A review by samdalefox
The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice by Shon Faye

challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

This book is essential reading for all people who care about social justice. Faye gives an excellent, well researched, well presented, comprehensive view of issues trans people face in society today. The text is UK focused but draws upon global examples and history where appropriate. What I commend most about the book is Faye's analysis of intersectionality of race and class. She gives clear and convincing arguments for trans liberation, delicately explaining how this is opposed to the military and prison industrial complex, policing, paternalist states and medical models, and capitalism. Ultimately, Faye calls for solidarity between all LGBTQ+, feminist, anti-racist, anti-austerity and other social justice movements. 

The way Faye writes, I believe 'The Transgender Issue' is suitable for people well read in feminism, socialism, and Queer theory, as well as being the ultimate text for people with no knowledge of trans people at all. I would happily give this book to a person who does not understand what being trans is, is a LGBTQ+ member who is uninformed of trans-specific struggles, and even a person who is actively transphobic, because the way the book progresses and the language Faye uses, will ultimately answer all of their questions ranging from "why can't I ask about a person's sex surgery?" to "aren't trans people endangering cis women's rights and safe spaces?" and elegantly debunk their myths and misinformation. From moral panic, to respectability politics, challenging biological esssentialism, to decriminalisation of sex work. This book truly covers it all. I cannot recommend it enough. 
 

Quotes:

"When the media wants to talk about trans issues, they want to talk about the issues they have with us, not the challenges facing us".

"Humans beings rely on familiarity to understand and empathise with others. And we find it easier to extend compassion to those we can relate to."

"It is only through solidarity, compassion, and radical reimagining that we can build a most just and joyful world for all of us."

"The people providing support don't reflect the people they're serving."

"In any minority group, those who have the time, resources and political access to lead the charge for recognition and better treatment tend to be the middle class members, who don't appreciate the urgent issues of poverty and homelessness that for many can impede participation in activist movements. This representational imbalance leads to single issue priorities, which emphasise the personal freedoms of the individual rather than the economic liberation of the entire minority group."

"In short, whilst social and professional attitudes towards abortion have changed since the 1960s, the legal and political foundations of abortion do not emphasise the agency of the patient. Such access therefore remains precarious and vulnerable to attack from conservative forces. Since its inception, access to trans healthcare has similarly been an ideological battleground. For those who need them, medical transition and contraception or abortion are, or should be, about the bodily autonomy of the individual, their right to mental wellbeing and the freedom to carve our their own destiny in defiance of gender roles."

"It is a helpful comparison given the general confusion among the public about whether they ought to consider being trans as a mental illness and if not why the NHS provides treatment for it. I think the stress associated with unwanted pregnancy which is not an illness but may require medical intervention, serves as a better analogy for explaining why trans healthcare is available on the NHS to preserve wellbeing and prevent personal distress."

"I don't think we'd be where we are today, encouraging ever larger numbers of people to think within an abolitionist frame, had not the trans community taught us that is possible to effectively challenge that which is considered the very foundation of our sense of normalcy. So if it is possible to challenge the gender binary then we can certainly effecirbely resist prisons and jails and police." - Angela Davies

"A person's sense of their own identity is certainly important for psychological well-being, but as a political endpoint it turns into solipsism and detachment from others."

"Trans people are emblematic of wider conceptual concerns about the autonomy of the individual in society. Their rejection of dominant ancient ideas about the connection between biological characteristics and identity causes a dilemma for the nation state. Whether to acknowledge and give credence to the own individuals' identity in law and culture or to admit that the state is the final authority on identity and to assert its power over the people by force."

"Dismantling patriachy requires a full analysis of all the ways it manifests itself. Ignoring the concerns of any woman or person subject to misogyny will instead of abolishing patriachy, all the feminist movement will achieve is the creation of a sub class of woman against whom gender violence and misogyny remain acceptable."


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