Never thought I would join a reading group, but I’m really impressed by what I’ve read so far and the slow pace of 1 chapter per week is perfect for me.

So right off the bat, if we ignore the "transexual" I would have never guessed that this was written in the 90s, and it’s really nice to know that trans terminology was already pretty developed back then.

Also this part is really strong:

This doctor's prejudices, directed at me during a moment of catastrophic illness, could have killed me. The death certificate would have read: Endocarditis. By all rights it should have read: Bigotry.

Doctors are always so paranoid about getting sued for malpractice and usually do everything they can to prevent that. But when it comes to marginalized patients they suddenly don’t give a shit about being "professional" anymore, because they know that our lives are seen as worthless and that between a doctor, who is highly-respected by society, and a trans person most people (especially those in power) will always side with the doctor.

I started the audiobook when kristina made a post about it a while ago but fell off due to various distractions, good time to try again

I have to say. Every time I read about trans people's experiences with doctors, it makes me not want to go to the doctors. I'm reminded of how the government medical efforts in countries with large rural populations have to go through great lengths to convince the rural folk that the doctors won't screw them over. It's interesting to see how there is both a "assimilate into us at all costs!" and "we need the existence of marginalized/unassimilated populations else our society collapses!" dynamic at play.

Also, the whole thing about the doctors writing off the author is just more proof that modern GPs play a role of gatekeeping medicine.

It is 2020 and I am reading Trans Liberation

It is 2025 and I am ~~reading~~ listening to Trans Liberation

Edit: wow the quality gets much better on the audiobook on chapter 3

edit 2: I'll make this more substantive! I had forgotten the passage about the womens liberation movement in chapter 1. The seismic shift it presented for the roles and rights of women, and the abject failure of reactionaries ever since to put that genie back in the bottle is inspiring, even if much else has remained the same. Feinberg is a wonderful writer and this is making me want to re-read stone butch blues as a throwback. And then Settlers. I actually wish settlers got discussed more here, it used to be more commonly brought up, back when we had more libs in our midst

So the following section is one of my favorite quotes in the entire book:

Now another movement is sweeping onto the stage of history: Trans liberation. We are again raising questions about the societal treatment of people based on their sex and gender expression. This discussion will make new contributions to human consciousness. And trans communities, like the women's movement, are carrying out these mass conversations with the goal of creating a movement capable of fighting for justice — of righting the wrongs.

We are a movement of masculine females and feminine males, cross-dressers, transsexual men and women, intersexuals born on the anatomical sweep between female and male, gender-blenders, many other sex and gender-variant people, and our significant others. All told, we expand understanding of how many ways there are to be a human being.

Our lives are proof that sex and gender are much more complex than a delivery room doctor's glance at genitals can determine, more variegated than pink or blue birth caps. We are oppressed for not fitting those narrow social norms. We are fighting back.

Our struggle will also help expose some of the harmful myths about what it means to be a woman or a man that have compartmentalized and distorted your life, as well as mine. Trans liberation has meaning for you—no matter how you define or express your sex or your gender.

If you are a trans person, you face horrendous social punishments — from institutionalization to gangremoved, from beatings to denial of child visitation. This oppression is faced, in varying degrees, by all who march under the banner of trans liberation. This brutalization and degradation strips us of what we could achieve with our individual lifetimes.

And if you do not identify as transgender or transsexual or intersexual, your life is diminished by our oppression as well. Your own choices as a man or a woman are sharply curtailed. Your individual journey to express yourself is shunted into one of two deeply carved ruts, and the social baggage you are handed is already packed.

So the defense of each individual's right to control their own body, and to explore the path of self-expression, enhances your own freedom to discover more about yourself and your potentialities. This movement will give you more room to breathe - to be yourself. To discover on a deeper level what it means to be your self.

One thing that really stood out to me about this is how radically inclusive it is. I feel like efforts at categorizing different types of queer/trans people can sometimes drift towards gatekeeping and/or boxing people in. On the other hand, the definition of "trans" that zie presents in this book is inclusive of pretty much everyone who expresses their gender in a way that falls outside mainstream gender norms. I feel like this more inclusive definition makes it easier for trans people (including eggs) to accept their transness (example: internal questions of "Am I really trans?") as well as extending the scope of trans rights and social trans acceptance to a larger group.

Would love to hear other thoughts on this.

Feinberg looking smug as shit on the cover lol

Been really feeling this particular excerpt lately:

I actually chafe at describing myself as masculine. For one thing, masculinity is such an expansive territory, encompassing boundaries of nationality, race, and class. Most importantly, individuals blaze their own trails across this landscape.

And it’s hard for me to label the intricate matrix of my gender as simply masculine. To me, branding individual self-expression as simply feminine or masculine is like asking poets: Do you write in English or Spanish? The question leaves out the possibilities that the poetry is woven in Cantonese or Ladino, Swahili or Arabic. The question deals only with the system of language that the poet has been taught. It ignores the words each writer hauls up, hand over hand, from a common well. The music words make when finding themselves next to each other for the first time. The silences echoing in the space between ideas. The powerful winds of passion and belief that move the poet to write.

That is why I do not hold the view that gender is simply a social construct — one of two languages that we learn by rote from early age. To me, gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught. When I walk through the anthology of the world, I see individuals express their gender in exquisitely complex and ever-changing ways, despite the laws of pentameter.

I know I want a more feminine physical form, but when it comes to gender expression (which to me is in how I present myself and how I interact with other people) neither of the two binary "languages" is sufficient? The male language is too restrictive for me, and the female language doesn't have all the "words" I'm looking for, and can be restrictive in some ways as well...

Semi tangential thought, but I feel like this phenomenon is what's behind the whole puppygirl/boy thing younger trans people are into. That's not something cis people of either binary gender does (at least not in noticeable numbers) but I guess a lot of trans people find it useful as a way to express something inside them that can't be expressed with the two languages society allows us to speak.

(I sure hope I won't be wearing a collar before the end of summer )

Thanks for setting this up! I look forward to reading this with everyone.

Some initial thoughts, after reading Chapter 1:

-Feinberg is an incredibly gifted writer. Sie writes with fire and strength while displaying deeply personal struggles and pain.

-This is a clearly inclusive text, one that Feinberg does a great job of roping the reader in.

-Heartbreaking anecdotes regarding the brutality of the medical system as it deals with bigoted doctors. This is such a huge problem, and Feinberg does an amazing job with highlighting it off the bat.

Overall, loved chapter 1, and looking forward to discussing the rest with y'all!

FIRST CHAPTER IS STARTING!!!

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Oh shit what I wish I had some more notice for this this has been on my list for a long time

Oh fuck I completely forgot i was reading this book sign me up please

I'm pretty excited to check this out and participate in my first reading group. Just ... need a few hours to do some other shit (homework ). But yeah, ping me up please!

This was a very powerful introduction and I'm excited to read more. Difficult to believe that this was published in 1998, especially for someone like me, who grew up in an environment with extremely strict gender roles (even among queer people) and had to reach all the same conclusions through my own painful experience. I wish I read this 20 years ago.

ooh i wanted to read this last year but didn't get around to it and now i've finished the first chapter! this part got me thinking:

While keeping his eyes fixed on me, he approached one of the nurses, seated at a desk, and began rubbing her neck and shoulders. He talked to her about sex for a few minutes. After his pointed demonstration of “normal sexuality,” he told me to get dressed and then he stormed out of the room.

i wonder if i still would have rejected my imposed gender so harshly if i hadn't seen it performed in such a consistently abusive way. feeling society trying to groom me to become that eventually reached a boiling point and it was hard not to outright hate any performance of that "normal sexuality" which was expected of me

thanks for doing this and please add me to the ping list if you could! ❤️