My review of When Kids Say They’re Trans, the new guide for parents written by Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marchiano, and Stella O’Malley is up at Genspect!
At this point, I’ve been researching gender identity for years. So I’m used to reading “trans boys” and thinking “girls,” or “chest masculinization” (breast amputation). I’ve come to see this language as a tether designed to keep the reader on the surface, to prevent any forays into the unknown. The cognitive toll these constant acts of translation take is considerable. Once you’ve picked your way to the end of a sentence, you have to go back to the beginning to figure out what any of it means.
So when I picked up When Kids Say They’re Trans, I felt something unclench inside me—because the book is first and foremost a compassionate but firm reassertion of reality. Girls are girls, boys are boys, and gender is no exception to what we know about children and adolescents and identity development. With these basics cleared up, it’s possible—finally—to delve deeper. In the process, Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marchiano, and Stella O’Malley tear down many of the false binaries that have (ironically) confounded this issue
I'm not a parent, so I don't need to read the book, but it's good to know that a book has been published with a rational point of view. We already know that trans activists will hate it because it isn't in lockstep with "affirming care". Now we just need to see if Amazon will sell it or ban it.
Am reading for review this weekend!