Good intentions, unfortunately execution of the subject harms and further stigmatises people that the author wants to represent. It seems like on the language level "Gender Pioneers" lacked a decent sensitivity reader.

Gender Pioneers: A Celebration of Transgender, Non-Binary and Intersex Icons by Philippa Punchard is a collection of role models and examples of gender nonconforming individuals throughout human history. This book is not only is it important for representation, but as proof that being transgender, non-binary, and intersex is not new. The current political climate is pushing the narrative that being transgender is a fad, and the main way to push back at these accusations is bringing to light the history of gender nonconforming individuals. That makes this entire book ammunition in the fight for LGBTQI+ rights. It is a book of proof that “gender diversity has been a constant for millennia,” existing in all cultures.

The book contains facts not only about these gender pioneers, but about the laws of the time and the important people in each icon’s life (doctors, marital partners, etc) and articles, books, movies, and plays based on their lives. It’s an invaluable resource for parents, historians, and anyone who doesn’t fit into the gender binary.

An amazing telling of the history of gender struggles and wins. I enjoyed it dearly and I’m so glad I was able to receive this copy to review. I think it’s a great read for anyone.

This book offers a look at a variety of experiences of gender-diverse individuals. In a time where this is such a hotly contested and discussed topic, it was fantastic to look at the history contained within, and to hear more about the different experiences that were faced by different individuals in different periods of history.

Very sensitively written, and careful when touching on difficult topics. I found it very well handled when they were discussing criminal and violent acts committed by these individuals, as clarifying about the individual, whilst being very careful not to criminalise the entire LGBTQ+ community.

The illustrations were beautiful, and good to see in full colour.

There were issues with the book, including repeated misgendering of the people being written about, use of outdated terms wen describing people, and the fact that the title is somewhat misleading.

Overall, it was a conflicting read - good in places, and very difficult in others.

This was okay, though very surface level information about the people it included. A great start but there is rampant deadnaming and misgendering. Which is awful by itself, but there's an authors note in the front where the author says they want to respect the peoples' identity in the book, and then they DON'T!?! Like what the fuck.

<i>CWs: Transphobia/transmisia, deadnaming, misgendering, violence, forced outing and outing without consent, body shaming, bullying, death, general queerphobia/queermisia, medical content and trauma. Moderate: mental illness, sexism, sexual violence, suicide, police brutality, religious bigotry, murder, sexual harassment, dysphoria, racism. </i>

The title was misleading, and totally not what I was expecting from this book. Unorganized, spelling mistakes, it reads as a conversation not a book... Just bad

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

Really necessary read at a time where trans lives are being threatened daily across the globe. I hope that books like this continue to thrive amongst audiences both trans and otherwise.

This was informational in a must read format. As someone who wants to be a friend to all communities, and be a safe space for all, I really appreciated the book for all the history and eye-opening information. I recommend it to anyone seeking to learn the past, so we can have a better and more loving future.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. Gender Pioneers was incredibly insightful in the development of my thesis. I didn't know Punchard's work before and was so thoroughly engrossed in this narrative and their prose.

Philippa Punchard’s intent was to honor and do justice for those that came before us. Instead, Punchard continues the practice of misrepresenting us. Punchard utilizes verbs that state someone “prefers” to dress as a gender misunderstanding the entire point of gender identity. The author credits a couple escaping from slavery as being part of the gender identity movement, when their story is told in "Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom" by Ilyon Woo - it has nothing to do with being transgender, non-binary, or being a “gender pioneer” but dressing as a man for survival. There is misuse of pronouns. Overall, I am offended by this book.

I couldn't finish this book. I read to 60% but just couldn't make myself keep going.

Author seems to be hyperfocused on genitals and the 'discovery' or 'revealing' of 'real gender' (um, no). The book is poorly laid out and poorly written/edited. Also, I'd possibly call it a history but definitely not a celebration.

As a trans man, I felt deeply uncomfortable whilst reading this book.

I found this incredibly difficult to read. It was meant to be a celebration of gender pioneers but instead was mostly about rapists and murderers. Content of the book does not match up with the marketing

i will not be interacting with this book following what i read about it from trans reviewers about the harmful characteristics in this book and how it handles these sensitive subjects.

An interesting read! Not something I know much about and it definitely made me more inclined to learn about queer history.

This was an extremely educational and informative read. I only knew maybe one or two icons talked about so I had a lot of room to grow and improve with this read. Really recommend this.

"Gender Pioneers" was an interesting book. The author has created a compendium of individuals throughout history that were intersex, transgender, or non-binary, providing brief biographies of these individuals, including how they perceived themselves (if known), how others perceived them (if known), and what consequences they may have faced for defying stereotypical gender norms. I was familiar with some of the people discussed, but there were quite a few individuals whom I had not heard of previously. Almost all of the individuals discussed are from "Western" civilizations, which appears to be due largely to the author's goal of demonstrating that people who are transgender have been present in western cultures for millennia, contradicting the practice among some segments of western society who portray transgender as being a new phenomenon or a fad. However, in the appendix, the author identifies the various terms used by cultures throughout the world to refer to "other gender" individuals in those cultures.

I received a copy of the e-book via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

DNF at 30% - Sadly, this book was NOT it. I was expecting a celebration of trans lives, but the stories of notable trans, non-bianry and intersex figures were short, oftentimes problematic in its language and content, and made me wonder about the "celebration" part of this title.

I was really excited to read <i>Gender Pioneers</i> when I first read the book’s description. A collection of historic accounts of trans and intersex icons sounded incredibly interesting, especially in the context of celebrating them. Unfortunately, everything interesting about this book is only interesting said in the tone of restraining yourself from starting an argument at dinner with your conservative family members.

From the very outset, the choice of ‘icons’ is… questionable. They are nearly all from the Western world, with references to other cultures only in what feels like an afterthought in summaries at the very end. Meanwhile, a trans man is included who is only mildly famous for randomly murdering his neighbour and being prone to unprompted outbursts of rage. The book starts with a note of wanting to be careful about not misgendering or deadnaming any of these historical figures, but then proceeds to frequently use both names given at birth and the name that these people actually went by in life frequently. The book also claims to celebrate nonbinary people, but the author seems to equate being nonbinary with being intersex, only acknowledging nonbinary identities as a possibility where the historical figure being described was known to be, or was potentially, intersex. There also seems to be no acknowledgement that trans women who are lesbians and trans men who are gay exist – trans women are said to live ‘within a lesbian lifestyle’ if they were known to have relationships with other women, and people who historically went by only male names and pronouns are misgendered as soon as there is record of them being romantically linked to a cis man, with no acknowledgement as to why they may have reverted to their birth names and female pronouns in these situations.

On top of all of this, the book is riddled with errors in grammar and punctuation that make it difficult to read. Even taking into consideration that my copy was an ARC doesn’t quite excuse the frequency and extent of the errors. The section on Marsha P. Johnson was utterly unintelligible start to finish due to what appears to be sentences being spliced together and mixed around.

I wish I could have written a more positive review of this book, but, unfortunately, this was far from the book that I had hoped to read.

This imported into my Kindle with wonky formatting. There were words on top of words for the first chapter, so I was not able to read this one until I pick it up from the library or purchase it myself.