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A review by horrorbutch
Trans and Disabled: An Anthology of Identities and Experiences by Alex Iantaffi
3.0
Disclaimer: I received an e-ARC from netgalley in exchange for a review.
As a trans (not quite disabled, but also not quite not disabled - still figuring it out) person with many trans and disabled friends I knew I had to pick this book up and I knew it would make me cry. I also did tear up a bit already reading the introduction, which especially mentions the way oppression grew during the Covid-19 pandemic as certain lives where once again declared “expendable”. As someone who finally dove into Disability Studies during exactly this time, this is a sentiment I have already seen reflected all around us and so it just started off very strong and emotional for me.
I truly love the cover and I was super excited to dive into this anthology. As a very personal collection of works by and for trans and disabled creators this certainly delivers an interesting collection of short memoirs, essays, poems and artwork of creators who are both transgender and disabled. While the quality of the pieces differs, as does the length and genre (we have some poems that are barely a page long and some rather academic essays in here as well as some very personal musings on the intersection of systems of oppressions) there weren’t any pieces I actively disliked. There were some where I couldn’t take as much with me as I had hoped I would, but most of them described quite interesting experiences and either left me thinking about it or felt relateable to me. I also enjoyed how many different disabilities where features in this anthology (from various neurotypes and plurality to invisible disabilities like ME/CFS to diabetes and various mobility aid users there’s a lot here). My favorite pieces where Loving with defiance: breaking a binary, not a b1n0ry by Kitty Lu Bear, I am transgender and my disability is not a cautionary tale by Finlay Games, Mimicry by Jonathan Eden, What are we worth? by Lee K Hulme and Who fights for us… by Lior Effinger-Weintraub.
Unfortunately, this book missed a crucial opportunity by not including the voices of disabled trans women and only featuring one person that identifies as transfeminine. Discussions of transmisogyny and how it related to medical mistreatment of disabled trans women was thus not featured at all, which I feel is a great oversight, as that is a field of medical misogyny that is rarely examined and should have rightfully belonged in this anthology. All texts that focus on medical maltreatment focus instead on afab transgender people and while this form of sexism in medicine needs to be examined, it does not feel right to me to read an anthology that claims to provide an insight into the experiences of transgender people, when a huge percentage of them doesn’t even get a place to speak. I also think a deeper examination on race and its compounding effect on marginalizations could have been intriguing, as that was only mentioned in very few pieces. This has cost it a star in my rating and so only manages to achieve a 3 star rating.
All in all, I enjoyed this anthology despite its shortcomings and I do hope for more examinations of the overlaps of being transgender and disabled and how these two aspects of identity can compound oppressions we face.
Plural, trans and disabled by Meg-John Barker: The first essay is both very academic and very personal, examining the way different and overlapping disabilities can make it hard to differentiate certain symptoms and aspects of disabilities. It also draws parallels between being plural, trans and disabled and functions as a really interesting introductory text to this anthology.
Embodying (in)valid identities: balancing betwixt and between being “enough” by Shanna Katz Kattari: A short text examining the author’s existence as an autistic nonbinary trans fat femme, with a focus on joy through fashion and self-expression and the overlap between autistic joy, trans joy and disability accessibility of certain types of clothes. It was really interesting and something that I sometimes witnessed for the disabled femmes in my life.
Intersectionalities by Jeong Eun Park: This essay explores various the discriminations faced as a disabled, agender, Asian person and how varying levels of (in)visibility influence their daily life. It is very personal and very interesting in giving a short view into Jeong Eun Park’s life, but it doesn’t manage to really tie the various parts it brings up together and so felt unfinished to me.
Ordinary by Atlas Oggún Phoenix: This piece features both an introduction to and the actual text to a piece of performance art about identity and skin. I really enjoyed reading this and I really enjoyed imagining the way it must look performed.
I can’t keep meeting me like this by Coltan J. Schoenike: This essay explores uncovering new parts of yourself, grieving for the time you lost by not realizing it sooner, but also embracing it and looking to the future with hope.
Beast of Burden by Silas Bourns: A short poem about a transmasculine person/trans man, about personhood and how it can change by leaving the societally instructed role of womanhood. Intriguing, but it is only a single page long and I wish there had been a bit more.
*FAV* Loving with defiance: breaking a binary, not a b1n0ry by Kitty Lu Bear: A really interesting and personal text about being trans and disabled in a multitude of ways. I found the part about using they/them pronouns especially to express plurality fascinating, but I also quite enjoyed this text otherwise, the way it plays with language and incorporates mathematics and just feels delightfully transMad in its use of language. Definitely one of the highlights of this anthology for me!
Self-portrait by Mya Saracho: A short text about identity and embracing yourself, including a stunning self-portrait for the author.
Liminal by Alex Iantaffi: This text explores the author’s identity, particularly their gender and disability and I especially found their inclusion of their experience with fatphobia interesting and important.
Do no harm by Eddy Samara: A heartbreaking poem about misgendering in a medical context and the balance act disabled trans people have to thread when you have to choose between being respected and receiving medical care.
*FAV* I am transgender and my disability is not a cautionary tale by Finlay Games: In this text the author examines the way people sometimes blame a trans persons’ disability on the choices they made to transition. I also enjoyed how he examined the various things cis people have said to him to discredit his gender, while examining the extra risk trans people face in medical settings and the way transphobia makes trans people more likely to develop chronic illnesses.
TW for discussions of suicide and self harm
Swimming westward away by Lawrence Lorraine Mullen: a very short poem
Bathroom buzz cut by Liz Moore: A text about changes in hairstyle as influenced by queerness, gender and disability, the joy and grief of it.
What I remember by Maxwell Colletti Vonraven: In this essay the author examines his experiences post brain surgery and how he and his partner were (mis)treated by the medical system. This is an absolutely enraging text and I just felt so happy to read that at least the author had his partner by his side a lot of times. As someone who knows the trans broken arm syndrome already, I am glad that this text also explained the syndrome to people who may not be familiar.
New disease by Nova Larkin Schrage: A really intriguing poem about gender and disability and falling outside of binaries
COVID-19, self-revelations and the resilience of intersectional online community by Jac of Gendermeowster: This essay explores the ways people formed online communities during the beginning of the pandemic, various coming outs during the initial lockdown and the way online spaces are often uniquely accessible to disabled and queer people.
Deeply plussed by T Boris-Schacter: In this essay the author explores growing up with Diabetes Type-1 and how their aversion to technology to handle it due to bad experiences when they were a kid have finally started to change as well as their steps towards gender affirming surgery.
Do I qualify for love by Atlas Oggún Phoenix: In this essay the author examines their experience of childhood abuse and their experiences with love. This was really heartbreaking.
TW: suicide attempt, childhood abuse
*Fav* Mimicry by Jonathan Eden: This essay examines the cost of trying to fit in, the reasons for doing so, but also the dangers of having to engage in mimicry as the author calls it. There’s also some really cool art in this piece and I enjoy the exploration of the overlapping experiences of having to pass as cis and non-disabled.
Give us our roses by Ollie Millerhoff: As a person who still masks in order not to get sick while having to work retail this is a deeply relatable essay. It examines being disabled now when most people have taken off their masks and the topic of early death with both disproportionally affects transgender and disabled people.
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by Root Holden: A short look at an art piece of Saint Sebastian and a reclamation of him as a figurehead for queer and disabled people. Interesting and I enjoyed the art.
*Fav* What are we worth? by Lee K Hulme: This is mostly a love letter to the caring and supportive partner of a trans and disabled person and I think it is an incredibly touching essay. A relationship like that should be common, but obviously, way too many trans and disabled (and especially if it overlaps) people are told they are too much or otherwise undesirable, so reading this was very lovely.
A love story by Milo Cooper: A love letter to a future self, very emotional and touching and sweet
Bender by H Howitt: A short essay examining the overlap of EDS, AuDHD and being transgender. I found it very interesting to consider EDS as a potential form of Neuroqueerness due to how often it overlaps with queerness and neurodivergence.
*FAV* Who fights for us… by Lior Effinger-Weintraub: This essay examines the (in)accessibility of many protests, especially now past covid and how draining it can feel to try and be active against oppression when various oppressions intersect and make certain forms of activism inaccessible for you.
As a trans (not quite disabled, but also not quite not disabled - still figuring it out) person with many trans and disabled friends I knew I had to pick this book up and I knew it would make me cry. I also did tear up a bit already reading the introduction, which especially mentions the way oppression grew during the Covid-19 pandemic as certain lives where once again declared “expendable”. As someone who finally dove into Disability Studies during exactly this time, this is a sentiment I have already seen reflected all around us and so it just started off very strong and emotional for me.
I truly love the cover and I was super excited to dive into this anthology. As a very personal collection of works by and for trans and disabled creators this certainly delivers an interesting collection of short memoirs, essays, poems and artwork of creators who are both transgender and disabled. While the quality of the pieces differs, as does the length and genre (we have some poems that are barely a page long and some rather academic essays in here as well as some very personal musings on the intersection of systems of oppressions) there weren’t any pieces I actively disliked. There were some where I couldn’t take as much with me as I had hoped I would, but most of them described quite interesting experiences and either left me thinking about it or felt relateable to me. I also enjoyed how many different disabilities where features in this anthology (from various neurotypes and plurality to invisible disabilities like ME/CFS to diabetes and various mobility aid users there’s a lot here). My favorite pieces where Loving with defiance: breaking a binary, not a b1n0ry by Kitty Lu Bear, I am transgender and my disability is not a cautionary tale by Finlay Games, Mimicry by Jonathan Eden, What are we worth? by Lee K Hulme and Who fights for us… by Lior Effinger-Weintraub.
Unfortunately, this book missed a crucial opportunity by not including the voices of disabled trans women and only featuring one person that identifies as transfeminine. Discussions of transmisogyny and how it related to medical mistreatment of disabled trans women was thus not featured at all, which I feel is a great oversight, as that is a field of medical misogyny that is rarely examined and should have rightfully belonged in this anthology. All texts that focus on medical maltreatment focus instead on afab transgender people and while this form of sexism in medicine needs to be examined, it does not feel right to me to read an anthology that claims to provide an insight into the experiences of transgender people, when a huge percentage of them doesn’t even get a place to speak. I also think a deeper examination on race and its compounding effect on marginalizations could have been intriguing, as that was only mentioned in very few pieces. This has cost it a star in my rating and so only manages to achieve a 3 star rating.
All in all, I enjoyed this anthology despite its shortcomings and I do hope for more examinations of the overlaps of being transgender and disabled and how these two aspects of identity can compound oppressions we face.
Plural, trans and disabled by Meg-John Barker: The first essay is both very academic and very personal, examining the way different and overlapping disabilities can make it hard to differentiate certain symptoms and aspects of disabilities. It also draws parallels between being plural, trans and disabled and functions as a really interesting introductory text to this anthology.
Embodying (in)valid identities: balancing betwixt and between being “enough” by Shanna Katz Kattari: A short text examining the author’s existence as an autistic nonbinary trans fat femme, with a focus on joy through fashion and self-expression and the overlap between autistic joy, trans joy and disability accessibility of certain types of clothes. It was really interesting and something that I sometimes witnessed for the disabled femmes in my life.
Intersectionalities by Jeong Eun Park: This essay explores various the discriminations faced as a disabled, agender, Asian person and how varying levels of (in)visibility influence their daily life. It is very personal and very interesting in giving a short view into Jeong Eun Park’s life, but it doesn’t manage to really tie the various parts it brings up together and so felt unfinished to me.
Ordinary by Atlas Oggún Phoenix: This piece features both an introduction to and the actual text to a piece of performance art about identity and skin. I really enjoyed reading this and I really enjoyed imagining the way it must look performed.
I can’t keep meeting me like this by Coltan J. Schoenike: This essay explores uncovering new parts of yourself, grieving for the time you lost by not realizing it sooner, but also embracing it and looking to the future with hope.
Beast of Burden by Silas Bourns: A short poem about a transmasculine person/trans man, about personhood and how it can change by leaving the societally instructed role of womanhood. Intriguing, but it is only a single page long and I wish there had been a bit more.
*FAV* Loving with defiance: breaking a binary, not a b1n0ry by Kitty Lu Bear: A really interesting and personal text about being trans and disabled in a multitude of ways. I found the part about using they/them pronouns especially to express plurality fascinating, but I also quite enjoyed this text otherwise, the way it plays with language and incorporates mathematics and just feels delightfully transMad in its use of language. Definitely one of the highlights of this anthology for me!
Self-portrait by Mya Saracho: A short text about identity and embracing yourself, including a stunning self-portrait for the author.
Liminal by Alex Iantaffi: This text explores the author’s identity, particularly their gender and disability and I especially found their inclusion of their experience with fatphobia interesting and important.
Do no harm by Eddy Samara: A heartbreaking poem about misgendering in a medical context and the balance act disabled trans people have to thread when you have to choose between being respected and receiving medical care.
*FAV* I am transgender and my disability is not a cautionary tale by Finlay Games: In this text the author examines the way people sometimes blame a trans persons’ disability on the choices they made to transition. I also enjoyed how he examined the various things cis people have said to him to discredit his gender, while examining the extra risk trans people face in medical settings and the way transphobia makes trans people more likely to develop chronic illnesses.
TW for discussions of suicide and self harm
Swimming westward away by Lawrence Lorraine Mullen: a very short poem
Bathroom buzz cut by Liz Moore: A text about changes in hairstyle as influenced by queerness, gender and disability, the joy and grief of it.
What I remember by Maxwell Colletti Vonraven: In this essay the author examines his experiences post brain surgery and how he and his partner were (mis)treated by the medical system. This is an absolutely enraging text and I just felt so happy to read that at least the author had his partner by his side a lot of times. As someone who knows the trans broken arm syndrome already, I am glad that this text also explained the syndrome to people who may not be familiar.
New disease by Nova Larkin Schrage: A really intriguing poem about gender and disability and falling outside of binaries
COVID-19, self-revelations and the resilience of intersectional online community by Jac of Gendermeowster: This essay explores the ways people formed online communities during the beginning of the pandemic, various coming outs during the initial lockdown and the way online spaces are often uniquely accessible to disabled and queer people.
Deeply plussed by T Boris-Schacter: In this essay the author explores growing up with Diabetes Type-1 and how their aversion to technology to handle it due to bad experiences when they were a kid have finally started to change as well as their steps towards gender affirming surgery.
Do I qualify for love by Atlas Oggún Phoenix: In this essay the author examines their experience of childhood abuse and their experiences with love. This was really heartbreaking.
TW: suicide attempt, childhood abuse
*Fav* Mimicry by Jonathan Eden: This essay examines the cost of trying to fit in, the reasons for doing so, but also the dangers of having to engage in mimicry as the author calls it. There’s also some really cool art in this piece and I enjoy the exploration of the overlapping experiences of having to pass as cis and non-disabled.
Give us our roses by Ollie Millerhoff: As a person who still masks in order not to get sick while having to work retail this is a deeply relatable essay. It examines being disabled now when most people have taken off their masks and the topic of early death with both disproportionally affects transgender and disabled people.
The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by Root Holden: A short look at an art piece of Saint Sebastian and a reclamation of him as a figurehead for queer and disabled people. Interesting and I enjoyed the art.
*Fav* What are we worth? by Lee K Hulme: This is mostly a love letter to the caring and supportive partner of a trans and disabled person and I think it is an incredibly touching essay. A relationship like that should be common, but obviously, way too many trans and disabled (and especially if it overlaps) people are told they are too much or otherwise undesirable, so reading this was very lovely.
A love story by Milo Cooper: A love letter to a future self, very emotional and touching and sweet
Bender by H Howitt: A short essay examining the overlap of EDS, AuDHD and being transgender. I found it very interesting to consider EDS as a potential form of Neuroqueerness due to how often it overlaps with queerness and neurodivergence.
*FAV* Who fights for us… by Lior Effinger-Weintraub: This essay examines the (in)accessibility of many protests, especially now past covid and how draining it can feel to try and be active against oppression when various oppressions intersect and make certain forms of activism inaccessible for you.