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Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'
Sounds Fake But Okay: An Asexual and Aromantic Perspective on Love, Relationships, Sex, and Pretty Much Anything Else by Sarah Costello, Kayla Kaszyca
6 reviews
litwithnick's review
Typically attractice, white, cishet women have no place talking about trans issues. Good going on out yourselves as terf apologetics. Fuck right off and stick your wands where the sun don’t shine.
No idea why a section on gender was even included in the
book. Gender ≠ Sexuality.
No idea why a section on gender was even included in the
book. Gender ≠ Sexuality.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, and Transphobia
TW continued: purity culture, anxiety, coming out, aphobia, heteronormativity, allonormativitymaralrose's review
1.0
So I got this book from my local library as part of my quest to read as much as I can of this slate of asexual and aromantic nonfiction that's been coming out recently (pun intended) and I Have Thoughts. I have eight pages of notes that I took while reading this but I'm gonna try to keep this brief.
1) It's very unclear who the target audience of this book actually is. At times it seems like it's meant for people who don't know much about asexuality and aromanticism and haven't considered that maybe societal expectations about romance and sex don't have to rule our lives. Then at other times it seems like it's meant for aspec people who already know they're aspec and have at least some experience with the wider aspec community. Maybe it's supposed to be both, which is fine in theory, but these are two wildly different audiences and writing a book for both is a difficult task that these authors did not accomplish.
2) Everything in this book is touched on in the shallowest ways possible. The authors say that this is not an Ace 101 book, and well, it wasn't, because it doesn't go deep enough to be 101 level. They wander close to some deeper ideas and then promptly drop them. Throughout the book there are quotes from people who responded to a survey the author's put out and those quotes are the closest the book gets to anything even sort of complex. But said quotes are just dropped into the middle of the page with little to no lead-in and no follow up or expansion on what was said.
3) There is this pattern I noticed in the book where every time the authors criticize some aspect of amatonormative society they immediately follow it with "now we're not saying XYZ" when "XYZ" is something you would have to be reading this in extremely bad faith to think that they're saying. For example, from page 61: "One last time, we'd like to emphasize that we are not anti-romantic-sexual relationships - Kayla is literally in one!" They spend just as much (if not more) time explaining what they aren't saying than actually saying what they are saying.
4) As other reviewers have mentioned: the Harry Potter thing at the end. First of all, the whole "it's okay to like problematic media" bit just came out of absolutely nowhere. Second and more importantly, the authors (both cis women) made a deliberate choice to bolster that point by invoking someone whose "views on gender" as they put it are a cornerstone of an increasingly violent transphobic movement. Two cis women randomly going on an aside about how "so many" trans people have "gotten hope and comfort" out of Harry Potter very much came across as defensiveness for something there was literally no need for them to even bring up in the first place.
5) The book is very ace-centric. Yes, aromanticism is discussed in every chapter, but asexuality gets much more attention with every topic and there isn't so much as an acknowledgement of the allosexual aromantic perspective on anything. Aromanticism is discussed as if it's an extension of asexuality and not its own identity.
6) There are a lot of areas where it's clear that the authors are incredibly under-informed or just plain uninformed. Example: "There is, in fact, very little dialogue on what [legal standing for platonic partnerships] might look like, much less the impact it would have." (p56). There is actually quite a bit of dialogue about that exact thing in the aspec community (particularly the aro community) and it was really bizarre to see a book written by two aspec people who have had a successful podcast for years now claim otherwise. They also do the whole "same sex marriage is assimilation" nonsense and claim that Obergefell v Hodges "may have actually harmed the broader queer cause" (p56) with zero acknowledgement of the actual reasons why it mattered.
All in all, the bad stuff in this book outweighed the good by a long shot. I would definitely not recommend it to anyone trying to learn more about asexuality or aromanticism or the aspec community.
1) It's very unclear who the target audience of this book actually is. At times it seems like it's meant for people who don't know much about asexuality and aromanticism and haven't considered that maybe societal expectations about romance and sex don't have to rule our lives. Then at other times it seems like it's meant for aspec people who already know they're aspec and have at least some experience with the wider aspec community. Maybe it's supposed to be both, which is fine in theory, but these are two wildly different audiences and writing a book for both is a difficult task that these authors did not accomplish.
2) Everything in this book is touched on in the shallowest ways possible. The authors say that this is not an Ace 101 book, and well, it wasn't, because it doesn't go deep enough to be 101 level. They wander close to some deeper ideas and then promptly drop them. Throughout the book there are quotes from people who responded to a survey the author's put out and those quotes are the closest the book gets to anything even sort of complex. But said quotes are just dropped into the middle of the page with little to no lead-in and no follow up or expansion on what was said.
3) There is this pattern I noticed in the book where every time the authors criticize some aspect of amatonormative society they immediately follow it with "now we're not saying XYZ" when "XYZ" is something you would have to be reading this in extremely bad faith to think that they're saying. For example, from page 61: "One last time, we'd like to emphasize that we are not anti-romantic-sexual relationships - Kayla is literally in one!" They spend just as much (if not more) time explaining what they aren't saying than actually saying what they are saying.
4) As other reviewers have mentioned: the Harry Potter thing at the end. First of all, the whole "it's okay to like problematic media" bit just came out of absolutely nowhere. Second and more importantly, the authors (both cis women) made a deliberate choice to bolster that point by invoking someone whose "views on gender" as they put it are a cornerstone of an increasingly violent transphobic movement. Two cis women randomly going on an aside about how "so many" trans people have "gotten hope and comfort" out of Harry Potter very much came across as defensiveness for something there was literally no need for them to even bring up in the first place.
5) The book is very ace-centric. Yes, aromanticism is discussed in every chapter, but asexuality gets much more attention with every topic and there isn't so much as an acknowledgement of the allosexual aromantic perspective on anything. Aromanticism is discussed as if it's an extension of asexuality and not its own identity.
6) There are a lot of areas where it's clear that the authors are incredibly under-informed or just plain uninformed. Example: "There is, in fact, very little dialogue on what [legal standing for platonic partnerships] might look like, much less the impact it would have." (p56). There is actually quite a bit of dialogue about that exact thing in the aspec community (particularly the aro community) and it was really bizarre to see a book written by two aspec people who have had a successful podcast for years now claim otherwise. They also do the whole "same sex marriage is assimilation" nonsense and claim that Obergefell v Hodges "may have actually harmed the broader queer cause" (p56) with zero acknowledgement of the actual reasons why it mattered.
All in all, the bad stuff in this book outweighed the good by a long shot. I would definitely not recommend it to anyone trying to learn more about asexuality or aromanticism or the aspec community.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia
caseythereader's review
funny
informative
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content and Acephobia/Arophobia
Moderate: Misogyny, Transphobia, and Dysphoria
a_win_in_clear_rain's review
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
5.0
I can't say everything I want to, because that would take a long time, but this book made me feel so validated, and made me realize that this is a much bigger part of my life than I ever could have expected it to be.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Homophobia, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Transphobia, Vomit, and Classism
rattletheshelves's review against another edition
informative
2.0
TW: transphobia
Oof. So. Lately we've seen an increase in aspec non-fiction and I've been making my way through them and I almost thought I finally had a favourite.
And then a HP reference happened. In an aspec nonfiction. In 2023. But okay, I went on, more careful. And then, towards the end, the low rating of this book finally made sense - there's an entire paragraph about JKR "despite her views on gender" write books that are still a source of comfort to many people. What a way to describe a person who's almost single-handedly funding anti-trans laws in the UK and who inspired the skyrocketing transphobia.
I honestly don't want to go on with this review after that. It is easy to read (editing is choppy but hopefully it will be fixed in the final copy) and it covers basic topics in the aspec community in an approchable manner. It's pretty shallow at times and, despite quotes from different respondents, offers largely a white, middle-class, young, cis, US perspective on the topic. It could definitely could use more research on queer theory as a lot of the ideas aren't new at all but it would be a nice introductory aspec book. I agree that it reads more like a script to a podcast rather than a book, but that once again makes it more approachable to people who aren't in the topic.
The chapter on gender was my least favourite - and I can see clear connection with my biggest problem with this book. It read very outdated, things that might have been okay in the early 2000s but now are just weird. I wrote it off as a cultural difference until the JKR rant.
I'm afraid that it's a deal breaker and I won't be recommending this one.
***Thanks NetGalley for the eARC***
Oof. So. Lately we've seen an increase in aspec non-fiction and I've been making my way through them and I almost thought I finally had a favourite.
And then a HP reference happened. In an aspec nonfiction. In 2023. But okay, I went on, more careful. And then, towards the end, the low rating of this book finally made sense - there's an entire paragraph about JKR "despite her views on gender" write books that are still a source of comfort to many people. What a way to describe a person who's almost single-handedly funding anti-trans laws in the UK and who inspired the skyrocketing transphobia.
I honestly don't want to go on with this review after that. It is easy to read (editing is choppy but hopefully it will be fixed in the final copy) and it covers basic topics in the aspec community in an approchable manner. It's pretty shallow at times and, despite quotes from different respondents, offers largely a white, middle-class, young, cis, US perspective on the topic. It could definitely could use more research on queer theory as a lot of the ideas aren't new at all but it would be a nice introductory aspec book. I agree that it reads more like a script to a podcast rather than a book, but that once again makes it more approachable to people who aren't in the topic.
The chapter on gender was my least favourite - and I can see clear connection with my biggest problem with this book. It read very outdated, things that might have been okay in the early 2000s but now are just weird. I wrote it off as a cultural difference until the JKR rant.
I'm afraid that it's a deal breaker and I won't be recommending this one.
***Thanks NetGalley for the eARC***
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia
anniereads221's review against another edition
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, and Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Biphobia, Hate crime, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia
HP reference and JKR