Reviews tagging 'Transphobia'

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

35 reviews

joensign's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Transphobia

Moderate: Racism, Xenophobia, and Colonisation

sophieprime's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Xenophobia, and Medical trauma

nilescrane's review against another edition

5.0

I felt so grounded and at home in my transness when reading this.

Comfort, desperation, love: this is the emotional register in which I, too, experience trans and queer history. Like Shapland, I came to identification with the queer past before I came to full articulation of my queer present: I knew that I felt deep hurt and anger about past injustices against queer men, and deep emotional identification with them, long before I realised that was one aspect of my trans experience.... But it's through such indecorous emotion that history has provided me with some of the most intensely important experiences of my life.

Heyam reifies the watered down arguments I have in my head when I am met with the transphobic rhetoric of transness being a 'new fad'. My copy is tagged, dogearred, and annotated to the brim. I treasure this reading experience and I thank you, Dr. Heyam, for giving us hope in the form of history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual violence, Transphobia, and Colonisation

templetoncecelia's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Confinement, Deadnaming, Genocide, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, Dysphoria, and Classism

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

kkpwnall's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Colonisation

Minor: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Medical trauma

rachbake's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Sexual assault, Transphobia, and Colonisation

warlocksarecool21's review against another edition

hopeful informative reflective

4.5

Before We Were Trans is a brilliant book exploring trans history in an intersectional way. The author shows how the history of trans identities overlaps with history of intersex people, women, lesbians, non-western cultures & spirituality and how they were warped by colonization. Dr. Heyam does a wonderful job of explaining the nuances of how trans history is interconnected with all those things above and directly questions how interpretation of history can harm certain communities even if unintentionally. This book was really thought-provoking and even if you have a good understanding of intersectional theory regarding activism and feminism, I still recommend this book because of how detailed Dr. Heyam is and how well-researched his book is. The audiobook was narrated by the author and I really enjoyed it. Although it might be worth getting your hands on a physical copy or ebook to at least see the names of the historical figures and communities mentioned. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Transphobia, Police brutality, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, and Classism

the_reading_wren's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Fascinating, challenging and most of all comforting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Colonisation

Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Deadnaming, Genocide, Racism, Rape, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Cultural appropriation, Dysphoria, War, and Classism

Minor: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic

arrr's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

Thoughtful as historiography, interesting as trans and gender expansive history. Solid attempt at decolonial history accounting. Read the trigger warnings, it gets difficult at times. But the book is mostly affirming. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Transphobia, and War

Moderate: Sexual assault

noomzoom's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual assault, and Transphobia