'All those layers of expectation that are thrust upon us; boy, masculine, femme, transgender, sexual, woman, real, are such a weight to carry round. I feel transgressive. I feel hybrid.'

Juno Roche continues to spark such powerful for me because that's what she is: Thoughtful. Empowering. Insightful. POWERFUL.

Beautiful book written by a talented and notable member of LGBTQIA+ community. Excellent follow up novel to her debut novel, Queer Sex that covers intimacy, sex, and romance with queer and transpeople. TransPower is a collection of interviews from trans and nonbinary people speaking on their experiences first-hand.

Anyone looking to hear of the trans experience from those who live it everyday, this is an excellent resource. An excellent addition to any LGBTQ+ shelf.

A very honest raw and powerful book. It is a collection of a variety of stories and interviews.
A real eye opener. Recommended read.
Thank you to both NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest unbiased review

For my first read of June (coming late, but I have just got married) I wanted to really get into the spirit of Pride and read LGBTQ+centric books. It's important that I note that I read this as a cis white female and so this book was not really aimed at or written for me. I picked it up to better educate myself on Trans issues as I feel it's important that we inform ourselves in order to be allies.

I certainly learnt a lot from this book. Roche interviewed a variety of different people, each with different Trans and Queer stories, experiences and lives. I found each of them interesting and I think Roche had a great style of interview - relaxed and informal, conversational rather than questioning. I can imagine that's extremely important when talking in such detail about matters that people usually struggle to speak about so openly (sex, genitals, dysphoria, masturbation, etc.). There was also a real sense of raw emotion and honesty about this book which was refreshing.

I struggled with some elements - mainly the discomfort I felt while reading. There is a lot of crude language and unapologetic opinion on gender, privilege and what being an ally means. Roche writes from a point of high emotion and frustration, which meant that her words had a very unedited feel about them. I disliked the repetition, the same point being made a number of times but worded differently. But really, as I said, this book is not MEANT for me so it's no wonder that I'm uncomfortable. I appreciated being challenged and being given the opportunity to hear voices that desperately needed to be heard.

One of the most important books I've read this year. I can't and won't pretend that I understand all of it; as a cis person, it's not really my place to demand that a book about being trans speaks to me and dumbs all of its nuances down so that I can palate it. It's all the more powerful because it demands to be appreciated on its own terms and not mine.

Much of this book was shocking to me and absolutely widened my frame of reference. I've always been guilty of assuming that the majority of trans people are essentially seeking to transition from one binary gender to another, probably because this is the dominant narrative that we're fed by the media, and it was difficult for me reading this book to accept that this is not the case; that being trans is itself an identity with nuance and is not merely a simulacrum of man or woman. I think I knew that objectively, but it was enlightening to see it stated with such impact.

I've not read any of Juno Roche's previous work, but will definitely be seeking it out after reading this. It's high time we had more books by and about trans people which don't seek to twist the trans narrative into something that cis people can stomach because it's close enough to being cis that we can just sort of pretend it doesn't exist. Trans people have always existed, and this book starts a conversation about the myriad ways that a trans identity can present.

This book is also accessible (although those with a disliking of the c word might want to brace themselves) in that it's not written like an academic textbook, which I appreciate. A lot of works on identity can be very verbose and dense, which can put off readers - of any identity - who might have difficulty engaging with such texts for reasons of accessibility. Absolutely required reading, and I'll be recommending this in all its guises in the future.

This is a powerful and honest collection of interviews. This book is filled with food for thought and I encourage everyone to read this to become familiar with these themes of intimacy, relationships, and sex in the trans community.

Roche's writing is vivid and engaging. I highly recommend this!

This book isn't for me. I mean that both ways - it's not a book I would purchase for myself and it wasn't written for me. It's. not. for. me. It's not for me to judge, and because of that, I feel poorly for rating it lower than a four. But I also feel that my rating might help someone else understand what it is not so that the book isn't judged unfairly by someone who didn't take the time to understand what it is. Perhaps that's naive?

This book made me feel uncomfortable. I requested access to this book to try to educate myself better on trans issues. And through Juno Roche's expertly pieced together mosaic of interviews covering trans and nonbinary perspectives, I do feel better educated. I understand that the raw language was intended to be provocative (I counted the word "cunt" at least ten times in the first 45 minutes of reading it...and that's only after I started keeping track). I am supposed to feel uncomfortable, to feel confronted by things previously held sacred. To question what it means to be a woman. To be a man. Whatever that means. But it felt a little like being punched in the face just for having a dumb look on my face. Maybe whoever punched me feels like I deserved it. It doesn't mean I'm ready for it.

This book made me uncomfortable. And perhaps I should feel uncomfortable. Maybe I'm guilty of cis-privilege and I need the wake-up call to understand the experience this whole other group is feeling that I'm so blind to. Regardless of that, I didn't enjoy reading this book.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review, and before reviewing, I should note that I am a cis woman and I was looking into reading this hoping to learn more about the community, hoping to understand and educate myself more, and through this book, I believe I have.

Interesting and educational, this book is packed with interviews from the trans and nonbinary community of their experiences and lives. It doesn't hold back, full of honesty. Being a cis woman, I felt I learned so much by reading this book and I suggest that everyone should read it too.

You don't really realise how much others go through until you bring yourself to read about it, I was stunned by many of these interviews and also completely grateful and awestruck for their honestly on such matters they discussed such as HIV, sexuality, surgeries and more.

Books like these are what I appreciate most as it gives everyone help, either lgbt+ people wanting to learn more, friends and families wanting to understand or simply beings wanting to educate themselves more on the matter.

It is not a book for few but a book for all to read and take in.

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley!!

This book is filled with raw honesty. The book is filled with information, interviews and experiences. Everyone should take the time to read it.

4* Another decent read from this author who's been there, done it and wears the t-shirt. Refreshing and interesting warts-and-all tale.

Queer Sex by this author was an eye opener for me. This is more of the same, with the same bluntness and honesty I've come to expect from Ms Roche, and which came across in her interviewees' words, too.

What this book left me with is that trans voices do need to be heard, and that trans people need to be seen. I think that the UK is a live-and-let-live country for the most, based on the London I know, but these narrative, as well as Stonewall, tell me that it's getting harder to be trans and out in the UK. This book will make you think, will enlighten you, and will make you want to do what you can in support.

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

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed Roche's frank exploration of gender, sexuality and body in Trans Power. I felt that as a white cis woman I learned a lot about the various expressions of gender and identity that exist in the world and in others. At times, I found myself a little lost in the author's meandering, and wished for a tighter narrative, but I was very impressed by the perspective.

I am a Cisgender white woman... I just need to put that out there before I try and "review" this book.

Really, what I want to say about this book is that I learned a lot while reading it. I learned that I need to listen to people who are living a life that I'm not and be willing to hear what they are saying. I learned that being Trans isn't just about gender or one's body. Trans can be about HIV, race, racism, gender, bigotry, intimacy, sexuality, surgery, suicide, religions and truth.

One of the topics that came up repeatedly in the book is about defining what "Trans" is... in terms of whether it's a noun or a verb... is it a destination? Is it a state? Is it fluid or static? Does the process begin or end, or is it even a process to begin with?

"...Trans isn't something that we exit from, it can be something that we arrive into." - Travis Power

The people interviewed in his book are remarkable and every one of them has something unique and important to share. I think that Juno Roche has done a great job of choosing people who are inspiring and candid. There are performers, teachers, authors and more.

I can see that this book would be a big help to anyone who is struggling with their gender identity or the way in which they fit into the world.

Trans Power is a book about trans identities, using interviews and personal memoir to explore different people's experiences and to consider sex, bodies, love, and more. Juno Roche talks to various influential figures to find out more about their gender, their identities, and how this intersects with other areas in their lives, and combines this with surrounding discussion on a personal and societal level. It is a powerful and raw book that highlights different voices and gives readers insight into a variety of experiences and identities.

Another important book by Juno Roche, this book follows on from Queer sex, using a similar formula of interviews with key trans and non-binary people, in-between the authors personal reflections. Queer sex was the author's quest for love, this book is about their journey to love themselves including their body, as a trans woman who has had surgery. An open and honest exploration of how to have sexual pleasure, following current wisdom about finding out what you like before you can tell someone else. I particularly liked where Juno says:

"We need to ask better questions around our surgery, not just the one of 'looking real'."

followed by a list of questions that made me think about what questions might anyone have about their body and what it can and can't do.

This book makes the case in several points that Trans and non binary people are pushing the boundaries of gender but that they are not alone:

"History is full of cis folk trying to please and blend into the gender binary to no avail. It's not like we are the sole owners of dysphoria; that shit exists all around,..."

Juno goes on to say how the system (of gender) is broken and it is certainly hard to argue against that.

I enjoyed this book but found it went further than Queer sex, if that was an introduction then this is the continuation, it was like being in the room whilst people discussed queer theory, interesting, sometimes confusing and challenging, but ultimately engaging. At times I would have liked more awareness and discussion of dysphoria that exists around different body sizes and ethnicities. I really enjoy the way Juno writes and concepts and found the book thought provoking and an important addition to Trans narratives.

With thanks to Netgalley for a free ARC for an honest review.

I initially picked this book up because I've had a few people in my life who are exploring their gender identities. Specifically those who feel they may be trans. I thought this book may help me understand more about sexual identity, and to be a better support system for those friends. While an active ally in the LGBTQ community, I did learn quite a lot from this book. I enjoyed the format of the book, which is an interview-type style, which lead me to feel more in tune with the topics. This book left me with a different perspective than I had going in, and I hope this will help me be a strong supporter of my friends as they continue with their journey's.

Trans Power is a powerful collection of conversations between Juno Roche and a dozen trans activists, performers and writers around bodies, sexuality, gender and intersections with race, religion and disability.

Trans Power has a raw, unedited quality that makes you feel as if you're in the room for these discussions, and follows on from Queer Sex in Roche's search for answers around the author's own sense of sexual embodiment. Because of this framing, many of the conversations focus on genitals, sex, and the desirability of trans people in a very emotional and honest way, alongside critiques of the gender binary, patriarchy and structural barriers for trans people. I enjoyed this very queer structure and I was left with lots to think about, especially from E-J Scott and Travis Alabanza.

At a time when trans people in the UK are so under attack politically, it felt really important that Trans Power provides the space for such nuanced conversations and the opportunity to hear from a diverse group of trans people in their own words. Recommended for everyone, get your pre-orders in now!

*I received an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The focus of Trans Power is a series of interviews around sex and transness, on the practicalities of pleasure, dysphoria, trans bodies, and the world of potential issues and ideas that can spring up within those concepts. She talks to veteran activists, drag stars, museum curators, and close friends, and each of the interviews Roche conducts reveals different conceptualizations and personal relationships to transness, sex, binary gender categories, genitals, dysphoria, pleasure. She doesn’t shy away from difficult topics: suicide, death, disability, illness, rape, assault, transphobia--nothing is pushed away or brushed aside as too much to deal with.

Juno Roche is a vivid and engaging writer, and the book is a boundary-pushing and sometimes radical read. Her language ranges from deeply academic to casually pornographic and back again, often within the space of a paragraph. The well-circulated meme about how trans folks talk about gender applies well here--the language we use is curated and careful and researched and personal because we have taken the time to engage with our thoughts and feelings and bodies and communities.

Overall, this was a beautifully written, thought-provoking, immensely sensual, and wonderfully timely book.

I really wished I liked it more than I did.

As brilliant as the writing of the book was, it was difficult to fully connect. The narrative seemed, at times, unsure of what it wanted to be: a collection of interviews, a diary, a memoir, a place to process a personal perspective on an ideology of transness. Any of those things would be totally valid (and I’d read any of them, and even a combination!) but the lack of a clear structure of the text felt like there wasn’t a clear arc. The interviews, too, were difficult at times: it frequently seemed that Roche was more interested in speaking than listening. I would have loved to have more of her subject’s perspectives on the issues she raised around gender and transness--I already knew where Roche stood, it was her book! If she had framed the chapters as conversations rather than interviews maybe the discrepancy wouldn’t have been so jarring, but I did feel it.

Another area that stood out for me, repeatedly, was the juxtaposition of the joyousness with which Roche connected to the power of trans but time and again came back to a rejection of the nonbinary identity. Full disclosure: I am queer and nonbinary, so my knee-jerk struggle with this was definitely personal. Roche framed her argument from the perspective that to be nonbinary is to a) validate the gender binary in the first place and b) to then be “non”, “less than” one of those validated binary categories. Pretty much every nonbinary person I know would take issue with both of those arguments and the sum of them. As nonbinary does fall within the trans umbrella, I wish she would have included a nonbinary interview subject in her book--there are amazing enby activists, performers, and academics out there doing incredible work, and the way we relate to and name our bodies and our sexual experiences are just as nuanced and complex as our other trans siblings. If trans is beautiful (which it is!) as she ends the book declaratively, nonbinary must be, too.

Structural and personal challenges with the text aside, the book does do what I believe it set out to: present a series of thought-provoking and engaging conversations around the way we think about trans bodies and sexuality, and how we can conceive of trans as an identity without a qualifier, offering power, beauty, strength, and healing. It’s a personal read, occasionally a difficult one, and always deeply, beautifully honest. You will come away from it a wiser person than you were before.

What a wonderfully raw and open book. I feel like I've learned alot by reading this book. I am not trans and have only met one other person (that I'm aware of) that identifies as trans. This book she be required reading in high school/college.

"I need nothing more, simply I am Trans-sapiens"

Roche explores gender and identity and what it all means, doesn't mean, and everything in between from whiteness, mental health, STDS and word choices. The interviews are revealing, raw and emotional. To be Trans, is to simply to be.

"Trans to me is that ocean, that landscape, that sky. Trans is beautiful."

Such an important book that I feel like everyone should read. A collection of interviews with people from the trans community who share their stories, struggles and are so open about it. It's really very special that they want to share this with us and I can't say enough how brave they are.

Like I said I think everyone should read it but especially people from the lgbt+ community because trans people and especially those of colour are the founders of our community and we need to support them and stand with them always. And to read this and get more insight, get to know their thoughts, feelings is just special.

Thank you to the author and to everyone who was interviewed.

A powerful and honest collection of interviews that I recommend to any-and-everyone. It is eye-opening and inspiring, and it’s worth noting that, even though the blurb describes this book as ‘focusing on the mechanics of sex’ (which, of course, it does), I really believe it contains so much wisdom that our world desperately needs.

This book is very adequately titled ‘Trans Power’, and to quote Travis towards the end of their interview with Juno on p.640 (of the kindle edition I received), “A trans body is beautiful, desirable and courageous. It’s a heroic body.”

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(Note: I ticked that I would recommend this book to my students, however it would strictly be my senior students, as it deals with sex quite explicitly)

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“Trans feels new, trans is literally buzzing. We should be jumping for joy at how we might create something decent and poetic in this hugely cynical and corrupt space. Trans is the change-maker, trans is the prefix to future-all. I truly believe that we hold many of the answers that are currently needed.” (p.187, kindle)

“The way I see things now is that not anything major about him is changing. Husk is still Husk. His personality stays the same. What makes him happy makes me happy. There are a million ways to have sex. I sometimes think that it is other cis people who really have the problems.” (p.1116, kindle)