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A review by xxivo
Dear Bi Men: A Black Man's Perspective on Power, Consent, Breaking Down Binaries, and Combating Erasure by J.R. Yussuf
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This book taught me a lot on bisexuality and myself.
First I want to say it was very refreshing to have this book being extremely trans positive. As a trans person I have had troublesome interactions with the cis queer community and always get a bit afraid with cis queer books that they might end up being negative of trans people. This book however outright acknowledged us and took us into account. In the part with dating tips there is even a section about dating trans people that was perfect and spot on with the tips how to treat us. I haven't even seen such a good "how to date trans people" before yet and I was very happy to see that in this book.
This book obviously isn't about trans people at all and was not the focus in the slightest. The book focuses on a lot of different sides of bisexuality, the struggles it can bring and gives many great self help tips for that. There is a chapter about unlearning biphobia and I learned a lot about that. It spoke about how sometimes people hide they are bi by saying they're just gay or instead straight. And oh boy was I called out by that. Then continuing the book showing that bisexuality is a spectrum and leaning heavily to one gender is totally valid to be bisexual, really made me think on my own identity. I usually say I am gay, not bi, even though I'm also into women. I don't think I made the choice for doing that very conciously, but a part of "not being bi enough" definitely had a play in it when I looked deeper at my feelings. Since then I have been changing the way I identify more to a proud bisexual than gay hiding it away. And to be honest it has felt great and I am grateful this book brought me that.
The book also talks a lot about the authors life and the intersectionality of being bisexual and a black man. The self help parts were less relevant to me as a white bisexual man, but I learned a lot from the experiences the author shared and I feel like my understanding of that perspective of life is better now than it was before. I fully believe that the self help parts here are useful too, but for that I would recommend checking out another reviewer who's black on their opinion if you want to know more about that.
Concluding I learned a lot about this book and I am sure that other bisexual men will as well.
I received an eARC and this was my honest review.
First I want to say it was very refreshing to have this book being extremely trans positive. As a trans person I have had troublesome interactions with the cis queer community and always get a bit afraid with cis queer books that they might end up being negative of trans people. This book however outright acknowledged us and took us into account. In the part with dating tips there is even a section about dating trans people that was perfect and spot on with the tips how to treat us. I haven't even seen such a good "how to date trans people" before yet and I was very happy to see that in this book.
This book obviously isn't about trans people at all and was not the focus in the slightest. The book focuses on a lot of different sides of bisexuality, the struggles it can bring and gives many great self help tips for that. There is a chapter about unlearning biphobia and I learned a lot about that. It spoke about how sometimes people hide they are bi by saying they're just gay or instead straight. And oh boy was I called out by that. Then continuing the book showing that bisexuality is a spectrum and leaning heavily to one gender is totally valid to be bisexual, really made me think on my own identity. I usually say I am gay, not bi, even though I'm also into women. I don't think I made the choice for doing that very conciously, but a part of "not being bi enough" definitely had a play in it when I looked deeper at my feelings. Since then I have been changing the way I identify more to a proud bisexual than gay hiding it away. And to be honest it has felt great and I am grateful this book brought me that.
The book also talks a lot about the authors life and the intersectionality of being bisexual and a black man. The self help parts were less relevant to me as a white bisexual man, but I learned a lot from the experiences the author shared and I feel like my understanding of that perspective of life is better now than it was before. I fully believe that the self help parts here are useful too, but for that I would recommend checking out another reviewer who's black on their opinion if you want to know more about that.
Concluding I learned a lot about this book and I am sure that other bisexual men will as well.
I received an eARC and this was my honest review.