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A review by trywii
Embodied: Transgender Identities, the Church, and What the Bible Has to Say by Preston M. Sprinkle
1.0
While I can appreciate the earnest effort from the author, the book itself is simply the same anti-trans message with compassionate wrapping paper.
There’s small errors, such as using ‘transman/transwoman’ instead of ‘trans man/trans woman’, to more alarming usages of misinformation such as giving merit to Lisa Littman’s ROGD hypothesis (a suggestion that has no scientific or medical backing with zero recognition from ANY board to this date).
While the author tries his best to not step on trans toes, the conclusion is ultimately the same as those who hadn’t: ‘Have you *tried* not being trans?’
An infantalizing undercurrent throughout the book is suggesting that many trans people simply hadn’t considered just being masculine women/feminine men, or that because they may be neurodivergent than that means transition shouldn’t be on the table, or that trans people think that men and women are walking stereotypes and therefore trans people have a twisted sense of sex/gender. The author repeats that ‘hey, not ALL trans people do xyz’, but it doesn’t really help when you ONLY talk about ‘xyz’! It especially doesn’t help when part of the ‘xyz’ is cited from people who don’t want trans people to transition at all or citations that actually support transitioning are cropped to instead support the author’s argument.
The author hammers in recycled arguments for why people should not be allowed to transition, while not really offering alternatives that aren’t just detransitioning. The author doesn’t acknowledge that people can be trans AND be fulfilled with medical/social transitioning- instead there’s a heavy focus on ‘well, maybe try acknowledging your actual sex’ and ‘well, maybe let God work it out’, and there’s not really a discussion on trans people who are perfectly happy being men/women who use men/women’s spaces and don’t find any actual benefit of detransitioning or third spaces.
There’s a mentioned non-binary friend, but from the description, it really seemed like they’re under that label out of obligation to the church and would much rather be a trans man had they not converted. The conversation of how conversion and religious pressure can make someone detransition or force people to feel like they shouldn’t is not brought up- surprise, surprise.
There’s no room for discussion on trans people who do better after transitioning socially/medically when a vast majority of the book discusses detransitioning and treats transitioning as something that’s bad all the way down. It frames the side that takes away the means to transition and treat trans people as frauds to be *just as valid* as the trans people who seek care and spaces, and quite frankly that’s not an even scale at all.
The author tries desperately to come across as nice and gentle, but when misinformation on trans people is considered just as ‘important’ as when trans people exercise autonomy and try to integrate into society, it’s doing far more harm than good. It’s also incredibly damaging to imply that trans people are just twiddling their thumbs until they can detransition, and it puts an unrealistic expectation on people who won’t. It’s disingenuous to claim allyship when this book covers disparaging statements against trans people and their lives/healthcare/integration more than it covers ways to actually allow them to feel included in church.
There’s small errors, such as using ‘transman/transwoman’ instead of ‘trans man/trans woman’, to more alarming usages of misinformation such as giving merit to Lisa Littman’s ROGD hypothesis (a suggestion that has no scientific or medical backing with zero recognition from ANY board to this date).
While the author tries his best to not step on trans toes, the conclusion is ultimately the same as those who hadn’t: ‘Have you *tried* not being trans?’
An infantalizing undercurrent throughout the book is suggesting that many trans people simply hadn’t considered just being masculine women/feminine men, or that because they may be neurodivergent than that means transition shouldn’t be on the table, or that trans people think that men and women are walking stereotypes and therefore trans people have a twisted sense of sex/gender. The author repeats that ‘hey, not ALL trans people do xyz’, but it doesn’t really help when you ONLY talk about ‘xyz’! It especially doesn’t help when part of the ‘xyz’ is cited from people who don’t want trans people to transition at all or citations that actually support transitioning are cropped to instead support the author’s argument.
The author hammers in recycled arguments for why people should not be allowed to transition, while not really offering alternatives that aren’t just detransitioning. The author doesn’t acknowledge that people can be trans AND be fulfilled with medical/social transitioning- instead there’s a heavy focus on ‘well, maybe try acknowledging your actual sex’ and ‘well, maybe let God work it out’, and there’s not really a discussion on trans people who are perfectly happy being men/women who use men/women’s spaces and don’t find any actual benefit of detransitioning or third spaces.
There’s a mentioned non-binary friend, but from the description, it really seemed like they’re under that label out of obligation to the church and would much rather be a trans man had they not converted. The conversation of how conversion and religious pressure can make someone detransition or force people to feel like they shouldn’t is not brought up- surprise, surprise.
There’s no room for discussion on trans people who do better after transitioning socially/medically when a vast majority of the book discusses detransitioning and treats transitioning as something that’s bad all the way down. It frames the side that takes away the means to transition and treat trans people as frauds to be *just as valid* as the trans people who seek care and spaces, and quite frankly that’s not an even scale at all.
The author tries desperately to come across as nice and gentle, but when misinformation on trans people is considered just as ‘important’ as when trans people exercise autonomy and try to integrate into society, it’s doing far more harm than good. It’s also incredibly damaging to imply that trans people are just twiddling their thumbs until they can detransition, and it puts an unrealistic expectation on people who won’t. It’s disingenuous to claim allyship when this book covers disparaging statements against trans people and their lives/healthcare/integration more than it covers ways to actually allow them to feel included in church.