Welcome to the fourth week of reading Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg!
If you're just getting started, here's a link to the thread for
We're only doing one chapter per week and the discussion threads will be left open, so latecomers are still very much welcome to join if interested.
As mentioned before... This isn't just a book for trans people! If you're cis, please feel free to join and don't feel intimidated if you're not trans and/or new to these topics.
Here is a list of resources taken from the previous reading group session:
pdf download
epub download - Huge shout out to comrade @EugeneDebs for putting this together. I realized I didn't credit them in either post but here it is. I appreciate your efforts. ❤️
chapter 1 audiobook - Huge shout out to comrade @futomes for recording these. No words can truly express my appreciation for this. Thank you so much. ❤️
chapter 2 audiobook
chapter 3 audiobook
chapter 4 audiobook
chapter 5 audiobook
chapter 6 audiobook
chapter 7 audiobook
chapter 8 audiobook
Also here's another PDF download link and the whole book on ProleWiki.
In this thread we'll be discussing Chapter 4: "Are You a Guy, or What?"
CWs: Mentions of transphobia, misgendering.
This chapter covers remarks by Feinberg at a True Spirit Conference workshop called "Exploring Our Options", which are primarily focused on challenging the gender binary and defining ourselves in ways that honor our self-expression.
There are also two great "Portrait" sections here, one by Michael Hernandez and another by Dragon Xcaliber, with both discussing their lived experience in not fitting neatly into the categories that society tries to force us into.
I'll ping whoever has been participating so far, but please let me know if you'd like to be added (or removed).
Feel free to let me know if you have any feedback also. Thanks!
Apologies for my late post on this. This chapter is a little short, and I didn't have a lot to say that I hadn't already said in previous weeks. There are a couple of things I wanna say:
This again deals with challenging the gender binary and reminds me of a time when maybe understood the importance of neopronouns subconsciously, but didn't think much about how important they are in day to day life, or that something like neo-pronouns could even be a possibility. Obviously now I understand gender a bit more (both in general and when it comes to me) and so I very much appreciate environments where people are allowed to experiment with how they want to be referenced.
This challenging of the gender binary has been important to me lately since I've been having more and more fears regarding my transition. You see, I'm somewhat tall-ish (183cm) and have broad shoulders, and I worry I'll be "too manly" to ever pass, but reading this kind of reinforces in me that I shouldn't judge myself by the standards of gender binary, even as I try to escape it. As in, I don't have to be a "perfect woman" and I shouldn't focus on that as a realistic goal. Instead, I should get better at self-acceptance and work on improving "me" as much as I can instead of trying to become someone else.