I've read a few reviews of this and a lot seem to bash Feinberg for not presenting a thoroughly academic history of transgender identity. I do think this kind of critique misses the point: quite spectacularly.
It's definitely true that if you want a meticulous, detailed, jargony drudge through trans ...more
There's a difference between learning history and politics and feeling like there's actually a possibility for change. This actually brings that inspiration while talking about this history.
It catalogs parts of trans history, but it's about so much more than that. Feinberg talks about early trans hi ...more
It’s disheartening that so many reviews for this book (all written by cis men and TERFs) put this book down as ‘one sided history’ or ‘more marxist propaganda’ or even try to break down their criticism while misgendering the author. Ready for the kicker cis men? All history you learned is one sided. ...more
A ridiculous radical Marxist personal account of one trans-man's journey of historical self-discovery. Too bad the presentation was 99% ahistorical. I'm sorry, but you can draw a straight line from transgender Hindu deities to Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. It just doesn't work. ...more
My only real qualm with this book is that Feinberg could have used a greater diversity of primary and secondary sources, as well as counterarguments and rebuttals to counterarguments, in order to better fortify some of the claims they make, especially about historical figures like Joan of Arc.
If you're going into this expecting a detailed and extensively researched look at transgender history then you're probably going to be disappointed, but I thought it did an excellent job of presenting Feinberg's personal journey with learning about different gender presentations throughout history a ...more
Leslie Feinberg's magnum opus -- a groundbreaking work in which Leslie finally gives a concrete history of our lives as transgender and gender-variant people.
I've seen reviews of this book from other readers in this decade or in the last 10 or so years say that this book "isn't well researched"; it ...more
I really enjoyed this book, and yet I'm not sure I can really recommend it to people, or at least to most people. I liked Feinberg's idea of combining of socialism and trans rights into a single manifesto, and the book certainly did a good job of making me like the author.