A review by lactoseintolerant
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

if you're transmasc or non binary as in anti-binary, this book will be alienating.

the macro aggression of folks replacing man and woman with masc and fem is such a strong pain point for me. the transfiguration of expression to power is misguided and flattening. using masc and fem in this way is highly presumptuous and extremely exclusive to folks who present with their assigned gender, or present with the same gender aesthetics they’ve been raised to perform. it upholds the very binary it’s pretending to transcend. polishing the turd, so to speak.
 
for those who try to claim trans people of all genders are accurately represented in their behavior by this presentation binary, i would argue that you’ve internalized terf rhetoric, transmuted gender essentialism, and ask that you do some self reflection. gender nonconforming people exist and our experiences do not fit neatly into cis categories of power and exploitation.

i detest this phase of activist language, and have yet to see it used responsibly or accurately. it made this otherwise valuable book extremely difficult to read. you can absolutely talk about the effects of sexism and patriarchy without excluding masculine women or otherwise assigning the label femme to those who do not want it. there are absolutely ways to do that, that don't feel like i have to choose between detransitioning or being villainized by my own community. 

language like this enables the ongoing erasure and exclusion of transmen, butches, and dykes in queer and activist spaces. it enables turning a blind eye towards the violence masc folk endure. it tells masc people we don’t belong, we’re traitors, and that our presentation is oppressive. it’s my stepmom buying me women's products. it’s strangers telling me “i’m not transphobic, i think trans men should die too.” it’s kicking butch women out of the women’s bathroom. it’s telling us we’re not feminists for "rejecting" femininity. it's rolling eyes at me when i talk about getting assaulted. it's misgendering me when i don't pass. it's assuming it knows me. it's erasing my girlhood, or confining me to it. it's putting new labels on the same boxes. it's violent and it’s absolutely unacceptable. 

to do all this and then use the suicide of a trans man as a device to discuss your own pain is deeply hurtful. following this with an essay against exclusively femme suicide... why do you hate us? i understand you mean no harm, but you are causing it. 
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