This book should have been shorter and more balanced. That said, it states some things that desperately needed stating. Pediatric transitioning now seems more disturbing to me than ever.

Something that has always bothered me about our current understanding of trans identity, that I don't think I've ever seen explicitly stated elsewhere, is that it seems to think gender is definable by the most culture-specific, superficial things - i.e. liking pink and liking dresses makes you a girl. Joyce discusses how being trans is explained to children: "You nod along to descriptions of restrictive gender norms, hoping for the right conclusion: that nobody need conform if they do not want to, and that there is nothing wrong with boys playing with dolls or girls playing with trucks. You long to hear that girls (or boys) are people with female (or male) bodies who behave however they damn well please; instead you hear that girls (or boys) are people who behave in feminine (or masculine) ways." ( )

Difficult to review. Over-all good book.

Trans history lesson was very good. My problem with the book wasn't disagreement, but that the author's emphasis was centered around how Trans policies affected feminist issues and how the battle is being fought in the UK.

I have different reasons for opposing the Trans mania and I am more interested in US policies. ( )

As a curious but uninformed observer of the arguments between Trans activists and second wave feminists, I felt this gave me a clearer view of those feminists arguments regarding gender identity and material sex along with how it's currently playing out in public policy. The book was very ideological and dogmatic - making the title a bit silly. I don't know anything about book marketing, so I don't know how much the author has to do with a title.

Some of Joyce's arguments veered into some significant anti-trans territory. For instance, when reviewing prison rapes experienced by transwoman Joyce says "One oft-cited justification for those transfers is that transwomen are unsafe in men’s prisons. But are they? ...That would suggest that around 0.6 percent of transwomen in prison report an assault each year. The Howard League, a campaigning British charity, estimates that one percent of all male prisoners in the UK have been raped, and five percent have been coerced into sex – but those are cumulative, not annual, figures, and also include very many unreported incidents."

If I'd written that line about biological woman in my new book Fem: When Ideology Meets Reality, I think that feminists would rightly see it as bigoted and dehumanizing. I can imagine: "coerced sex?? Really?? That's called RAPE". When Joyce is singing to the choir, I don't think she understands (nor does her target audience) about just how bigoted this book gets. This is just one example of that, though the worst that I perceived.

Writing 4.5 pages of reference notes for a book like this is also unacceptable - unless this is actually all the research she did for this book - which then is unacceptable.

I still came out agreeing that physiology matters, and that woman have been historically targeted in many ways which took massive efforts to be partially addressed. Policies meant to ensure that transwoman don't suffer can hinder those gains for biological woman (examples of sport and safe spaces away from bio-men) she argues well. Science seems to be 'in progress' on how deeply biological and social gender are separate spheres. For transwoman and biological woman, there are many issues to be worked out, but the loudest on each side are pulling against the center, which isn't good for woman as far as I can tell either as a gender or a sex.

I'm appreciative to Helen Joyce for writing a book that was engaging and did a fair job of laying out the point of view for woman like her who share similar philosophies. In an era where a powerful, if fridge, left has stopped bothering to pay lip service to Enlightenment ideals and consider free speech a form of violence when it is not in service of their political ends, getting this published outside of hard right wing publishers couldn't have been easy. ( )

Well written and lucid account of the political, social, and personal narrative of trans ideological politics. The author is erudite and accessible, a difficult feat for many. Her research is quite solid, and her compassion for the women and children caught in the expanding web of trans politics is evident. She discusses autogynophilia, but here I think it might be a little weaker, because while I understood everything she talked about, I was already aware of this condition and diagnosis. I am not sure she explained it well enough for anyone coming to this fresh from the obliviousness of not caring about it before, and it is an important topic to understand. I suggest this book should be in every library, and should be given to every college freshman (though by then it might be too late). ( )

Joyce takes a clear look at what has become a very volatile subject in recent years, and examines what is at stake if we fail to fully realise its implications. An excellent book that I would recommend to everyone. ( )