book: whipping girl by julia serano

During my break in July, I said I wouldn't read. I partially lied! I did not read any papers, blog posts, or most news articles, and I initially wanted to extend that to books as well. But I ended up ordering and reading some, and one of them was Whipping Girl! Originally released in 2007 and edited a bit in 2015 and with an afterword from 2023, it is a tad older, but such a foundational work in gender studies. It's a feminist analysis about how femininity is punished in society, specifically illustrated on the hatred on, and cissexism enacted against, trans women and their representation in media. It discusses common models of thinking about gender (gender essentialism vs. social constructionism) and where they fall short, as well as different kinds of feminism (and why feminism needs to be trans-inclusive) and theories as to why people are trans that do not serve trans people. It's specifically mentioning trans-objectification (= disregarding trans people as living human beings,…