Ellison’s book-length manuscript is a study of the contributions Midwestern trans people made to trans feminist thought and the emergence of a national LGBT political consciousness. It invites the reconsideration of assumptions about trans history and the relationship between trans and feminist movements through a regional history of the rich, complicated, fraught, and inspiring trans-feminist coalitions that flourished in the Midwestern United States from 1945 to 2000. The history of Midwestern trans feminist movements contributes vital information to scholarly understandings of race, class, and ability. Centering Black trans femininity in our histories and feminist theories transforms understandings of identity by revealing transmisogynoir to be a vital part of anti-Blackness, sexism, and ableism. The fraught history of Midwest trans coalition building opens imaginative possibilities for movement building that are foreclosed by assumptions about the transphobia of past feminist formations, while also illustrating how structural violence creates barriers to working across differences. Based on original oral history interviews with more than fifty participants and in-depth archival research of trans-authored primary sources, Ellison’s methodology privileges the self-understandings of trans people whose identities are not always accurately recorded in traditional historical sources.