Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Twitter
  3. Follow us on Instagram
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • About CBR
    • Getting Started
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • Leaderboard
    • The CBR Team
    • Recent Comments
    • CBR Interviews
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • How You Can Donate
    • Book Sale
    • CBR Merchandise
    • Supporters and Friends of CBR
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Follow Us

Open Registration for CBR13 ends Jan. 31! Sign Up Today!

> FAQ Home
> Genre: Biography/Memoir > “Seriously, my friend’s daughter is constantly misgendered because she favours clothes with dinosaurs on. EVERYONE KNOWS ALL DINOSAURS WERE BOYS AND THAT’S WHY THEY’RE EXTINCT.”

“Seriously, my friend’s daughter is constantly misgendered because she favours clothes with dinosaurs on. EVERYONE KNOWS ALL DINOSAURS WERE BOYS AND THAT’S WHY THEY’RE EXTINCT.”

The Gender Games by Juno Dawson

October 7, 2020 by narfna 4 Comments

Been sitting on this review for two months now, trying to land on a star rating, and how to articulate what I wanted to say. Ultimately, this is a good book that is part memoir and part feminist/social text about being transgender (with a focus on the UK), with some intersectional feminist ideas thrown in. It’s also written in a very colloquial, humorous style that is very much not the norm for these kinds of books. This is what threw me, because I couldn’t decide if the familiar/jokey tone helped or hurt the book, because it wasn’t what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting you know, serious words for serious themes or some such rot. In the end, I think it’s both, but it helped far more than it hurt. (This is obviously completely subjective.)

Ultimately, I think the tone helps with the overall design of the book, which is aimed not just at trans readers but for everybody else as well. It’s meant to be humanizing and disarming, and I think that works. (There were just a few instances where I thought the joke went a bit far and cut into the points she was making. Then again, I’m sensitive to this because a friend of mine is always the one to take a joke too far. It’s funny, and it’s funny, and then it crosses the line and you want to hide your face, roll your eyes, that kind of thing.)

The Gender Games is a 2017 book by transgender author Juno Dawson. Though things have changed quite a bit in the cultural conversation surrounding gender, this book is still very relevant. Perhaps even more so right now, as a certain formerly beloved British author has been throwing her ignorant, uniformed views into the public conversation and making waves. Juno mentions in the book, and I have heard it elsewhere, that the single most important thing to people being understanding of trans issues is knowing a trans person. I certainly became much more aware after having multiple trans friends, online and off, because if someone you care about cares about something, the natural impulse is for you to care, too, and to be informed. For people who don’t have anyone trans in their life, Juno (we are on a first name basis now because this book gets very personal) has written this book instead. Hopefully some of them will pick it up.

She does two things here: Telling the story of her life as it relates to Gender (which she personifies throughout the book), and using the opportunities presented by her story to explicate the ideas of Gender, sexuality, and other feminist and social issues, in plain language in a way that most people would be easily able to understand. She uses her real life stories or those of people she’s met or interviewed to provide examples. In that way, it’s a text that discusses intellectual, nearly academic, issues but in a very down to earth way. The main thesis of the book is that “we have all been fucked by Gender,” which is a social construct, aka something completely made up by humans and therefore malleable, but which most of us inexplicably treat like hard and fast live or die rules. She takes full advantage of her perspective, having lived the first part of her life as a gay white effeminate man (with all the complex privileges and disadvantages that come with all her intersecting identities), and then later in life suddenly experiencing the view from the other side of the gender spectrum.

Because of her familiar tone, the book did at points feel messy, but overall this was a very intelligent and compassionate exploration (both personal and cultural) of Gender and in today’s social context. And she is funny, and has a very unique voice as a writer. As with anyone possessing a unique style, YMMV.

This would also be a good starting point if you know someone with a good sense of humor who wants to know more about trans people and trans experiences, or if you just want to read someone funny talking about gender and sexuality.

Filed Under: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction Tagged With: #memoir, British, gender, humor, juno dawson, LGBTQIA, non fiction, Sexuality, the gender games, transgender

narfna's CBR12 Review No:139 · Genres: Biography/Memoir, Non-Fiction · Tags: #memoir, British, gender, humor, juno dawson, LGBTQIA, non fiction, Sexuality, the gender games, transgender ·
Rating:
· 4 Comments

About narfna

CBR13 participantCBR13 CommentsCBR12 participantCBR11 participantCBR10 participantCBR  9CBR 8CBR 7CBR 6CBR 5CBR 4

Good evening, everyone. I'm Leslie Monster, and this is Nightline. View narfna's reviews»

Comments

  1. Emmalita says

    October 7, 2020 at 4:51 pm

    2020 has been the deadliest year on record for trans people in the US, and transphobia has been becoming more virulent in the UK, so I think we still need books like this.

    Reply
    • andtheIToldYouSos says

      October 7, 2020 at 5:17 pm

      AGREED! the more the merrier. I have the privilege of meeting more and more teens and youth who are open and curious around their gender expression every day, but for every lovely kid there are three nasty adults unwilling to just let them be!

      Reply
      • narfna says

        October 7, 2020 at 5:54 pm

        Reading about kids today makes me hopeful. I hope I can still be the kind of adult that is willing to learn things and change my ideas as I grow older.

        Reply
    • narfna says

      October 7, 2020 at 5:47 pm

      I feel like there have been 5,000 years of time somehow fitted into the last actual three years since this has been published.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Recent Comments

  • Emmalita on Borderline Personality Disorder UnpackedThis is a great review! Thanks for writing it.
  • Emmalita on Alright, alright, alright…You're back!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!! I appreciate that McConaughey is up front about how he managed his image and career. I might even tolerate him as the...
  • narfna on Commencing the Great Cosmere Re-read.One of these days I'm going to have to see if I can sit down and watch some of his lectures now that he's online....
  • sabian30 on Commencing the Great Cosmere Re-read.I'm reading this now after watching his class at BYU. I'd never read any of his stuff, but he seems an interesting fellow (gamer nerd...
  • andtheIToldYouSos on …but the past ain’t through with you.I can't wait for you to read The Searcher!
See More Recent Comments »

Want to Help Out?

CBR has a great crew of volunteers, and we're always looking for more people to help out. If you have a specialty or are willing to learn, drop MsWas a line.

  • How You Can Donate
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in