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alexauthorshay 's review for:
He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters
by Schuyler Bailar
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
This book covers a lot more topics than I expected, and was much slower going than I expected (not in a bad way, just that it is dense with content so you can't finish a page as fast as you would fiction or even other non-fiction). It's been a while since I have wanted to read a non-fiction book to the point that I can't wait to pick it up again, but this book was one of those. I read it at a coincidentally perfect time politically, as Alberta is currently challenging a bunch of trans rights and there are chapters in this book that address transgender kids, pronoun use, trans athletes, and more. Even as a trans person I haven't given lots of thought to some of these topics, and some of those I have I have not been able to put into words—the section about transitioning in a world where gender didn't matter and what that would look like and mean was particularly useful to me.
I highly recommend this book for trans folks and allies alike; Bailar uses motivational language and knows what he is talking about from experience and extensive research and discussion with other people. Even if you are trans and well-read, you can probably still learn something new—even if only a new perspective—from this book. It takes a bit to get through but is well worth it. The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is because it does get a bit self-help/motivational-speech-esque at times with the repetitions of 'this is valid' and similar. Not a bad thing to have, but for me personally I felt a bit too beat over the head with it.
I highly recommend this book for trans folks and allies alike; Bailar uses motivational language and knows what he is talking about from experience and extensive research and discussion with other people. Even if you are trans and well-read, you can probably still learn something new—even if only a new perspective—from this book. It takes a bit to get through but is well worth it. The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars is because it does get a bit self-help/motivational-speech-esque at times with the repetitions of 'this is valid' and similar. Not a bad thing to have, but for me personally I felt a bit too beat over the head with it.