Ratings2
Average rating3.5
I feel like I should own this book just so I can hand it to people whenever I get stuck in certain conversations.
Usually when reading works of this type I take notes, evaluating how I'm feeling about the information presented, how useful I think it is as a resource. This time I honestly got carried away by the writing. So much of this book felt deeply relatable, not always personal or intimate, but I felt a kinship with both the topics the author chose to focus on, how they chose to explore them, as well as the moments the author recounted their personal journey towards their gender identity. The focus on words/terminology/language in reference to gender identity feels like echoes of things I've been thinking about for years now, as well as speaking to my simpler love of etymology, semantics, the history of words and their meanings, how they evolve.
I'll always be happy to see resources pointing out ‘hey, we've always been here, even if there weren't news or scientific articles or 21st century terms', and how to be an ally, but it's what this book did that I haven't previously encountered in a book about non-binary (and points for at least one use of agender!) identity that makes me treasure it. Not asking unanswerable questions or setting hard and fast rules, but rather exploring the way to proposing a potentially more helpful framework for the future, with the acknowledged lens of the author's own outlook, experience.
Other reflections:
Didn't realize how much I needed to see a chapter like Fat, Distributed in print. Feels like seeing conclusions I've just barely gotten onto solid ground with, myself, now available for so many who need to have that moment.
Deeply appreciate a discussion of labels involving an analogy about the variance in genre etc shelving in a personal library and how Library of Congress might catalogue. Speaking my language! In more ways than one. ♥️
⚠️ED, suicide, Fatphobia, transphobia