Black on both sides by C. Riley Snorton

Book set in Charlotte, United States. Reviewed on 2019/06: https://www.instagram.com/p/By77VVHgeey/

Truth is the word that came to my mind when I was reading this book. And that’s not something I expected to think about in a book focusing on fungibility, fluidity and fugitivity. But what if that is the only way of achieving #truth or at least a truth, a truth told by #blacktransthemselves? What if being #fluid , #fungible and #fugitive is the only way of experience and telling our own truth? This book is an ode to the #shapeshifter , the #crossdresser , the #transsexual , the chameleon and the phoenix, the one who dared #againstallodds to see, act, imagine herself in her own fullness, to live unapologetically. And that act of living your own truth fully is a threat to so many other people in this country who have cemented their own insecure and fragile lives on “winning” over the other part, on obliterating and destroying the other part. United States is a country historically drunk on competition, a fierce competition that has to prove its glory, power and dominance by eliminating, vanishing, massacring, killing the other part, the “losing” part, the “weak” part. What #crileysnorton does best in this book is placing the intricacies of being on a perennial state of losing in an #academic and historical framework. Full disclosure: this is a heavily and erudite academic text. So if you’re not into that, then do not read this book at all. I personally loved the painstaking and deep intellectual reach in which #blackonbothsides is created and shines from. If we want to give a transcending voice to the victims of so much anti-trans legislation and anti-trans violence in this country, we need these research studies and invade academic spaces, ivory towers and centers of power. This book does that. #highlyrecommended #snorton#genderqueerlit#universityofminnesotapress#blacklivesmatter #translivesmatter#lambdaliteraryaward#sylviariveraaward