This book was a great mix of informative and engaging. The essays were never difficult to read, but they did bring up a lot of points I hadn't considered before, so I think it's a great intro collection to ownvoices trans activism.

A true, honest voice addressing a wide range of topics that cis people may feel uncomfortable asking. I found it a freeing read.

As an advocate of civil rights for all, I always seek out information and books to hear people's stories in their own words. I was hoping Transgressive would help me understand the transgender narrative from actual experiences.
Rachel Anne Williams combines essays from her website as well as adds new material for this collection about her life as a transgender woman. I learned a lot but mostly about gender theory and less on her own experiences.
I like that she made sure that the reader understand these were her experiences and opinions and that she does not speak on the transgender population as a whole. As I learned reading the book, gender is so varied and experiences of living gender is very personal and different for everyone.
The biggest issue I had with the book was the tone. At the beginning, she states she always wants to hear other thoughts and questions about the topic she writes about. As I got into the book, it became clear that she didn't really want to answer questions or have discussions about topics from cis people. I can understand this to a point; many people are rude and just want to argue. I honestly want to understand what she goes through and truly understand the concepts she presents in the book.
Overall, this book is great in discussing gender theory (though it gets above my head on a scholarly level). I learned a lot and have a lot to mull over in my head.

What an essay collection! I really enjoyed this, not only because of the content but also because of how Williams' wrote this. There were a wide range of essays covering many topics relating to trans life and culture. I feel like this helped me understand certain aspects and view points better. I point i did appreciate was Williams stating that the opinions and views that she holds come from her pre-trans life as well and that her experience is not the only trans experience out there, just one of many different kinds.

This book is an ok read. It is a collection of essays- which come from the authors blog.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishing for my eARC in exchange for my honest unbiased review

3* A book that interested me, but, adversely, made me question what it means to be trans, and what gender actually means.

I know a few trans people, and have witnessed one's (occasional, dramatic, later-proven-unjustified and sympathy-seeking) insecurities, rage and prejudices against the world, and so I wanted to learn more about what it means to be trans 'from the horse's mouth', as we Brits say. I wanted to see if that person was alone in their thoughts, or one of many. I've more than once seen rage, drama and prejudice against non-trans and non-LGBT from said source, and wanted to know if it was my perceptions as an outsider-ally, or whether there could be more to justify that person's feelings and attitude.

I've come away from the book thinking that it can't be easy to be trans, however strong your mind is, but the book has also made me wonder if being trans isn't always an innate knowledge that a trans person has, but something that is sometimes less passionate a belief than what I've always assumed is at the heart of being trans. Sounds confusing, but I am trying to say that I thought being trans was a belief, un-swayable, an integral part of oneself, but now, I'm not so sure. I am not dissing the author or any trans person in saying this, merely saying that I now think that each and every trans person is different. Has different reasons for calling themselves trans, and not every one hates their physical born-into body and desires to change it. And that there are many stages of being trans, from realising, to acknowledging - or not, to trying to understand what it means for you, and how that can differ from many 'newsworthy' trans people, and deciding how far you go in your journey to have the true you emerge.

This review is going to be really awkwardly worded, and possibly (certainly, intentions wise) unwantedly and unintentionally offensive, too, but I am honest and blunt in reviews, always. I found this book really, really aggressive. Not simply passionate, not a case of a canvas for verbal diarrhoea, but intelligent and aggressive, and yes, this will sound awful, but I equated it to the author likely being a black trans female with more than one chip on her shoulder, and so I was surprised to find out she's actually Caucasian and passes pretty well. This book read as if the woman writing it was mouthy and opinionated, traits that I have rarely come across in London in my 49 years of living here, in anyone other than a bolshie black woman - sorry. Yes, that makes me sound racist, but I'm simply quoting my experiences, as the author is hers. Perhaps I'm a touch prejudiced, too, three days after seeing three teenage black girls bully a Caucasian man and mock him on a packed tube train, with all the other passengers, myself included, too shocked and scared to intervene for fear of their utterly unjustified and unwarranted aggression and unpleasantness being turned against us. I did ponder speaking up, thinking that brown-skinned, ethnic minority me might be able to make them understand how ugly they were being, but I was a coward; I was scared of the verbal and physical violence that could have come my way. I was scared because they were so different to me, and to the other decent people on the train. I worried about consequencesd and hate/aggression/attacks being aimed at me. If I am prejudiced, I apologise. The author rightly had her own (personally justified) agenda about being trans, and was extremely vocal about what she saw as attacks against the trans community and yes, the title was a clue, but I think I wasn't prepared for the degree of aggression and justification, which caused me to walk away from the book several times in search of something lighter, something more feel-good.

The book did provide an education, but it was the author's life experiences that gave her her beliefs and perspectives, and I suspect that she cannot help be biased to a degree, as I am perhaps a tad biased because of the three girls I mentioned. She did quote facts and she did go off on several tirades against others she perceived as being unfair, and being a warrior is to be admired, but I am not sure she expressed it in the right way. Might she have come across as a fairer and more measured person if I had heard her actual voice and not interpreted her voice via the written word? Perhaps, but, I am not dissing her, as I have not walked in her shoes and cannot imagine being her. I just found her stance too aggressive to empathise much with her, and to try to understand her.

I think the book has made me see that each and every trans person is different and a lot of that is down to their convictions, to when they realised they are trans, to their journey to become their true self, to how hard or easy that journey has been, to where they've been lucky enough or unlucky enough to have been born, to the country in which they live, to their social class, to how they feel about their physical self, to the people they have around them, to their life experiences, positive and negative, to finances and to what 'passing' means to them, and whether they see passing as a positive or another stick with which to beat a trans person. I thought being trans started off as a mental knowledge first and foremost, not an emotional one, and that if you were trans, that meant you had to have elements of dysphoria in the body you were born in, which would be your catalyst for wanting to change. Which, is not the case, I've come to understand, so now I have questions and more reading to do.

Did I like this book? No, because of the author's degree of aggression, and yes, I should have been more prepared via the title, but with her being a philosopher, I think I expected a more balanced approach, a fairer one, an academic's one. Still, the book was an education and I am glad that I persisted with it. Even though I am now more confused than I was before, as an LGBT ally, which means there's more reading in my future. And gender? That's a whole other story.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers, for my reading pleasure.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for feedback, in which I happily oblige.

I want to preface this by saying that I read this on my Kindle and I accidentally skipped to chapter 27 without realizing it. As you can imagine, I was quite surprised as to how (I thought) the book was beginning. That chapter, "Sacred bullshit: A rebuttal to Dan Harris" refuted a number of ignorant comments by a transphobe. I liked the essay but I thought that was a rather aggressive way to begin the book (whoops, it doesn't actually start that way!) After going back to read the first 27 chapters/essays, I saw that the book does a great job addressing misconceptions within the transgender, written by the thoughtful and dynamic Rachel Anne Williams.
As a cisgender, heterosexual, Caucasian female, I know I am in a place of privilege. (Side note: I loved the chapter where Williams also discusses the privileges she had before she transitioned). As such, I want to do everything I can to support my sisters, no matter what sex they were given at birth. I personally did not know much about the fetishization of transgenders, nor did I know much about the dating scene as a transgender (or even homosexual, for that matter). Now more than ever is a time where we should understand what our marginalized peers are growing through, so we can support them. Williams and her book are not just a testament to those transitioning/have transitioned, but this type of literature is what we NEED as a society so that we can lovingly accept others.

Reading feminist works written by minorities that I'm not a part of is important to me, and this book definitely did make me think. However, I felt that Williams was often so philosophical and tried so hard to be neutral that it felt like she had no real POV to center the book. It felt a bit like "here's a whole bunch of essays I wrote about transgender philosophy and my experiences and they're kind of organized but I am mostly just sharing my musings and there is no consistent thesis here." There was also a lot of repetition from one essay to the next.

It also struck me that she barely mentioned intersex individuals in this book, which is a group I feel should be brought into the conversation when you're discussing sex/gender systems.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for my honest book review!

I would like to note that this book is out of my normal wheelhouse of books. This is a book of essays written by Rachel Anne Williams, a transgender woman, taken from her blog she writes. I am not normally a fan of essays, but this book intrigued me and I was excited to be approved for the advance copy.

The author prefaces this book with letting you know to read the book however you want. Since this was an ebook for myself, it was easiest to read it straight through. She also asks for feedback and requests it come in the form of a “shit sandwich.” What this means is you say something that wasn’t so great, add in a part or something you loved, and end with something else that needs a little work. I appreciate this author and her quest for honest, constructive feedback.

The essays are categorized in similar groups and so they begin. I had to Google a lot of things in this book. As someone who does not know any trans gendered people, this was my first real introduction in to this world. Suddenly terms appeared in the essays and I was clueless at what they meant. This became frustrating to have to read with my phone nearby so I could look up new terms. I did find that as I read and finished the book, many of the terms were explained in detail that I had to originally look up. It would have been great to have those essays at the beginning of the book or at least an extra preface to terminology that someone outside of the transgendered world would not be familiar with.

Williams is a well-educated woman with a clear background in philosophy. The way she writes is stunning and remarkable. You can tell she thought about how she wanted to articulate herself. I also appreciated that she made sure to clarify that this book is about HER experience, and her experience only, and that everyone’s experience is different. I will say it was eye opening to learn about the process and what transgendered people go through. If you are looking for an insight and are overall just curious, I must steer you in the direction of Rachel and this book.

I wanted to like this book more than I did, but, I found myself skipping over a few essays as they just went above my head. It also frustrated me to have unfamiliar terms explained at the end of the book. I know this also probably goes with the nature of an advance copy, but, there were footnotes that were all at the end of the book. That made it difficult to read the footnotes, so I just gave up on trying, it would have been helpful to have them at the end of each essay instead.

I am giving Transgressive a 3.5 star rating. It held my interest and I feel much better informed and understanding of issues and the process that surrounds transgendered people. I also see the potential in the book to be very controversial. You won’t be sorry if you pick this book up to read and you really can skip around and read essays in whatever order (my recommendation is start with the last category of essays first). I hope to read more work from Williams in the future.