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Reviews tagging 'Violence'
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton
2 reviews
rorikae's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.25
'Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity' by C. Riley Snorton is a thoroughly researched book that looks at gender and race, with an eye to the Black trans experience. Snorton does an excellent job of providing background information on the part that gender played in Black people's experiences during slavery and how that has set a precedent for how Black trans people are treated in the United States. They do this through highlighting the specific lived experiences of different individuals throughout history.
This book is very much a historical text. I would definitely recommend gong into this book knowing that it is an academic text and can be quite dense due to use of academic language. I think this would be a good book to read alongside a book that deals with the current lived experiences of Black trans individuals as it provides a lot of important context. If you are interested in the concepts that it tackles I would definitely recommend it. Just go in knowing that it is both a hard and important read that is going to take time to digest and fully process.
This book is very much a historical text. I would definitely recommend gong into this book knowing that it is an academic text and can be quite dense due to use of academic language. I think this would be a good book to read alongside a book that deals with the current lived experiences of Black trans individuals as it provides a lot of important context. If you are interested in the concepts that it tackles I would definitely recommend it. Just go in knowing that it is both a hard and important read that is going to take time to digest and fully process.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racism, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Grief, Murder, Slavery, Police brutality, Violence, and Hate crime
mmcloe's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Very challenging read, but necessarily so given the weight of the topics discussed and the resistance to historical flattening of Black lives, especially Black trans lives. Almost every chapter was a wonderfully deep reservoir of scholarly tools and new lenses on old history that were very helpful for me thinking through how different bodies have been treated as fungible and fluid by force and how others have taken that condition and used it to express novel ways of living that are still future-facing today. For all of the author's many references (the book also served as one of the most robust citation and reading list I've ever encountered), I'm surprised there wasn't more of a reference to Puar, especially in the chapter on Christine Jorgensen. It's incredibly interesting to think how a single white model trans woman can be used to overshadow the lives of Black trans women, and I think this analysis would really complement understandings of homonationalism across the world. Much to think about!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Hate crime, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Ableism, Rape, Medical trauma, and Misogyny
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