got within 30 pp of the end, so I'm counting it as done, pending getting my own copy I can highlight and dogear. very good and thorough intro to trans issues in the first half or so, and a few interesting different takes and perspectives in the second half. a lot of my response is pretty personal, but so is this book, so I'll probably revise my review when I've had a chance to revisit my notes. ( )

Great introduction to gender theory and society, transgender, and politics. Review on Amazon:

In Whipping Girl, biologist and trans activist Julia Serano shares her experiences and insights—both pre- and post-transition—to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole.

Serano's well-honed arguments and pioneering advocacy stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. In this provocative manifesto, she exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive.

In addition to debunking popular misconceptions about being transgender, Serano makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activists must work to embrace and empower femininity—in all of its wondrous forms.

This is an important book. Its analysis of the role of misogyny in trans-misogyny was groundbreaking at the time, and it also helped popularize the idea that gendering/misgendering people is an active process on the part of the observer rather than the "passing" paradigm that puts the onus on us and presumes the observer is a passive party. There is some uncomfortably outdated language (repeated uses of "male-bodied" etc being possibly the worst offenders), but I'm not even going to complain about that because I get it. My biggest complaint is something far more big picture.

Every time this book talks about how privileged nonbinary people are in trans spaces I feel like I'm reading an account from a parallel universe. (It also does that super annoying thing where it mentions intersex people and gender variant people from other cultures but only to make points about white trans people, despite paying lip service to that being a bad thing when other people do it.)

Look, I'm not even going to get into HALF of this book's bizarre statements about nonbinary and transmasc people (it would get really repetitive), I'm just gonna hit you with a couple passages.

The moment when I decided this had gone beyond something that pinged my radar and into the realm of Something I Was Going To Talk About is a particular passage where in literally the same paragraph the book says "masculine girls can grow up to be lesbians, trans men, or heterosexual women" and "trans women can be bisexual, straight, or lesbian." And just. Wow. Weird how you knew not to call all AMAB people "men" but didn't do the same for AFAB people. There's also a passage that insists that the main point of friction between binary trans people and enbies is that enbies "feel that identifying outside of the male/female binary is superior to, or more enlightened than, identifying within it." Uhhhhhh sure. Enbies bullying binary trans people is a very common and real problem that is definitely happening in real life. Definitely. TOTALLY not usually the reverse. Nailed it.

Also, I was really excited to learn that transmasc people being objectified and misgendered by lesbians is (checks notes) "preferential treatment." Seriously. That's a real thing this book explicitly argues.

I'm inclined to say the book helps more than it hurts, and it's basically impossible to be taken seriously in trans academia if you haven't read it, but wow we can do better. And there are a lot of other arguments that don't hold water or seem to be coming from a very strange place, but I'm not even going to try to catalog every single one of them (it would be pretty unfair since I'm not trying to catalog every single argument I agree with, either). But none of those bother me as much as the fact that every time it mentions enbies or transmasc spectrum people I just find myself bracing myself to be its whipping enby. ( )

This book probably wasn't meant for me because everything she said, So yeah sure probably not the intended audience, so giving it lower rating because of this is unfair. Also it would be unfair to criticize it for outdated terminology cuz it's kind of old but just a warning, it's there.
I'm more just not down for this because it didn't challenge me, and the parts I disagreed with didn't challenge me either, because I think they were legit gaps. First of these is pretty much no mention of race and intersections of transmisogyny with race, the trans community in general is white dominated and no one is willing to admit that privilege. The positioning of femininity and masculinity as a privilege dynamic is also dumb, a lot of implications that some people are privileged for being masculine. I'm honestly with the people Serano derides who say femininity is oppressive construct. Also the last chapter about "subversivism" is just dumb, and anti-nonbinary. If she can fit in non-heterosexual people into her model of oppression there oughta be room for nonbinary and GNC people too and she does try but it's just not coherent.
Good part is that it was well written and easy to read, but the organization especially towards the end was just kind of weird. The book frames itself as sort of a theoretical academic thing but most of it seems informed by her own experiences and I wish it was more honest about that, and stayed more in biography territory than where it's at. ( )

Really good read on gender and sexuality. Definitely recommend it. ( )