An emotional, engaging, and informative look at the real-life struggles and triumphs of trans people.
A collection of statistics and personal stories from people within the trans community.
After years of research, Boylan, the parent of a transgender young adult, and Kirby, a therapist specializing in gender-diverse teens, have assembled a collection meant to both educate and inspire. Accounts from the transgender community and their parents—covering issues such as identity, coping with familial rejection, etc.—mix with more encyclopedic information, such as the definitions of terms like biological sex and gender. Occasional graphics feature answers to questions such as, “How would you describe gender dysphoria in 10 words or less?” The authors explore all aspects of the transgender journey, from the idea that not all “gender-diverse” people feel the need to medically transition to becoming an ally. Each section begins with an excerpt from Rula Sinara’s Just Embrace, while occasional boxes feature “Thoughts from a Therapist…” that offer a professional’s advice for parents (on teens exploring gender diversity, for example, or desiring a legal name change). The final section includes the results from two surveys in which 150 additional participants answered questions like, “What has been the hardest part of your gender journey?” Boylan and Kirby approach the subject with openness and compassion, exploring not only the basics behind the trans experience, but also more peripheral topics, like autism (which is common in the trans community) and religion (which is often a tricky topic for trans people and their families). But the true emotional impact occurs when the authors hand over the stage to those who are trans: “They want to erase us. They say they hate the sin and love the sinner as they silently watch us die. And the reason is that we make them uncomfortable because we are different, and they could never be. And that is our superpower.” With an extensive list of resources, as well as intimate anecdotes, this anthology could prove to be a true lifeline for trans youth and adults.
An emotional, engaging, and informative look at the real-life struggles and triumphs of trans people.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9798218489502
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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