Riki Wilchins

Riki Anne Wilchins (born 1952) is a feminist activist whose work has focused on issues of gender as it impacts many Americans. Their work on combating discrimination and violence caused by gender stereotypes has provoked criticism by some in the transgender community, but has been widely accepted by others. They have often focused on youth, who they say "see with fresher eyes". In 2001, Wilchins was named by TIME Magazine one of "100 Civic Innovators for the 21st Century." Since the mid-1990s, Wilchins has been highly active in founding a number of organizations and events focused on gender issues.

Wilchins coined the term genderqueer in the mid-1990s.

Quotes
"We are at an interesting place in queer discourse when it comes to the politics of trans self-description. There are now rules for what we can call ourselves. I love that trans people are now considered legit enough that we can finally enjoy the luxury of telling people how we'd like to be referred to.

We used to be a despised class — a trash bin of bodies and identities left behind when gay rights decided to mainstream itself by throwing its genderqueers under the bus (with some of us still having tread marks to show for it).

At the time, we were happy just to be mentioned, regardless of what we were called. We were the identity that didn't speak its name. Now we can’t get other folks to shut up about us. Ther's a news story about trans every week in most major newspapers and on most high-traffic websites. My 10-year-old daughter calls me over to watch whenever she comes across another YouTube vid featuring a trans character. We are everywhere."

Published books

 * Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion & the End of Gender, 1997
 * GenderQueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary (Joan Nestle, Clair Howell Co-Editors), 2002
 * Queer Theory/Gender Theory: an Instant Primer, 2004
 * TRANS/gressive: How Transgender Activists Took on Gay Rights, Feminism, the Media & Congress… and Won!, 2017
 * Burn the Binary! Selected Writings on the Politics of Trans, Genderqueer and Nonbinary, 2017