity in the past, often in a problematic way. What characterizes trans- history - whereas the hyphen signals the relational and non-nominalist character of the word - is the fact of taking trans as an heuristic category and a standpoint from which to explore the history of gender and its apparatuses of control. This article proposes an itinerary through some key texts in the field and explores two issues: the relationship with gender history and the problem of the archive in trans- history.