A review by probably_reading_right_now
Gender Pioneers: A Celebration of Transgender, Non-Binary and Intersex Icons by Philippa Punchard

Did not finish book. Stopped at 32%.

DNF @ 32%

I will try to keep this as short as posible, but this book elicited a lot of thoughts and emotions, and not in a good way, so this will definitely be longer then my average review. I hate not finishing a book and I almost never DNF, but I had to stop reading this one at 32%.  I was so disappointed because the concept of this book: highlighting queer people specifically trans, nonbinary, and intersex people is something that’s an instant buy for me. I love the stories of marginalized people who are often forgotten, or purposefully erased from history. I didn’t realize it already had so many low ratings, and had I known I wouldn’t have even picked this one up. 

The issues started immediately in the forward where they say people can’t relate, or aren’t interested in historical figures the further you go back. That confused me because was that not the entire purpose of the book? Would that not be why someone would pick up the book? But this was honestly the least of the issues, but I felt important for me to mention because if you don’t fully believe in the subject you’re writing about, why are you even writing about it, endorsing it, or attaching your name to it? 

In a book about trans people you’d think the language used would reflect the complexities of gender expression by avoiding the gender binary as much as possible, but that wasn’t the case. This book uses out dated, and offensive terminology to the point that I was convinced the author wasn’t actually serious. In the forward, before the book even actually started the author refers to genitalia as “male genitalia” and “female genitalia” even when referring to specific people saying “female genitalia” in reference to a trans man. When the book actually starts in chapter 1, one of the first things the author says is that they may misgender people, and they do. A lot. At least they warned us. There was constant misgendering and dead naming. The author uses terms like “true gender” and phrasing like “it was discovered” or “they were exposed as female” and saying they were “born female” and started dressing “as a man” in reference to people the author had identified as trans. As focused as the author was on the genitals of the subjects they wrote about it was weird they couldn’t just say vagina. 

They also made a distasteful joke, at least in my opinion, about “literally dead naming” someone because their dead name was on their head stone, and next to everything else this ‘joke’ felt especially tone deaf. This was all in the first 32% of a 200 page book I can’t imagine how bad the rest was. I made it to the part where the author put a murderer who bludgeoned their neighbor to death, immediately followed by a story of a murder victim which, again, was not only tone deaf, but it was weird to include a murderer in a “celebration of trans trailblazers” at all. I think this book could have greatly benefited from a trans editer, maybe a couple, and trans, nonbinary, and intersex beta readers; but I also don’t know why the author set out to write a book about something they were clearly not educated in. This book wasn’t just a bad book, it is actually very harmful. It will do a lot of harm trying to portray itself as an educational tool. I would hope people would immediately see how problematic this book is, but that’s just not the case based on some 4 and 5 star reviews of this book. 

*a copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*