The Gender Games: The Problem With Men and Women, From Someone Who Has Been Both

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Nestling on a sofa in her living room with Prince, her sleepy chihuahua, Dawson looks like she knows exactly who she is, but the author is all too aware of what it’s like to be a victim of that lazy angel. To be fair to Dawson, this was published in 2017 and I think information on the harm of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on children and young people was far less easy to obtain, mostly because these are experimental treatments with limited studies to show the long-term effects. After graduating from Bangor University, [3] she worked as a primary school teacher and later became a PSHE co-ordinator. Her social circle ranges from her “straight, white fiance”, with whom she bought a house in West Sussex last year, to a WhatsApp group of young trans women who – like Alice – were able to transition before going through a male puberty. She has published numerous fiction and non-fiction books for young adults, and won The Book People’s ‘Queen of Teen’ award in 2014 for her early titles Hollow Pike (2012) and Say Her Name (2013).

She later turned her talent to journalism, interviewing bands before writing for a Brighton newspaper. I should start this off by saying that I am a cisgender, straight woman, and that this is the first book (outside of university course) that I have read about gender. Excellent book for anyone looking for a funny, accessible read about gender issues, and trans topics in particular. Also showed me how set I am in my views, how up-and-ready to want to correct/criticize something I'm reading. The Gender Games by Juno Dawson shows you her life before she Transitioned and how her life started through the coming outs and as she Transitioned.She was the first in her family to go on to higher education, landing a place at Bangor university in north Wales, where she studied psychology, dabbled in acting and music reviewing, and decided that fame might be the answer. I found that there were many parts of the British culture which Juno referenced from her childhood when she was James, that I could relate to, and then when Juno spoke about her life as Juno later on and discussed the cons/pros of being a woman, again I felt I could relate. In October, award-winning Young Adult author James Dawson hit the headlines when he announced he was transitioning into a woman. I enjoyed the book a lot, but there were instances when I disagreed with the author, especially parts about magazine analysis motherhood.

This helped me understand a lot of concepts I have not had to think about and always struggle to comprehend - as I cannot experience it. At this club, a murderous Queen of Hearts (AKA Paisley Hart, poisonous ringleader of St Agnes girls’ school) rules over a trippy “court” of half-recognisable Carrollian archetypes. The issue of gender is of personal interest to me, as a family member and one or two friends grapple with it on a daily basis. Even Dawson’s memoir, The Gender Games (2017), her first aimed at adults, possesses ‘a breezy, confident style [that] can seem aimed at teenagers’ in the words of trans poet and scholar Steph Burt (‘Trans 101’, Times Literary Supplement. She make it plain she is wary of putting words into the mouths of trans people of colour or trans people with disabilities and mentions intersectionality and its special issues often.But this book, like many of Dawson’s others, both fiction and non-fiction, is aimed expressly at young adults, de-mystifying the way issues of gender and sexuality are distorted by the adult discourses of the dominant culture. Juno Dawson – formerly known as James – grew up in West Yorkshire, writing imaginary episodes of DOCTOR WHO. The narrator is toneless and mechanical sounding, and gives the impression of a robot that is trying to follow instructions on how to be animated. Before our names, before we have likes and dislikes – before we, or anyone else, has any idea who we are. She’s a 17-year-old pupil at an elite girls’ school, “an angry child’s crayon sketch of a human girl” whose self-harming is a cry of rage against what she perceives as a cosmic injustice: “Some lazy angel, desperate for a fag break, scribbled the wrong gender on my destiny forms.

I got 2/3 of the way through and, though I can't remember the last time I had to do this with a book, I gave up on it. in public places and that instead it would be beneficial to use gender neutral language in these instances.In November of 2014, residents of Wasilla, Alaska petitioned to remove the book from a public library, with a number of residents objecting to profanity and sexually explicit content. It was during an Australian book tour for Clean that the idea of appropriating Alice in Wonderland popped up.