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interlibraryprone

interlibraryprone@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 1 month ago

Book nerd, cat person, tree hugger. Intersex, queer & disabled. Pronouns: ze/zer or she/her

I appreciate book recommendations of: 1. Futuristic sci-fi books where we actually mitigate climate change. 💚 2. Hard sci-fi but with queer/feminist gender politics. (I want more Expanse 😭 ) 🛰️🏳️‍⚧️ 3. Stories with quality intersex representation that do not contain sexual violence. 💜

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interlibraryprone's books

To Read (View all 9)

Joanna Macy, Chris Johnstone: Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy (2012, New World Library)
Yanis Varoufakis: Another Now (2020, Random House Children's Books)
Octavia E. Butler: Parable of the Sower (Paperback, 2000, Warner Books)

Currently Reading

Hida Viloria: Born both (2017, Hachette Books)
Morgan Holmes: Critical intersex (2009, Ashgate)
Stefan Horlacher: Transgender and intersex: Theoretical, practical, and artistic perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan)

Read (View all 129)

A. R. Capetta: The Heartbreak Bakery (Paperback, 2021, Candlewick Press)
Ed Yong: An Immense World (2023, Random House Publishing Group)
Suzette Mayr: Sleeping Car Porter (2022, Coach House Books)

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reviewed Intersex (for lack of a better word) by Thea Hillman

Thea Hillman: Intersex (for lack of a better word) (Paperback, 2008, Manic D Press)

Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word) chronicles one person’s search for self in a …

Has some good essays but suffers from insufficient editing

This book has some good essays! Some will stay with me for the emotional punch that Hillman landed. Some got me thinking about something I'd never thought about before.

But the essays are not organized in a way that makes much sense - they don't thematically build on each other and feel random in their order. The tonal whiplash makes for a tough read. Some of the essays are needlessly confusing. It makes me feel like the book wasn't edited. Little things like how two different essays are titled "Education" add up to feeling like this isn't a finished product.

Favourite essays: - Education (the first one) - Chang - Present - Condition - Okay

CONTENT WARNINGS: - Medical sexual violence in essay titled "Out" - Mention of sexual violence in essay titled "Reshaping"

finished reading Intersex (for lack of a better word) by Thea Hillman

Thea Hillman: Intersex (for lack of a better word) (Paperback, 2008, Manic D Press)

Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word) chronicles one person’s search for self in a …

Read for Intersex Book Club. Had some good essays, but the sequencing was poorly organized and there was a lot of tonal whiplash.

For people who want to get the highlights of the book, I'd recommend reading:

Special - medium length, introduces her early background as someone with CAH Pray - short musing on disability-intersex solidarity Lessons - short musing on how her childhood affected how she saw her body, gets at fat-intersex intersection and Jewish experiences Education - short, a bit nauseating, but it stood out for me as punchy Change - longer essay, on how she got involved in ISNA - if you read one essay from the book I'd make it this one Swallow - short essay on stopping HRT Present - medium, on intersex outreach in queer spaces Condition - medium, on intersex outreach in the prairies Okay - short, poem about what she wishes her …

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Our pick for September is Cripping Intersex by Orr!
It's an academic book, so we're reading chapters 0 and 7-9 rather than the whole thing.

As usual, we meet on the last Friday of the month: Sept 27.
Time: 16:00 Eastern / 20:00 UTC

To join the discord: discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK

How do I get a copy?
A member with university library access has shared an electronic copy in the Discord! 💛

How much of the book do you need to read?
You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired.

Hope to see you there! 💜

The cover of the book: Cripping Intersex by Celeste E. Orr. The word "Cripping" is bent and skewed.
The cover of the book: Cripping Intersex by Celeste E. Orr. The word "Cripping" is bent and skewed.
The cover of the book: Cripping Intersex by Celeste E. Orr. The word "Cripping" is bent and skewed.
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finished reading Evolution's rainbow by Joan Roughgarden

Joan Roughgarden: Evolution's rainbow (2009, University of California Press)

In this book, the author challenges accepted wisdom about gender identity and sexual orientation. She …

Took me a long time but I'm glad I finished it. I'm gonna have to gather my thoughts about this book into a longer post. Loved the takedown of Darwinian sexual selection & the cisheterosexism in a lot of biology research.

Did not love how poor a job the book did with regard to intersex stuff - Roughgarden just generally fumbled all of the intersex stuff. For example, in Part 1 she seems to conflate intersex with biological hermaphroditism; in Part 2 she misrepresents intersex as "baby born with ambiguous genitals" only to then contradict herself by describing some common intersex variations that don't fit this description. Her conceptualization of intersex is inconsistent, bioessentialist, out of line with what the intersex community, and gramatically weird to boot (she talks about intersexes a lot).

This is an ambitious book and I learnt things. It could sorely use an update for fixing …

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