The Two Revolutions

""The book I’ve been waiting for! Through nuanced archival research, Avery Dame-Griff reveals how the internet helped create what is now known as the transgender community. In this book, we see how cross-dressers and transsexuals (and later trans youth) used shifting digital tools, from bulletin boards to social media tags, to share information, create and contest new identity terms, and find connection. The Two Revolutions promises to revolutionize trans and internet studies."" -- Laura Horak, director of the Transgender Media Lab at Carleton University ""A critically necessary history. Avery Dame-Griff shows that the development of the internet and the history of transgender life and identity are inextricably bound up in one another. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, The Two Revolutions is a transformative work."" -- Jacob Gaboury, author of Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics ""A delightfully readable academic work that tells a story of trans online life since the earliest days of the dial-up modem ... it's as much a straightforward history as it is an experiment in using digital materials to tell recent history."" -- Jamie Lauren Keiles * The Baffler * ""The Two Revolutions is both an academic history of the trans Internet and a political call for contemporary users to demand more of our digital media platforms. Dame-Griff does a fantastic job weaving together these projects."" -- Lauren Herold * Autostraddle * ""A detailed, fascinating, and deeply researched look at trans culture online."" -- s.e. smith * YES! Magazine * ""Scholars, creators, and activists alike could easily use this book to inspire the next era of the trans internet... The Two Revolutions provides an ample basis for a robust discussion of where histories materially go in the digital age and how to recover them while honoring the intended meaning of users."" * Convergence * ""For those deeply versed in trans culture and history, The Two Revolutions is an affirming read. Dame-Griff is gracious enough to provide the relevant introductory information for those hesitant to engage in either or both topics. Picking this book up is easy. Putting it down might be a bit more complicated. Not constantly returning to it for inspiration will be downright impossible."" * Internet Histories * ""What The Two Revolutions uncovers are the half-forgotten, yet monumental steps of (primarily North American) transgender communities in cyberspace. In his detailed archival work, Dame-Griff outlines two intertwining revolutions that, he argues, were paving the foundations of the transgender movement as we know it today: the early development of the Internet, and the evolution of ‘transgender’ as an umbrella term ... highlights a rapidly dissolving piece of contemporary digital history."" * Cultural Sociology * ""This study is invaluable not only for expanding readers' knowledge base of the formation and evolution of the transgender community, but also for offering an encyclopedic reference for the terms and language of online community organization."" * CHOICE * ""The Two Revolutions is both an academic history of the trans Internet and a political call for contemporary users to demand more of our digital media platforms. Dame-Griff does a fantastic job weaving together these projects."" * Autostraddle *