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elizabethk3's review against another edition
very dense. may circle back to again someday
faliiza's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.0
Highly academic and thus hard to follow, especially on audio. Thorough analysis of blackness and transness through history. Explores many heavy historic events. Important but demands attention span and rigour.
erebus53's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
This is a dense academic text that.. at times is needlessly ephemeral in its musing on Race and Gender.
It's interesting, but not accessible, though it might be an interesting take for someone who is used to the jargon that this type of writing is steeped in
(can I get a point for every time the author uses the one of the terms - quotidian, temporal, epistemologically, or teleological... no? well the book gets my occasionally awarded accolade for LEGIT LITERATURE - for successfully using the word Palimpsest in a sentence).
It's interesting, but not accessible, though it might be an interesting take for someone who is used to the jargon that this type of writing is steeped in
(can I get a point for every time the author uses the one of the terms - quotidian, temporal, epistemologically, or teleological... no? well the book gets my occasionally awarded accolade for LEGIT LITERATURE - for successfully using the word Palimpsest in a sentence).
This book contains some interesting and sober observations about how cross-dressing is interpreted as disguise, deceit, and (in Antebellum USA) theft.. where self-possession of Black Americans was seen as taking something you shouldn't have, and disruptive to the natural order.
((which actually scares the crap out of me because I know there are still people to this day(!!) who feel that way. °eww°))
I see counterpoint with the idea that in modern trans narratives,
transition is seen as performative gender confirmation.. thus Honesty.
Given that there is often a lot to lose for a person who does not embrace the cis-het binary there is conflict between those who interpret transition as an authentic expression of self, and those who see it as a performative biological lie. (Only one of these value systems hurts anyone... *glare*)
For enslaved persons, disguise was a thing.. it could be used as a physical escape tactic, or as an internal escape in unliveable situations.
In fact I notice in old-timey crime novels, disguise was a thing.. in a way it's just not in modern stories.
Now it's got me thinking about the... anonymity of city life, and digital surveillance...
Also had me thinking about the idea of making powerful people feel safe.. and the act of Drag;
That so long as you are Obviously male _affecting_ Femaleness as an act for the benefit of cis-het audiences then you aren't seen as _as_
{weird, dangerous, subversive, dishonest, tricksy, A Trap, devious}
as someone who is outed while attempting to "pass" as the gender they were not assigned at birth.
I am coming to grips with the vocabulary and jargon of all this.. though.. it seems that they use the term Fungible, in the same way as I would use things like faceless, interchangeable, stereotypical..
seeing a person of a different type as just their race/status/job.
(Now I'm reminded of a quote from an heiress in an Agatha Christie novel who said "nobody looks at a chauffer like they would look at a _person_")
I noticed the use of the the term "Watts Rebellion" which is a powerful reframe of the White narrative of the Race Riots in Los Angeles in 1965 (and if this is new to me I have clearly not been engaging with this sort of academic analysis of systemic oppression as much as I should).
((which actually scares the crap out of me because I know there are still people to this day(!!) who feel that way. °eww°))
I see counterpoint with the idea that in modern trans narratives,
transition is seen as performative gender confirmation.. thus Honesty.
Given that there is often a lot to lose for a person who does not embrace the cis-het binary there is conflict between those who interpret transition as an authentic expression of self, and those who see it as a performative biological lie. (Only one of these value systems hurts anyone... *glare*)
For enslaved persons, disguise was a thing.. it could be used as a physical escape tactic, or as an internal escape in unliveable situations.
In fact I notice in old-timey crime novels, disguise was a thing.. in a way it's just not in modern stories.
Now it's got me thinking about the... anonymity of city life, and digital surveillance...
Also had me thinking about the idea of making powerful people feel safe.. and the act of Drag;
That so long as you are Obviously male _affecting_ Femaleness as an act for the benefit of cis-het audiences then you aren't seen as _as_
{weird, dangerous, subversive, dishonest, tricksy, A Trap, devious}
as someone who is outed while attempting to "pass" as the gender they were not assigned at birth.
I am coming to grips with the vocabulary and jargon of all this.. though.. it seems that they use the term Fungible, in the same way as I would use things like faceless, interchangeable, stereotypical..
seeing a person of a different type as just their race/status/job.
(Now I'm reminded of a quote from an heiress in an Agatha Christie novel who said "nobody looks at a chauffer like they would look at a _person_")
I noticed the use of the the term "Watts Rebellion" which is a powerful reframe of the White narrative of the Race Riots in Los Angeles in 1965 (and if this is new to me I have clearly not been engaging with this sort of academic analysis of systemic oppression as much as I should).
This book also has me thinking about internal personal feelings and beliefs about identity, as opposed to the external perceptions of others about our identity.. and the performative nature of gender.
And the assumptions made about race and gender by those around us.
It's worth mentioning that the CW are a must read is you are likely to be upset by accounts of brutality, injustice and sexual anatomy.
And the assumptions made about race and gender by those around us.
It's worth mentioning that the CW are a must read is you are likely to be upset by accounts of brutality, injustice and sexual anatomy.
• enslaved women used in medical research for the glorification of a surgeon who got statues erected in his memory
• a woman born intersex and assigned male at birth, in USA, who was only allowed gender confirming surgery if it was to her assigned birth gender
• random traffic stop (for driving while Black) outed a trans man as having been "living as a man" for over a decade
This is not a book that most people will want to read without first coming armed with an academic reason for engaging with the discourse, or a mighty fine dictionary/thesaurus. Much of the writing will be difficult to understand for the casual reader. I found it challenging in times to make sense of some things, or to find relevance in things that drew some flimsy links between ideas.
This is not a book that most people will want to read without first coming armed with an academic reason for engaging with the discourse, or a mighty fine dictionary/thesaurus. Much of the writing will be difficult to understand for the casual reader. I found it challenging in times to make sense of some things, or to find relevance in things that drew some flimsy links between ideas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Racism, Transphobia, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Medical trauma, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Death, Body shaming, Ableism, Murder, Suicide, Outing, Hate crime, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Gun violence, Classism, Blood, and Alcoholism
ralowe's review
5.0
i have been inspired by the work of c. riley snorton since seeing him and kai green presenting papers on a panel about black trans embodiment five years ago at the american studies association meeting in d.c. having the pleasure of tracking his development of this grammar where in the two terms (black and trans) can betray a restive oscillatable mutuality, *black on both sides* advances an argument that deepens the discipline. resisting the rhetorical reduction of these two terms to equivalence should appear obvious. snorton challenges this divide and conquer to address moments from the reality of shared exposure to premature death. when snorton turns his attention to the texts included in *three negro classics*, he's trying to show the blackness and trans-ness already present and co-constitutive in booker t. washington, dubois and james weldon johnson's preoccupation with an authoritarian maternal surrogacy and responsibility, a spillersian maneuver to affirm "yes"ќ to the mother within: an invigorating black trans feminist politics. though snorton disavows the job of the historian from the get-go, these consequences are always ineluctably historical, and this revelation takes the usual talk of "passing"ќ to task. honoring an anoriginal non-essential difference allows for lived experience as non-contradiction, as something eluding deceit and deceiving elusion, as the history that keeps on happening. i can see this strategy as nothing other than swelling our ranks and collective flourishing. the writing here is economic and dense. in one extremely enjoyable moment, snorton also takes on, through the strategies just described and throughout, the "fungible"ќ as such, a quality observed to describe the non-human. but with the conception of a body that refuses an essential state through a refusal to body or embody, this fungibility might become the power of unceasing variability and inclusiveness that surpasses passing toward a more robust social reciprocity. the insight is the histories of disposability and the viscera of medical science wreaking havoc as opened up in the book's first chapter. snorton here juxtaposes the earliest examples of gynecology, entering it into a trans studies canon's knowledge production concerning the reorganization of flesh and tissues, how these knowledges and the subjects they form still must contend with legacies of unbearable antiblackness.
nerdsbianhokie's review against another edition
While I will be returning to this book, it will be a physical copy instead of the audiobook. I could have handled the density and academic jargon if it wasn't for the way it is narrated. The pacing is all over the place, with some stuff spoken very quickly, then frequent pauses and odd inflections. Instead of paying attention to the content, I spent most of my time thinking that this is why there are people who are paid to read audiobooks, and that it is very much a specific skill.
11corvus11's review
This has been an anticipated to-read for me for a while and I was disappointed to find yet another queer/trans theory book with excessive academic jargon. To many in a row this week, so I'm putting it down for now and leaving myself this note to give it another shot later when I'm in a better mood.