An insightful, important, and well-researched study on authentic gender expression.
A psychiatrist specializing in the mental health of transgender youth offers support, encouragement, and education.
When he was 14, Turban, founding director of the gender psychiatry program at the University of California, San Francisco, witnessed his gun-toting father’s vehement homophobia. As a gay youth, he dressed and behaved in a way that wouldn’t expose his true nature. He has carried that experience with him throughout a career working with gender-diverse youth who don’t “fit into the gender boxes people expected.” The author discusses his visits to clinics designed to help transgender youth, speaking with unhoused young people rejected by their families, and how he integrated support models and protocol from Amsterdam into American clinics. Among many moving personal stories, Turban writes about a New England family and their child, whom they initially perceived was a “cisgender boy with feminine interests” but whose identity evolved into something more complex with the aid of puberty blockers and engaged, compassionate parenting. In other sections, the author pragmatically explores the terminology and real-world language of gender expression, radical enhancements in modern gender science, surgical interventions, and the push by some to identify a “transgender gene.” Turban diligently follows an array of transgender youth whose personal journeys with gender-affirming counseling and medical interventions reflect the real-life struggles and challenges they continue to face in the U.S. Turban insists that societal stigma and divisive gender politics can be quelled with open-minded encouragement and, most importantly, consistent education. Due to his work at UCSF, the author views his subject through both clinical and compassionate lenses. His informative text provides essential encouragement and a proactive, supportive resource for transgender youth, their questioning peers, and anyone in marginalized populations who finds themself lacking support, uplifting stories, and peaceful interconnection.
An insightful, important, and well-researched study on authentic gender expression.Pub Date: June 4, 2024
ISBN: 9781668017043
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.
The comedian argues that the arts of moderation and common sense must be reinvigorated.
Some people are born snarky, some become snarky, and some have snarkiness thrust upon them. Judging from this book, Maher—host of HBO’s Real Time program and author of The New New Rules and When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden—is all three. As a comedian, he has a great deal of leeway to make fun of people in politics, and he often delivers hilarious swipes with a deadpan face. The author describes himself as a traditional liberal, with a disdain for Republicans (especially the MAGA variety) and a belief in free speech and personal freedom. He claims that he has stayed much the same for more than 20 years, while the left, he argues, has marched toward intolerance. He sees an addiction to extremism on both sides of the aisle, which fosters the belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be an enemy to be destroyed. However, Maher has always displayed his own streaks of extremism, and his scorched-earth takedowns eventually become problematic. The author has something nasty to say about everyone, it seems, and the sarcastic tone starts after more than 300 pages. As has been the case throughout his career, Maher is best taken in small doses. The book is worth reading for the author’s often spot-on skewering of inept politicians and celebrities, but it might be advisable to occasionally dip into it rather than read the whole thing in one sitting. Some parts of the text are hilarious, but others are merely insulting. Maher is undeniably talented, but some restraint would have produced a better book.
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781668051351
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
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