NNRM #8: Trans/Rad/Fem

by Talia Bhatt

“Succinctly, misogyny is the organizing principle by which heterosexuality is reproduced.”

This book motivated me to do this NaNoReMo project in the first place.

A little over a decade ago, I remember realizing suddenly that so many of the books I had read had been by men, and so few had been by women - yet both make up roughly 50% of the population, so obviously my worldview is skewed. Naturally, I need to skew it back. And so I embarked on a journey of nearly-exclusively reading works written by women, and building up the ignoring-men muscle.

Much more recently I have come to a similar resolution, to chase down the voices of transgender people (especially women), and share them as much as possible. I want to learn our songs by heart, in this world where, at all hours of the day, you can listen to cis people talking about trans women, but not trans women talking about themselves.

And Talia, as a well-read, sharply critical desi trans femme^[1] has a lot to say. Some of the goodies: gender as a hierarchy, gender as labor (re)productive control, epistemicide, heterosexuality as patriarchical violence, and third sexing. It's all punchy, crunchy stuff.

This work can be a bit impenetrable, so for a gentler on-ramp to transfeminism I recommend Whipping Girl or, if you want to go further back, Gender Outlaw. If you're interested in getting knuckle-deep into academic transfeminine discourse, you're going to need to get used to

This essay collection is on the bleeding edge of transfeminism, and everyone should read it.

5/5

Ebook available on itch.io, physical+kindle available on Amazon. You can also read most of the essays on Talia's substack for free.