Book Launch: Before Gender

Join Eli Erlick in a discussion about her new book on trans history, Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950, moderated by Yves Cao, Collections Fellow at LLMA.

About Eli Erlick
Eli Erlick is an internationally acclaimed activist, author, and educator. In 2011, she founded Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER), a national organization dedicated to transforming the educational environment for trans students. In the years that followed, Erlick has been at the forefront of social justice issues through her research, organizing, and cultural criticism. Blending innovative research with cutting-edge activism, she undertook her doctoral studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Erlick’s work and writing have been featured in hundreds of outlets including the New York Times, Time Magazine, and the Washington Post. She lives in New York City, where she continues to fight for trans liberation.

About Yves Cao
Yves Cao is a writer and researcher based in Brooklyn. They hold a master’s degree in the humanities from the University of Chicago (2024) and a bachelor’s degree in the history and theory of architecture and visual arts from Columbia University (2022). Cao’s research hypothesizes connections between postwar Western art and transgender theories of embodiment, especially through phenomenological and materialist frameworks. For their master's thesis on Eva Hesse's Hang Up, 1966, they earned the Best Thesis Prize from the University of Chicago's Department of Art History; as an undergraduate, they earned the Senior Thesis Prize from Columbia University's Department of Art History and Archaeology. They are a contributor to the exhibition catalog Monochrome Multitudes, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press.

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