Emily Skidmore

The fact that a cisgender person wrote this book grossed me out too much to finish it. The author has a tepid blog response (http://notchesblog.com/2017/11/28/troubling-terms-the-label-problem-in-transgender-history/) to criticism of her use of the term "trans" to describe her subjects, but nothing about how she is profiting off our history and likely blind to key nuances.

Some will say this is not a fair way to review a book, but we so rarely get to tell our own stories in our own voices that to see a well connected, academically successful cisgender person get to do it in a way that trans people rarely do (what with all the job discrimination, mental health challenges, and violence) is gross. Why not try something by C. Riley Snorton instead.… (mer)