Read My Lips

Read My Lips burst on the scene in 1997 without precedent. It was unique, radical, endearing, outrageous, and very funny. It stood the orthodox academic and medical theories about transexuals on their heads. At last, a trans-intellectual built a theoretical foundation of transgenderism in accessible language, and, most importantly, laid out the tools to fight back against gender oppression. Now re-published as a canon of trans-writing—a book that has influenced queer academics and genderqueer folk everywhere for more than fifteen years—its message remains radical.


Riki Wilchins is an author, activist and gender theorist. The founding E.D. of GenderPAC, she is the author of Queer Theory/Gender Theory: An Instant Primer (Magnus) and co-editor of GenderQueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary (Magnus). Her work has been published in periodicals like the Village Voice and Social Text, as well as anthologies like Feminist Frontiers, Language Awareness, and The Encyclopedia of Identity. She has been profiled in the New York Times and Time Magazine selected her one of “100 Civic Innovators for the 21st Century.”