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Variations
Variations is the debut short story collection from one of Britain's most compelling voices, Juliet Jacques. Using fiction inspired by found material and real-life events, Variations explores the history of transgender Britain with lyrical, acerbic wit. Variations travels from Oscar Wilde's London to austerity-era Belfast via inter-war Cardiff, a drag bar in Liverpool just after the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Manchester's protests against Clause 28, and Brighton in the 2000s. Through diary entries of an illicit love affair, an oral history of a contemporary political collective; a 1920s academic paper to a 1990s film script; a 1950s memoir to a series of 2014 blog posts, Jacques rewrites and reinvigorates a history so often relegated to stale police records and sensationalist news headlines. Innovative and fresh, Variations is a bold and beautiful book of stories unheard; until now.
323 pages, Paperback
First published June 17, 2021
29 people are currently reading
1635 people want to read
About the author
Juliet Jacques
25 books51 followersJuliet Jacques (born Redhill, Surrey in 1981) is a British journalist, critic and writer of short fiction, known for her work on the transgender experience, including her transition as a trans woman.
She grew up in Horley, and attended Reigate Grammar School for two years before her parents moved her to a local comprehensive school, followed by the College of Richard Collyer in Horsham, West Sussex, studying History at the University of Manchester and then Literature and Film at the University of Sussex.
In 2007, she published a book on English avant-garde author Rayner Heppenstall for Dalkey Archive Press, and her memoir, entitled Trans, appeared on Verso Books in 2015. She has written regular columns for The Guardian, on gender identity, and The New Statesman, on literature, film, art and football, and published extensively on film in Filmwaves, Vertigo and Cineaste. She began writing a chronicle of her gender reassignment in 2010, which was widely praised. She contributed a section in Sheila Heti's book, "Women in Clothes" in 2014.
She was longlisted for The Orwell Prize in 2011 for her series on gender reassignment. In 2012 she was selected as one of The Independent on Sunday Pink List’s most influential journalists, and was also included in the 2013 list.
(from Wikipedia)
She grew up in Horley, and attended Reigate Grammar School for two years before her parents moved her to a local comprehensive school, followed by the College of Richard Collyer in Horsham, West Sussex, studying History at the University of Manchester and then Literature and Film at the University of Sussex.
In 2007, she published a book on English avant-garde author Rayner Heppenstall for Dalkey Archive Press, and her memoir, entitled Trans, appeared on Verso Books in 2015. She has written regular columns for The Guardian, on gender identity, and The New Statesman, on literature, film, art and football, and published extensively on film in Filmwaves, Vertigo and Cineaste. She began writing a chronicle of her gender reassignment in 2010, which was widely praised. She contributed a section in Sheila Heti's book, "Women in Clothes" in 2014.
She was longlisted for The Orwell Prize in 2011 for her series on gender reassignment. In 2012 she was selected as one of The Independent on Sunday Pink List’s most influential journalists, and was also included in the 2013 list.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
August 2, 2024
Parr had already read everything that Wilde had published and was soon introduced to his idol – via Beardsley, who had illustrated Salomé, rather than the publishers of The Yellow Book, which Wilde had dismissed as ‘dull and loathsome’. Intrepid, Parr quizzed Oscar extensively about his work on their very first meeting, over a meal in Soho that deserved a far larger audience. (A shame, maybe, that Parr’s questions didn’t prepare Wilde for court.) Parr was so pleased with himself for identifying what he said was a brilliant allusion in The Importance of Being Earnest, then in its final rehearsals, to the trial of Ernest ‘Stella’ Boulton and Frederick ‘Fanny’ Park.1 ‘If Boulton is “Ernest” then he walks free; if she’s “Stella” then she goes to gaol,’ he declared to the guests at a dinner near The Yellow Book offices on Vigo Street a few days later. That the dandyish Cecil Graham in Lady Windermere’s Fan took his name from the one that Boulton gave to the police on his arrest, said Parr, was proof that his theory was correct, although Oscar was too shrewd to offer anything so vulgar as clarification.
The first of Juliet Jacques' "A transgender journey" blogs for the Guardian began:
Her new fiction Variations is billed as a short story collection, but that doesn't really do the work justice, as the whole coheres to paint a fascinating, and powerful history of the transgender community in Britain over the last 175 years, and in an innovative format.
Each piece - 11 in a 323 page book - is not so much a story as a piece of fictional historical reportage, in a variety of different formats.
These are: a series of entries from a diary from 1846; a pamphlet, author unknown, written in 1914 but recounting events from London in 1894-5; a paper from the Journal of British Gender Studies in Spring 2020 reviewing the research of a sexologist in 1927-8; letters, telegrams and newspaper cuttings concerning an exhibition at the House of Curiosities in 1939 Blackpool; a memoir from 1970 of an transsexual actress in 1950s London; an interview from the Gay Gazette in 1997 but concerning a late 1960s Liverpool drag bar; a diary of a transsexual woman living in Norwich in the late 1970s; a short story set in turn of the millennium Manchester and published in 2004-5 ("it remains unclear to what extent the work is autobiographical"); a film script from 2015 depicting events from 20 years earlier, itself about the making of another film from the memoirs of a transsexual prostitute who alleged affairs with Tory MPs in the 1900s; an interview with three members of Brighton and Hove's LBQT community from the late 2000s taken from a book published in 2012; and blog entries from a Northern Irish trans man who writes about his experiences with the NHS and increasingly, as his blog attracts attention, his experiences with the mainstream media and hostility from TERFs.
The format can mean that some of the pieces can feel a little didactic, although only where that is true to the form.
While each of the pieces, and its source, are fictional, Juliet Jacques very cleverly anchors them in reality. For example the sexologist, Havelock Ellis is real and the fictional paper here "Havelock Ellis, Eonism and Sexual Inversion: The Emergence of female-to-male culture in inter-war Britain" (based on a "previously unpublished case study") was, I suspect, inspired by a paper published in the History of Psychiatry journal in 2000 "Havelock Ellis, Eonism and the patient's discourse; or, writing a book about sex".
The pieces are also rooted in the history of their times, both directly relevant development (from Oscar Wilde's trial to the fight against Section 28 and the Gender Recognition Act) but also the context of wider British society, eg that set in late 1970s Norwich features Canaries fans alongside the emergence of the punk scene (one of the characters plays bass in a (fictional) band who support Sham 69; the irony of "If the Kids are United" not lost on those from a more marginalised background).
Jacques herself has explained her approach and, in particular, the origin of one of the pieces, "A Wo/Man of No Importance" in a fascinating Notes on Craft piece in Granta.
A video of Juliet jacques performing A Wo/Man of No Importance.
This insertion of, perhaps historically omitted, trans-characters into the avant-garde scene has resonances with the magnificent Republic of Consciousness winning Lote, and Variations, published by Influx Press, is a book I hope to see featuring on the 2021 Prize, alongside Isabel Wainder's brilliant Sterling Karat Gold. This review in Frieze brings out the similarities with Waidner and Jacques's works.
Recommended.
The first of Juliet Jacques' "A transgender journey" blogs for the Guardian began:
I decided my name should be Juliet when I was 10. It took a further 17 years to let it rise from the back of my mind, where I had swiftly buried it, and become my identity. Don't ask my "real" name: it's not polite.
Changing my name was easy - a deed poll costs about £30. Changing my body is far harder.
Her new fiction Variations is billed as a short story collection, but that doesn't really do the work justice, as the whole coheres to paint a fascinating, and powerful history of the transgender community in Britain over the last 175 years, and in an innovative format.
Each piece - 11 in a 323 page book - is not so much a story as a piece of fictional historical reportage, in a variety of different formats.
These are: a series of entries from a diary from 1846; a pamphlet, author unknown, written in 1914 but recounting events from London in 1894-5; a paper from the Journal of British Gender Studies in Spring 2020 reviewing the research of a sexologist in 1927-8; letters, telegrams and newspaper cuttings concerning an exhibition at the House of Curiosities in 1939 Blackpool; a memoir from 1970 of an transsexual actress in 1950s London; an interview from the Gay Gazette in 1997 but concerning a late 1960s Liverpool drag bar; a diary of a transsexual woman living in Norwich in the late 1970s; a short story set in turn of the millennium Manchester and published in 2004-5 ("it remains unclear to what extent the work is autobiographical"); a film script from 2015 depicting events from 20 years earlier, itself about the making of another film from the memoirs of a transsexual prostitute who alleged affairs with Tory MPs in the 1900s; an interview with three members of Brighton and Hove's LBQT community from the late 2000s taken from a book published in 2012; and blog entries from a Northern Irish trans man who writes about his experiences with the NHS and increasingly, as his blog attracts attention, his experiences with the mainstream media and hostility from TERFs.
The format can mean that some of the pieces can feel a little didactic, although only where that is true to the form.
While each of the pieces, and its source, are fictional, Juliet Jacques very cleverly anchors them in reality. For example the sexologist, Havelock Ellis is real and the fictional paper here "Havelock Ellis, Eonism and Sexual Inversion: The Emergence of female-to-male culture in inter-war Britain" (based on a "previously unpublished case study") was, I suspect, inspired by a paper published in the History of Psychiatry journal in 2000 "Havelock Ellis, Eonism and the patient's discourse; or, writing a book about sex".
The pieces are also rooted in the history of their times, both directly relevant development (from Oscar Wilde's trial to the fight against Section 28 and the Gender Recognition Act) but also the context of wider British society, eg that set in late 1970s Norwich features Canaries fans alongside the emergence of the punk scene (one of the characters plays bass in a (fictional) band who support Sham 69; the irony of "If the Kids are United" not lost on those from a more marginalised background).
Jacques herself has explained her approach and, in particular, the origin of one of the pieces, "A Wo/Man of No Importance" in a fascinating Notes on Craft piece in Granta.
I decided I would explore the history of trans people in the UK, from the Victorian period to the present, looking at how they interacted with politics and the law, sexology and the health service, the media and each other.
...
Several of my Variations took historical events as their starting point, from a 1846 newspaper report of a cross-dresser tried for ‘frequenting the public streets for an unlawful purpose’ to Time’s influential 2014 article, ‘Transgender Tipping Point’, via the Alternative Miss World pageant in 1978 and the protest against Clause 28 in Manchester in 1988, but my desire to see someone like myself within literary culture led me to set one story in particular, ‘A Wo/Man of No Importance’, in the shadow of the Oscar Wilde trials in 1895.
For this, I created a character called Arthur – sometimes Anthea – Parr, a young writer who moves from Manchester to London to enter the circle around the fin-de-siècle art and literature journal The Yellow Book, and hold drag balls in London’s clandestine queer underground. This to me was ‘experimental’ writing in its purest sense, of testing a thesis: what if someone with an irrepressible drive to cross-dress had entered that Decadent literary scene? Such a character could bring out the scene’s proto-trans elements, such as Wilde’s obsession with the Victorian cross-dressers Boulton and Park – whose high-profile trial collapsed in 1871 when the court realised it didn’t have a watertight law under which to charge them. Or the discovery by police of quantities of women’s clothing when they arrested Alfred Taylor, who was tried alongside Wilde under the ‘gross indecency’ clause of the Criminal Law Amendment Act passed in 1885.
In my story, these became key details in a narrative driven by Parr’s determination both to write a trans/queer short story and to live it, and the conflict this brought with the Yellow Book crowd, concerned at the potential legal ramifications when the Wilde trial already put them under scrutiny. I decided, however, that while the story should be created around a character like Parr, it should not necessarily be in Parr’s voice. Instead, I made my narrator anonymous, recounting the events twenty years later in an ultimately unpublished pamphlet, raising questions about who gets to speak, and the processes by which trans voices had been silenced.
A video of Juliet jacques performing A Wo/Man of No Importance.
This insertion of, perhaps historically omitted, trans-characters into the avant-garde scene has resonances with the magnificent Republic of Consciousness winning Lote, and Variations, published by Influx Press, is a book I hope to see featuring on the 2021 Prize, alongside Isabel Wainder's brilliant Sterling Karat Gold. This review in Frieze brings out the similarities with Waidner and Jacques's works.
Recommended.
July 6, 2021
We've been here before has become a rallying call for trans people over the past decade, following the so-called Transgender Tipping Point that launched us onto the global stage. That Tipping Point, and the wave of backlash it has received, was premised on the idea that trans people are somehow new, or that our struggle for liberation is anyway. Juliet Jacques' debut short story collection Variations tears away that false premise, revealing - through 11 stories, some more and some less fictional - over a century and a half of trans life in the United Kingdom.
As with all collections, some stories shine more than others, but Jacques keeps our interest through genre shifts. Each story reflects a different mode - epistolary, academic essays, screenplays, blog posts. It's a brilliant gimmick, reflecting each time period in even the structure of the writing. She can be forgiven the occasional anachronisms that appear here and there.
A stunning debut that promises much more to come from this writer.
As with all collections, some stories shine more than others, but Jacques keeps our interest through genre shifts. Each story reflects a different mode - epistolary, academic essays, screenplays, blog posts. It's a brilliant gimmick, reflecting each time period in even the structure of the writing. She can be forgiven the occasional anachronisms that appear here and there.
A stunning debut that promises much more to come from this writer.
December 25, 2022
Juliet Jacques is a prominent and compelling British writer on transgender issues who I think deserves more recognition and accolades.
She has a uniquely British, matter-of-fact, unsentimental and rational voice. Her experiences and writing offers us all a firsthand account of life in the UK for transgender people.
Here she draws together stories using fiction based on real-life events through the form of news articles, interviews, memoirs, academic papers and even a film script.
It is a fascinating and uniquely presented history of transgender peoples’ lives and experiences in the UK over the last 175 years. Definitely worth a read! 👏
She has a uniquely British, matter-of-fact, unsentimental and rational voice. Her experiences and writing offers us all a firsthand account of life in the UK for transgender people.
Here she draws together stories using fiction based on real-life events through the form of news articles, interviews, memoirs, academic papers and even a film script.
It is a fascinating and uniquely presented history of transgender peoples’ lives and experiences in the UK over the last 175 years. Definitely worth a read! 👏
June 25, 2021
so brilliant. it reasserts the role of trans people through the last two centuries, from victorian london to today's nhs, this is inventive, funny, heartbreaking and so so important. read!!
June 26, 2021
Variations is a collection of short stories about trans lives in Britain, exploring experiences from London in the days of Oscar Wilde's trial to 2010s media and internet culture. The stories are all written in different formats and styles, taking inspiration from real life events and material, and are presented chronologically, though some are retrospective and looking back at the past.
From a metafictional film script to an academic paper, Jacques finds innovative ways to tell stories and reflect on how trans voices can be heard. Though this is a short story collection, it feels a lot more than that, with everything feeling connected and part of a complex, multi-faceted narrative to explore histories and how they are told. It's unlike any collection I've read before in terms of the format, and I found that so enjoyable that I almost wanted to draw out the reading process, letting anticipation build for what would come next.
The stories themselves are quite visceral, exploring identity and hope, friendship and community, but always with an edge of biting commentary. In particular, the final piece in the book, a trans man explaining his experiences with being in the public eye through a series of blog posts, feels particularly immediate, possibly because I had just seen another modern day article attacking trans people this morning so the 'history' was very much part of the present.
It's hard to pick out favourites from the book, but I'll have a go. I found the format of the film script for "'The Twist'" highly effective in telling multiple narratives and showing the tension at play when cis people set about depicting trans people's lives, even when adapting an apparent memoir. "Standards of Care" uses a more conventional diary format to tell an emotional and touching story of a trans woman from Norfolk finding community and "A Wo/Man of No Importance" stands out through the way it situates its characters amongst the famous figures of the 1890s, looking at ideas of how famed and not-so-famed history can collide.
I had high expectations for Variations, but Jacques' use of the different formats for the stories and the way it follows broader narratives about trans life in Britain made it surpass those expectations. Often I find short stories even leave me wishing they were longer or not engaged, but these ones felt like they were exactly what they needed to be. It is the variations within it, as the title suggest, that bring the most joy: the multiplicity of voices explored through the characters and formats, and the different ideas and inspiration you can take from these.
From a metafictional film script to an academic paper, Jacques finds innovative ways to tell stories and reflect on how trans voices can be heard. Though this is a short story collection, it feels a lot more than that, with everything feeling connected and part of a complex, multi-faceted narrative to explore histories and how they are told. It's unlike any collection I've read before in terms of the format, and I found that so enjoyable that I almost wanted to draw out the reading process, letting anticipation build for what would come next.
The stories themselves are quite visceral, exploring identity and hope, friendship and community, but always with an edge of biting commentary. In particular, the final piece in the book, a trans man explaining his experiences with being in the public eye through a series of blog posts, feels particularly immediate, possibly because I had just seen another modern day article attacking trans people this morning so the 'history' was very much part of the present.
It's hard to pick out favourites from the book, but I'll have a go. I found the format of the film script for "'The Twist'" highly effective in telling multiple narratives and showing the tension at play when cis people set about depicting trans people's lives, even when adapting an apparent memoir. "Standards of Care" uses a more conventional diary format to tell an emotional and touching story of a trans woman from Norfolk finding community and "A Wo/Man of No Importance" stands out through the way it situates its characters amongst the famous figures of the 1890s, looking at ideas of how famed and not-so-famed history can collide.
I had high expectations for Variations, but Jacques' use of the different formats for the stories and the way it follows broader narratives about trans life in Britain made it surpass those expectations. Often I find short stories even leave me wishing they were longer or not engaged, but these ones felt like they were exactly what they needed to be. It is the variations within it, as the title suggest, that bring the most joy: the multiplicity of voices explored through the characters and formats, and the different ideas and inspiration you can take from these.
June 10, 2022
"I thought I could find a safe space in Brighton's queer scene after so many years of passing, crossing, wandering. Away from misogyny in parts of the British Asian community, racism in British Caucasian circles, and the transphobia everywhere. But it turned out to be anything but: people not bothering to say hello to me, either because I was brown, or because I was a femme trans woman who was into men, and that was counter revolutionary."
// Crossing
The various "stories" in Jacques' collection are rooted in the historical record and the archive. The difference is of course the way in which these diverge, queering the past to render a variation of it, charting the "history of trans people in the UK, from the Victorian period to the present" to mark "how they interacted with politics and the law, sexology and the health service, the media and each other." To evoke the sense of the real, the "stories" use different formats, fictionalized provenances, and publication histories, as well as invented metadata. It is brilliantly executed.
Jacques is one of those few writers who I have seen use the epistolary form correctly, not just putting it as a loose frame but actually abiding by the restrictions of a letter. In other instances also Jacques does wonders within the bounds of form, whether a screenplay or a pamphlet, a diary or an interview. My favourite pieces were "A Wo/Man of No Importance", "The Forgotten Stars of The White Swan", "Standards of Care", and "Dancing with the Devil". I truly admire the scope of Jacques' project. This is an act of history-making that carves a place for itself.
February 21, 2022
trans people have always existed, that's a simple fact of life. their voices, thoughts and stories have been largely unheard, misrepresented or hidden throughout history. blending fiction with fact, juliet jacques' stunning collection of short stories champions and re-writes trans narratives for trans voices. a culmination of different forms with varying sources, from historical diaries of high society events in the late victorian-era, to documentation of transitions via contemporary blog posts based in belfast and a liverpuddlian documentary on drag, variations is an experimental amalgamation of every form of multimedia you can imagine. yet rather than come across as trying too hard to suit one perspective over another, jacques' talent as a writer is evident and her ability to derive engaging fiction from factual sources is paramount to the collection's success.
in a cultural climate where discussions around trans rights, bodily autonomy and media fracas veer into sensationalism and harm, jacques fortunately manages to assuage any sense of scandal and uncertainty through stories that firmly capture every emotion of authentic trans lives; from joy, romantic and platonic love to heartbreak, fear and the realities of transition and every consideration that comes in tandem with one's personal journey. no story in the collection really outshines the other, nor do any feel lacklustre or disingenuous. jacques' intentions are clear throughout the entirety of variations - she wants to provide a no holds barred, unfiltered perspective on a reality that so many will never understand or experience.
its a shame that this book has garnered so little hype. i truly believe that for anyone interested in reading more about queer experiences, realities and lives, jacques' collection is essential reading. to be able to write 11 distinctly unique stories that transcend every form and structure, with original characters and varying perspectives is no mean feat. today, trans people face more perils and discrimination that ever before; safety is of paramount importance, next to all the complex emotions that come alongside the arduous journey of transitioning. boldly original, poetically stunning and factually informative, variations is a book that will one day be used as a historical source for anyone investigating trans life in britian.
in a cultural climate where discussions around trans rights, bodily autonomy and media fracas veer into sensationalism and harm, jacques fortunately manages to assuage any sense of scandal and uncertainty through stories that firmly capture every emotion of authentic trans lives; from joy, romantic and platonic love to heartbreak, fear and the realities of transition and every consideration that comes in tandem with one's personal journey. no story in the collection really outshines the other, nor do any feel lacklustre or disingenuous. jacques' intentions are clear throughout the entirety of variations - she wants to provide a no holds barred, unfiltered perspective on a reality that so many will never understand or experience.
its a shame that this book has garnered so little hype. i truly believe that for anyone interested in reading more about queer experiences, realities and lives, jacques' collection is essential reading. to be able to write 11 distinctly unique stories that transcend every form and structure, with original characters and varying perspectives is no mean feat. today, trans people face more perils and discrimination that ever before; safety is of paramount importance, next to all the complex emotions that come alongside the arduous journey of transitioning. boldly original, poetically stunning and factually informative, variations is a book that will one day be used as a historical source for anyone investigating trans life in britian.
February 9, 2025
7/10. The book has its hits and missess. I think it hooked me in with the first five stories, then it lost me for a bit. I genuenly still cant figure out how much of it is fiction, and how much of it is just pure transcripts, and that may have kept me from diving in fully. I guess for a book with suck a title, it started to feel a bit repetitive for me? In a way it could help with showing a collective trans experience, in a way it may be counteractive by making it seem like everyones journey and struggles are the same. I think i did miss at least one feelgood story, some pure trans joy, not just "finding beauty in the pain" type of good moments.
U did well miss mia
U did well miss mia
August 17, 2021
Blends trans history with fiction in perfectly formed short stories set between the 1800s and the present, spanning different UK cities and historical moments. 'Variations' is ingeniously structured so each short story is presented as a piece of ephemera - a blog post, letter, diary, interview. The structure and scope of the collection ensures it remains compelling throughout and the range of characters make it feel like truly a community document. The historical stories are clearly meticulous researched, making this an exceptional book for short story lovers and queer history nerds alike.
April 7, 2022
an insightful collection, each story interesting and important, and i enjoyed the range of time periods, seeing different accounts of the victorian age through to the 2000s. i also liked that each story had a different genre, it kept them apart and allowed me to see a different aspect of the community with each chapter
February 26, 2024
i really really enjoyed this. the different formats and thematics of each story made it so unique from any other short story collection i’ve read. like most short stories, some stood out more than others. the ones that sat with me the most were ‘the twist’, ‘the forgotten stars of the white swan’, ‘standards of care’ and ‘never going underground’. these stories are such an interesting way to situate trans and queer culture into different socio-historical contexts with the formats of each story being completely applicable and faithful to its time period. such an important, memorable read!
(also, for me this is definitely a 4.5 star read but goodreads sucks and doesn’t do 0.5 ratings)
(also, for me this is definitely a 4.5 star read but goodreads sucks and doesn’t do 0.5 ratings)
March 26, 2025
technically a DNF wasn’t really my thing :(
i am a bad person
i am a bad person
June 21, 2021
Variations is 11 semi-fictional accounts on a trans theme. The stories themselves vary quite a bit, in form as well as content, as time passes: a series of letters, a diary, a blog, etc. While they are presented roughly chronologically, there's a fun complexity as some chapters look back and forward through time, or traverse layers of reality (e.g. a film script about a film production based on a semi-fictional biography). Jacques even manages to make an enjoyable yarn out of the dry format of an academic paper. An interview with 1960s Liverpudlian drag queens is touching and exciting, even if the recollections 30 years later are a bit too precise to fit the format believably. I also loved Sandy Payne's diary of going through transition in the late 70s, finding a few friends and cobbling together some contentment out of things. Variations presents state repression and public transphobia no less than the joy of finding friends and a community, and presents that community with all its internal complexity and divisions.
These stories are sometimes told by trans people themselves, sometimes by outside observers, sometimes many years later, submitted anonymously. Who gets to speak is a question hanging over the whole book, from the Victorian playwright avoiding the censor, to the blog-writer attempting to challenge the transphobia of mainstream newspapers. It'd be simple to present such stories as stepping stones to the present, when we live in the best of all possible worlds, but Variations is much more interesting than that.
These stories are sometimes told by trans people themselves, sometimes by outside observers, sometimes many years later, submitted anonymously. Who gets to speak is a question hanging over the whole book, from the Victorian playwright avoiding the censor, to the blog-writer attempting to challenge the transphobia of mainstream newspapers. It'd be simple to present such stories as stepping stones to the present, when we live in the best of all possible worlds, but Variations is much more interesting than that.
July 30, 2021
A clever and sensitive approach to recreating two hundred years of trans history in Britain through fictional "original sources" from diaries to film scripts.
August 24, 2021
Loved the idea behind this but not the execution, unfortunately.
September 9, 2021
S❤️U❤️P❤️E❤️R❤️B A❤️N. A❤️B❤️S❤️O❤️L❤️U❤️T❤️E. G❤️E❤️M
April 15, 2025
This book was so good!!! It does not read at all as fiction, it walks the line between fiction and reality so perfectly - all these stories could be real, they are set in specific timelines, with real backgrounds, but it brings you personal stories that are fictionalized.
The book also employs different writing styles, with diary and blog entries, movie scripts, interviews, and even essays - which led to the way it was hard to tell what was real!! The different styles also allowed you to meet all of these people in different ways, getting personal with them, and with others having more of the outside looks...
I also really enjoyed how this book showed in all the stories different lives and realities of trans people, how the time made these lives differently, but how these people are different. And then talking about the intersections in community, between drag and trans life, and then sadly the exploration of the isolation of the trans community in other queer spaces.
This was just a fun and interesting read, I LOVE the different writing styles and the exploration of the characters!!! :D
This was also read for the Orilium Spring Equinox (magical readathon) and the prompt for "Lore" - music term on the title :)
The book also employs different writing styles, with diary and blog entries, movie scripts, interviews, and even essays - which led to the way it was hard to tell what was real!! The different styles also allowed you to meet all of these people in different ways, getting personal with them, and with others having more of the outside looks...
I also really enjoyed how this book showed in all the stories different lives and realities of trans people, how the time made these lives differently, but how these people are different. And then talking about the intersections in community, between drag and trans life, and then sadly the exploration of the isolation of the trans community in other queer spaces.
This was just a fun and interesting read, I LOVE the different writing styles and the exploration of the characters!!! :D
This was also read for the Orilium Spring Equinox (magical readathon) and the prompt for "Lore" - music term on the title :)
June 30, 2025
An engaging set of short stories.
I don't think any of them stood out though as being especially exceptional or bad. I think they were all pretty good overall. Although I think my favourites were:
- The Exhibition
- The Forgotten Stars of the White Swan
- Standards of Care
- Never Going Underground
(yeah, of course the ones based in northern England are my favourites!)
The only criticism for me is that if you are already well-versed in UK trans histories, there are going to be parts where Jacques identifies them in a way that can at times be a bit forced. Like 'yes let us include this trans resource from the time here.' Whilst it does show the wide range of research that she has undertaken for this, it can stick out at times for me.
Still, Jacques has done a very good job utilising real-life events and resources and then creating these short stories out of them. Excited to read more from her!
I don't think any of them stood out though as being especially exceptional or bad. I think they were all pretty good overall. Although I think my favourites were:
- The Exhibition
- The Forgotten Stars of the White Swan
- Standards of Care
- Never Going Underground
(yeah, of course the ones based in northern England are my favourites!)
The only criticism for me is that if you are already well-versed in UK trans histories, there are going to be parts where Jacques identifies them in a way that can at times be a bit forced. Like 'yes let us include this trans resource from the time here.' Whilst it does show the wide range of research that she has undertaken for this, it can stick out at times for me.
Still, Jacques has done a very good job utilising real-life events and resources and then creating these short stories out of them. Excited to read more from her!
September 11, 2021
An excellent collection of short stories exploring the history of transgender people in the UK from the Victorian era until the present. The stories are a presented in a variety of formats including letters, diaries, blogs, film scripts and historical repoprts. I think this is an important book, as it is the most comprehensive overview of trans lives and issues I have encountered. I have read a fair few books by and about gay men, fewer by or about gay women, and I can't readily recall reading anything by or about trans characters other than possibly Shakespeare and Last Exit to Brooklyn. I think that the fact it is a work of fiction allows Jacques to explore the thoughts and feelings of the characters in an imaginative manner that wouldn't be possible in a work of non-fiction. I highly recommend it, and actually think it's worth noting that the physical object of the book itself is really nicely done. Looking forward to hosting Jacques at Bookhaus for a book launch on Monday.
June 27, 2022
This is an important piece of social documentation, even though as "something to read", the content is fairly indifferent. It took me a while to figure out what this is. I was expecting fiction (because I picked it up from the fiction section of a book shop) but it's actually a collection of found material (sometimes directly) 'copy and pasted'. As a result, I'm not sure how much creative credit Juliet Jacques can really take for just assembling some source material and printing it. The chapters themselves are a little bit like museum pieces, where I looked at them and thought "That's interesting" or "that's important", but it was never "exceptional". I don't know who needs this more - people who understand the subject matter or those who need educating. I think the best light to see this in is as a collection of important true stories to spread awareness in a new sort of way. Quite how much each reader will individually learn or gain depends on them.
October 7, 2021
An incredible, hard-to-put-down collection of stories that read as short works of non-fiction. Diaries, blogs, academic essays, letters. These stories take us through over a hundred years of trans history, and take inspiration from real historical transgender figures and documents. Jacques entertains but also teaches a vital history. She reminds readers that trans, non-binary and genderqueer people have always been here. Trans+ people didn't suddenly start existing in 2014 and their problems aren't new.
Jacques includes a really enjoyable range of voices and identities in this collection, as well as a geographical diversity that works to critique London-centric perspectives on queerness.
A collection for anyone at all interested in queer subject matter or anyone loves an epistolary book.
Jacques includes a really enjoyable range of voices and identities in this collection, as well as a geographical diversity that works to critique London-centric perspectives on queerness.
A collection for anyone at all interested in queer subject matter or anyone loves an epistolary book.
December 27, 2021
This collection of stories covers a large historical period and a wide variety of trans lives and how they may have been regarded throughout time in the UK. As an overview and a quick collection to cover a lot this book succeeds, but I'm less certain it succeeds as a believable fake account of the lives of those it portrays, with a few anachronisms and a lack of attention to detail that historical fiction can sometimes suffer from.
August 9, 2022
4⭐️ - breadth of UK trans history that this book covers is impressive, all whilst in an easily digestible format (short fiction stories based on real life events/artefacts). Found it really thought provoking, and my only criticism would be that some of the stories were a little too short to feel fully connected to the ‘characters’.
April 28, 2023
Trans people have always existed, and this book does a brilliant job of demonstrating that - giving life and character to individuals in 11 short stories inspired by material unearthed in archives.
September 5, 2023
This is a brilliant collection. Juliet Jacques gives a potted history of the experience of trans people in the UK and Ireland through short stories set across over a century, from the Victorian era to the present day. I really enjoyed the different forms and styles of the stories, ranging from a series of letters in 1939 to a blog set in 2014. Highly recommend this.
January 21, 2024
A series of stories which make for a much more compelling read than the equivalent history book would. Very interesting to see how society eventually developed enough to not criminalise "indecent behaviour" and to gain a look into what it was like for transexual people both before and after. Very different to anything I've read before but glad I did.
April 13, 2024
V much enjoyed - a nuanced and thoughtful fictionalised survey of the trans experience in recent(ish) history. Juliet is a skilful writer, although I found that whilst she slips nimbly between different forms (stories are narrated through journal entries, interviews, short stories, play scripts), her agility is not quite matched in her range of voices, which I found somewhat interchangeable.
June 9, 2024
Such an interesting way of exploring 200 years of trans history through short stories drawing on found material and real-life events. The style of each story varies depending on what time period is being explored which means you get a lot of variety in form and tone that I really enjoyed!
July 30, 2024
3.75
I liked this for the most part. Some stories hit more than others, but I liked the shift in forms throughout and the variety of stories being told.
I liked this for the most part. Some stories hit more than others, but I liked the shift in forms throughout and the variety of stories being told.
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August 27, 2024Not sure what to rate as I struggled with the format on this - wasn't engaging me even though the topics were interesting!
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