{{short description|2021 non-fiction book by Shon Faye}} {{Redirect|Transgender issue|issues relating to transgender people generally|Transgender}} {{Infobox book | name = The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice | image = The Transgender Issue.jpg | alt = The Transgender Issue | caption = Front cover | author = Shon Faye | subject = Transgender liberation in the United Kingdom | pub_date = 2 September 2021 | publisher = Allen Lane | pages = | isbn = 9780241423141 }} '''''The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice''''' is a 2021 non-fiction book by Shon Faye on the subject of transgender liberation in the United Kingdom. Faye explores how issues of social class, employment and housing insecurity, police violence and prisons, and sex work affect transgender people. She makes an argument for how transgender liberation would improve society more widely. Faye, a professional journalist, wrote the book largely in the first English COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. She drew from ''Revolting Prostitutes'' and ''Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race'' in her writing, while reviews frequently contrasted it with Helen Joyce's ''Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality'', which was published in the same year. It became a bestseller in ''The Sunday Times''.
==Background== Shon Faye is an English journalist who started her career as a lawyer.<ref name="Observer review"/> Her first public reporting as a transgender person was video journalism for Novara Media in 2016 and 2017.<ref name="Another"/> She later became editor-at-large for the magazine ''Dazed''.<ref name="Observer review"/> ''The Transgender Issue'' was Faye's first book; it was released on 2 September 2021 by Allen Lane.<ref name="Frieze"/><ref name="Pink profile"/>
In her book proposal, Faye mentioned the 2010s British books ''Revolting Prostitutes'', about sex work decriminalisation, and ''Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race'', about gender, race and class. She considered ''The Transgender Issue'' to be "in conversation with both of those books".<ref name="Pink profile"/> She did not want to write a memoir, to distinguish the book from other transgender literature, and chose to include "professional anecdotes rather than personal experiences", in a similar manner to the authors of those books.<ref name="Another"/> Faye was reluctant to write ''The Transgender Issue'', fearing that it would be met with apathy or hostility. She hoped that it would be "a long-standing text".<ref name="Pink profile">{{cite web|url=https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/08/27/shon-faye-transgender-issue-trans/|title=Author Shon Faye on the agonising struggles affecting trans lives more than anti-trans feminists|work=PinkNews|last=Parsons|first=Vic|date=27 August 2021|accessdate=19 September 2021}}</ref>
Though the project took around three years,<ref name="Standard profile"/> the book was largely written during the first English lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic: Faye weighted more left-wing perspectives towards the end of the book, as they seemed to fit with the contemporary mood, including a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and pandemic-related concerns over furlough, homelessness and decarceration.<ref name="Another"/> Having previously seen left-wing arguments casting transgender identity as identity politics or a right-wing cause, Faye wanted to make a left-wing argument for transgender liberation, as well as to demonstrate that "if you improve the conditions for minorities, you make society better as a whole".<ref name="Another"/><ref name="Standard profile">{{cite web|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/shon-faye-the-transgender-issue-b953607.html|title=Shon Faye: The phrase 'the transgender issue' used to irritate me|work=Evening Standard|last=Faye|first=Shon|author-link=Shon Faye|date=3 September 2021|accessdate=19 September 2021}}</ref>
According to ''PinkNews'', the book was published in a context of increasing anti-transgender views in mainstream media, politics, sports and women's spaces. Faye said that public discourse centred cisgender anxieties rather than the reality of transgender life.<ref name="Pink profile"/> Their framing of the topic as "the transgender issue", a term which Faye disliked, gave the book its name.<ref name="Standard profile"/> Her aim was to cover issues that materially affect transgender people, rather than anti-transgender ideologies and its high-profile proponents such as Graham Linehan. For instance, the second chapter is about transgender healthcare in the United Kingdom. Faye aimed to make the topic "legible to" cisgender people, so that they could be "invested in" it.<ref name="Pink profile"/> In the book, Faye favours the term ''transgender liberation'' over ''transgender rights'', saying that it relates to her view that "you wouldn't want to be an equal within a society that's already corrupted".<ref name="Another"/>
When asked about her next project after ''The Transgender Issue'', Faye expressed interest in more personal writing, television writing or more comedic writing.<ref name="Another">{{cite web|url=https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/13513/shon-faye-interview-the-transgender-issue-book-review|title=Shon Faye on Why Trans Liberation Is Good for Us All|work=Another Magazine|last=Greig|first=James|date=26 August 2021|accessdate=19 September 2021}}</ref>
==Synopsis== An epigraph quotes Travis Alabanza on the word ''trans'' and its meanings outside of an abbreviation for ''transgender''.<ref name="Frieze"/>
Faye argues that the British media, including newspapers and television news, are hostile to trans people.<ref name="Pink profile"/> She frames the transgender liberation movement within a broader context of social and economic activism. The book covers a range of issues through the lens of how they affect transgender and non-binary people, including: bodily autonomy and sexual liberation; class discrimination; healthcare; sex work; job and housing insecurity; and police violence, prisons and treatment of asylum seekers.<ref name="Pink profile"/><ref name="Frieze"/>
==Reception== ''The Transgender Issue'' entered ''The Sunday Times''{{'}}s bestseller list in the week of its publication, in fifth place, falling to seventh and tenth place in the next two weeks.<ref>{{cite news|title=Bestsellers|work=The Sunday Times|date=4 September 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Bestsellers|work=The Sunday Times|date=11 September 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=Bestsellers|work=The Sunday Times|date=18 September 2021}}</ref> The book also topped the list of Penguin Press bestsellers, surpassing Jordan Peterson's ''Beyond Order''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/09/13/shon-faye-transgender-issue-book/|title=Shon Faye knocks right-wing professor Jordan Peterson off number one spot with ''The Transgender Issue''|work=PinkNews|last=Yates|first=Jonny|date=13 September 2021|accessdate=19 September 2021}}</ref>
Several reviews contrasted the book with Helen Joyce's ''Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality'' and Kathleen Stock's ''Material Girls'', both published the same year.<ref name="Frieze"/><ref name="Standard review"/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ft.com/content/44bfa943-b7c0-46b2-9d70-7579a00009f1|title=''The Transgender Issue'' and ''Trans'' — the gender agenda|work=Financial Times|last=Goodwin|first=Daisy|date=10 September 2021|accessdate=19 September 2021}}</ref> Sophie McBain of the ''New Statesman'' gave a comparative review of ''The Transgender Issue'' and ''Trans'', concluding that "if you find yourself nodding in agreement with Helen Joyce, I can only recommend that the next writer you read is Shon Faye". McBain praised ''The Transgender Issue'' as "a bracing and vital corrective to mainstream writing on trans rights", but criticised "self-defeating" political positions such as opposition of increased police diversity. She believed that an exploration of how to prevent male violence would have improved the book.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2021/09/how-to-talk-about-trans-rights|title=How to talk about trans rights|work=New Statesman|last=McBain|first=Sophie|date=16 September 2021|accessdate=19 September 2021}}</ref>
Christina Patterson of ''The Times'', also making a comparative review, cast Faye's views as both "very radical" and commonly held in many places. Patterson praised her as a "highly intelligent" author who "writes with compassion and clarity about marginalised groups", but criticised that she "doesn't fully acknowledge" that some of her proposed ideas "clash with the rights of" cisgender women.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/the-transgender-issue-by-shon-faye-trans-by-helen-joyce-review-kql6ss03m|title=''The Transgender Issue'' by Shon Faye and ''Trans'' by Helen Joyce review — two radical perspectives|work=The Times|last=Patterson|first=Christina|date=27 August 2021|access-date=19 September 2021|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
The philosopher Judith Butler endorsed the book, praising that it appropriately categorises arguments which should be engaged with and those which should not.<ref name="Another"/> Juliet Jacques of ''frieze'' praised its linking of transgender issues with individual autonomy in modern society and its coverage of transgender children and sex workers.<ref name="Frieze">{{cite web|url=https://www.frieze.com/article/shon-faye-transgender-issue-review|title=Shon Faye's Comprehensive Guide to 'The Transgender Issue'|work=frieze|last=Jacques|first=Juliet|date=16 September 2021|accessdate=19 September 2021|url-access=limited}}</ref> ''The Guardian''{{'}}s Felix Moore was "profoundly grateful" for the book, lauding that Faye's analogies "deftly answer complicated questions" and "shatter the divide whereby trans people are seen as incomprehensible and separate from all other groups". Moore found the writing to be "uncompromising" and contain "palpable" anger.<ref name="Observer review">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/sep/19/the-transgender-issue-by-shon-faye-review-a-cry-for-compassion|title=''The Transgender Issue'' by Shon Faye review – a cry for compassion|work=The Observer|last=Moore|first=Felix|date=19 September 2021|accessdate=19 September 2021}}</ref> Fiona Sturges, also writing in ''The Guardian'', said that the book "makes for sobering reading", and that her "reclaiming of the word 'issue' is significant". Sturges stated that the book was "measured in tone" and contained "a cool dismantling of the myths and falsehoods that continue to blight [trans people's] lives".<ref name="guardian-13-10-2021">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/13/the-transgender-issue-by-shon-faye-review-a-call-for-compassion|title=''The Transgender Issue'' by Shon Faye review – a call for compassion|date=13 October 2021|first=Fiona|last=Sturges|work=The Guardian|access-date=14 October 2021}}</ref> Christine Burns described the book as "a seminal text, the kind you see only once in a generation".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/the-transgender-issue-trans-rights/ |title=''The Transgender Issue'': it's time for a reset in talking about trans rights |first=Christine |last=Burns |author-link=Christine Burns |work=openDemocracy |date=4 November 2021 |access-date=5 November 2021 }}</ref>
A review by Stella O'Malley for the ''Evening Standard'' was positive towards the book's prose style, informational content and "clear and concise analysis of the presenting issues for trans people today", as well as its criticism of what Faye calls "hostile feminist analysis". However, O'Malley criticised incomplete exploration of transgender mental health, some "leaps of logic" and "shallow" argumentation, and said that the book intersperses "dependable peer-reviewed evidence with much more dubious sources such as online surveys".<ref name="Standard review">{{cite web |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/books/the-transgender-issue-by-shon-faye-review-b954336.html |title=''The Transgender Issue'' by Shon Faye review: Clear and concise analysis of the issues facing trans people |work=Evening Standard |last=O'Malley |first=Stella |author-link=Stella O'Malley |date=9 September 2021 |access-date=19 September 2021 }}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
== Further reading == {{Cite news |last=Burns |first=Christine |date=5 November 2021 |title=The real issues |page=25 |work=Times Literary Supplement |issue=6188 |url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-transgender-issue-shon-faye-book-review-christine-burns/ |url-access=subscription |access-date=11 September 2022 |id={{Gale|A683229344}}}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Transgender Issue, The}} Category:2021 non-fiction books Category:Allen Lane (imprint) books Category:English-language non-fiction books Category:Feminism and transgender topics Category:Transgender non-fiction books Category:2021 LGBTQ-related literary works Category:LGBTQ literature in the United Kingdom