Burn the Binary!: Selected Writings on the Politics of Trans, Genderqueer and Nonbinary

Riki Wilchins has been a leading advocate for gender rights and gender justice for 20 years, one of the founders of modern transgender political activism in the 1990s, and one of its first theorists and chroniclers. In 1995 Riki launched The Transexual [sic] Menace, the first national transgender street action group, which spread to 41 cities. The following year they launched GenderPAC, the first national political advocacy group devoted to gender identity rights. Riki was an early supporter in the launch of the intersex rights movement, as well as the movement for alternative sexualities.

They are the author of five books on gender theory and politics: Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion & the End of Gender; Queer Theory/Gender Theory: An Instant Primer; and Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary (with editors Claire Howell and Joan Nestle), and this volume. Riki’s writing and research on gender norms have been published in periodicals like the Village Voice, GLQ, Research on Adolescence and Social Text, and anthologies including Contemporary Debates in the Sociology of Education, Gender Violence, Feminist Frontiers, Language Awareness, Negotiating Ethical Challenges in Youth Research, Out at Work, Women on Women and The Encyclopedia of Identity. Riki has done trainings on gender norms and nonconformity at the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and the Office on Women’s Health. The New York Times has profiled Riki’s work; in 2001 Time Magazine selected them as one of “100 Civic Innovators for the 21st Century.” Riki is currently working on a book titled Gender Transformative Practice: A Guide for Funders, Policy-makers, Practitioners, Parents—and the Rest of Us.