An informed, judicious, sensitive consideration of the falsehoods and hazards of contemporary trans activism.
How zealous activists have misrepresented biology and endangered women.
Joyce, a senior staff journalist at the Economist, provocatively challenges the now common assumption among progressives that, regarding social classifications, self-determination of gender identity ought to have priority over any underlying biological reality. Offering carefully researched analyses of the scientific view of human sexual dimorphism, the psychology of gender dysphoria, and the medical and personal tolls associated with transitioning, the author argues that a refusal to acknowledge biology has, among other injustices, caused enormous and unnecessary harm to many children and threatened safe spaces for women. Joyce explains how trans-rights ideologues have spread falsehoods about what contemporary research actually demonstrates about the immutability of sex and encouraged an egregiously one-sided public discourse. “When it comes to whether sex or gender identity should take precedence in law and everyday life,” writes the author, “the conflict has been treated as if only trans people are affected, and there has been no negotiation at all.” Joyce’s work is impressively logical, nuanced, and empathetic in restoring balance to such negotiations. Particularly astute is the author’s critique of how specialists in the West now typically counsel parents of children who present with gender dysphoria, often resorting to dubious or outright false assertions about how this disorder tends to proceed without medical intervention—or understating the risks of surgery or hormone therapies. Also excellent is her discussion of the practical and moral problems generated by an undiscriminating acceptance of trans women as women in single-sex spaces such as public bathrooms as well as in professional sports and the penal system. Furthermore, Joyce’s recommendations for how a just society might balance the rights of trans people with those of the rest of its members are profoundly compelling.
An informed, judicious, sensitive consideration of the falsehoods and hazards of contemporary trans activism.Pub Date: June 14, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-861-54372-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
The choir is sure to enjoy this impassioned preaching on familiar progressive themes.
Essays on current political topics by a high-profile actor and activist.
Milano explains in an introduction that she began writing this uneven collection while dealing with a severe case of Covid-19 and suffering from "persistent brain fog.” In the first essay, "On Being Unapologetically Fucked Up,” the author begins by fuming over a February 2019 incident in which she compared MAGA caps worn by high school kids to KKK hoods. She then runs through a grab bag of flash-point news items (police shootings, border crimes, sexual predators in government), deploying the F-bomb with abandon and concluding, "What I know is that fucked up is as fundamental a state of the world as night and day. But I know there is better. I know that ‘less fucked up’ is a state we can live in.” The second essay, "Believe Women," discusses Milano’s seminal role in the MeToo movement; unfortunately, it is similarly conversational in tone and predictable in content. One of the few truly personal essays, "David," about the author's marriage, refutes the old saw about love meaning never having to say you're sorry, replacing it with "Love means you can suggest a national sex strike and your husband doesn't run away screaming." Milano assumes, perhaps rightly, that her audience is composed of followers and fans; perhaps these readers will know what she is talking about in the seemingly allegorical "By Any Other Name," about her bad experience with a certain rosebush. "Holy shit, giving birth sucked," begins one essay. "Words are weird, right?" begins the next. "Welp, this is going to piss some of you off. Hang in there," opens a screed about cancel culture—though she’s entirely correct that “it’s childish, divisive, conceited, and Trumpian to its core.” By the end, however, Milano's intelligence, compassion, integrity, and endurance somewhat compensate for her lack of literary polish.
The choir is sure to enjoy this impassioned preaching on familiar progressive themes.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-18329-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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