Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam

23 reviews

nilescrane's review against another edition

5.0

I felt so grounded and at home in my transness when reading this.

Comfort, desperation, love: this is the emotional register in which I, too, experience trans and queer history. Like Shapland, I came to identification with the queer past before I came to full articulation of my queer present: I knew that I felt deep hurt and anger about past injustices against queer men, and deep emotional identification with them, long before I realised that was one aspect of my trans experience.... But it's through such indecorous emotion that history has provided me with some of the most intensely important experiences of my life.

Heyam reifies the watered down arguments I have in my head when I am met with the transphobic rhetoric of transness being a 'new fad'. My copy is tagged, dogearred, and annotated to the brim. I treasure this reading experience and I thank you, Dr. Heyam, for giving us hope in the form of history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual violence, Transphobia, and Colonisation

templetoncecelia's review against another edition

informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia

Moderate: Confinement, Deadnaming, Genocide, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, Dysphoria, and Classism

Minor: Suicidal thoughts

kkpwnall's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Colonisation

Minor: Homophobia, Transphobia, and Medical trauma

rachbake's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Racism, Sexual assault, Transphobia, and Colonisation

warlocksarecool21's review against another edition

hopeful informative reflective

4.5

Before We Were Trans is a brilliant book exploring trans history in an intersectional way. The author shows how the history of trans identities overlaps with history of intersex people, women, lesbians, non-western cultures & spirituality and how they were warped by colonization. Dr. Heyam does a wonderful job of explaining the nuances of how trans history is interconnected with all those things above and directly questions how interpretation of history can harm certain communities even if unintentionally. This book was really thought-provoking and even if you have a good understanding of intersectional theory regarding activism and feminism, I still recommend this book because of how detailed Dr. Heyam is and how well-researched his book is. The audiobook was narrated by the author and I really enjoyed it. Although it might be worth getting your hands on a physical copy or ebook to at least see the names of the historical figures and communities mentioned. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism, Transphobia, Police brutality, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, and Classism

valkyri_anna's review against another edition

informative reflective fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, and Colonisation

sydapel's review against another edition

challenging informative medium-paced

5.0

Incredibly thoughtful, detailed and informative examination of what gender has meant to different cultures and groups over history. Really made me consider how much of a social and political construct gender can be, and how it's possible to discuss it in a respectful and intriguing way. Kit does such a good job of bringing the figures they're writing about into a broader context, pushing the readers conceptions of gender and identity. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Homophobia, Slavery, and Colonisation

the_reading_wren's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Fascinating, challenging and most of all comforting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Biphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Outing, and Colonisation

Moderate: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Deadnaming, Genocide, Racism, Rape, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Cultural appropriation, Dysphoria, War, and Classism

Minor: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic

zombiezami's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Deadnaming, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Transphobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation

Moderate: Confinement, Infertility, Infidelity, Slavery, Kidnapping, and Dysphoria

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Biphobia, Cursing, Pedophilia, Lesbophobia, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Eugenics, Intersexism, Incarceration

frog_appreciator's review against another edition

3.75

While jarring to see AGAB language used so often in a historical context, the author is extremely self aware which is important when talking about other cultures, even if it bordered on excessive at times (repeating themself in footnotes) I definitely learned a lot while reading so it was worthwhile. I’m excited to dive into other texts mentioned in the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Transphobia, and Colonisation

Moderate: Sexual assault and Torture