Paperback, 112 pages
en-Latn-US language
Published Oct. 29, 2019 by Verso.
Everyone is female "When I say that everyone is female, I mean very simply that everyone wants to be a woman. What one does with this desire is what we call gender." So begins Andrea Long Chu's investigation into gender and desire, females and bodies, radical dreams and philosophical pessimism, and feminism as a form of political suicide. Feminism, Chu argues, is an untenable claim, and "when you make an untenable claim, your desire is showing, like a shy tattoo peeking out from a sleeve." Written in a series of linked theses, this is a provocative and searching text from our most exciting new public intellectual, a self described "sad trans girl in Brooklyn." Chu wears her heart on her sleeve with wit, style, and a manic searching grace.
A fun read but maybe less immediately shocking than it was when it came out; I’m getting the sense that broader trans discourse digests this kind of theory really quickly and starts taking it as read (no pun intended) which reduces its shelf life considerably. One day we’ll stop talking about sissy hypno.
Interesting ideas, thoughts, concepts of seeing gender
