ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the key rifts, which includes: divergent conceptions of trans subjects held by non-trans feminists; divergent and hierarchical relationships between transgender and transsexual persons; divergent and conflicting claims about gender intelligibility; divergent emphases on sameness and difference in theorizing trans experiences and identities; and divergent attributions of gender and sexual embodiment to nature and to psychosocial factors. The book focuses on the author's personal investment in promoting a reading of trans debates that advances non-trans feminist and queer understandings of and relations with transpersons. It includes the question of whether non-trans feminists can be allies with transsexuals, and if so under what conditions. The book opens up the now-fraught question of who gets to be a woman and insists on its theoretical importance. It explores the question of intelligibility as it is differently conceptualized by variety of trans and feminist theorists.
