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.

This book was absolutely dreadful and I am sorry an author who writes about gender but does not find it possible to gender folks correctly…. That was just poor.

Definitely a must-read for everyone! Some icons just simply must be known. Time to learn about transgender, intersex, non-binary, and other not cisgender people throughout history. It's definitely not a new 'thing', and sadly the way they were treated hasn't changed that much either.

OK, first the positives... Gender Pioneers is so obviously a labor of love by the author Philippa Punchard. As an LGBTQ+ historian and artist, her heart and passion for documenting this ignored part of history are clearly evident. The illustrations and artwork are beautiful and paint a picture that no words can capture fully. Just from her introduction, Philippa is someone I would love to share a long evening of dinner and drinks with just listening to all the colorful stories she has accumulated. I loved the inclusiveness of multiple ethnicities and cultures and time periods which did very well to highlight that transgender, intersex, and gender dysphoric people have always been a part of society and that gender and sexuality are more fluid than most people are willing to admit and are not either/or and not always correlated with what organs are deemed predominant at birth. It is not a fad or a new thing picked up by the modern generation. It simply has and always will be.

Now the negatives... If someone is picking this book up to learn about the medical or scientific aspects of transgender issues or the appropriate terminology to use, this is NOT the book to do so. While the author clearly states she is trying to do her best and pre-apologizes if she misuses terminology, many of the words are not in alignment with current medical standards or preferences of all those within the community. As the author is a member of the community herself, I give more leniency as she is writing from her own perspective. She has the life experience to have lived through a lot of rapidly changing terminology, and being from the UK, perhaps some terminology may differ from what is used in the US. I do not know those specific differences myself, but as people would look at me as if I grew two heads if I asked where the loo was at the WalMArt information desk, I grant the author grace in this aspect. There are plenty of other reviews who may feel differently, and I refer you to those.. I received a very early ARC, and perhaps it had not been vetted by an editor yet. A lot of the type face was off in my Kindle version, and poor Marsha P. Johnson's bio was just word jumbled. Hopefully these print issues are fixed with the final published version. When I get my eyes on a physical published copy, I may come back and revise my rating based on how gorgeous it turns out in print.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book and thoroughly appreciated the included illustrations. I was able to keep my blinders on regarding some terminology use, and enjoyed a somewhat random bounce around through transgender, intersex, and non-binary history. The bios sparked my interest and lead me to read more thoroughly on some of the individuals featured. Yes, there may be some vocal calls to do better with the word choice, but I urge you to give the author a break for the previously mentioned reasons and just appreciate her perspective.

Thank you #NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I am so thankful I was able to read this book, but as a CIS gender female, I also felt like I was not able to really give the best opinion. This was a DNF for me. I felt this book had some good information, but did not "read the room." Some of the stories were placed in not the best order. This could be shown by a murder followed by a murder victim. I will let you turn to those who better identify with this book to how helpful they feel it is; but, as for me, this could do more damage than provide encouragement than help.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, and Philippa Punchard for this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Going into to this piece of nonfiction I was very excited based on the title, but overall found the piece to disorganized and missing the message of a celebration at my points. My main issues with the text are:

1. The text is organized alphabetically by icons name, having the text jump around from decades, to centuries, and more, making it jarring to follow.

2. Each entry was 4-6 paragraphs in length, giving the bare bones info, reading like a Wikipedia entry on the icon at times. Some of information felt random, jumping from this is something they did and this is how they died in very quick succession. I think the text could benefit from a second draft to organize the icons into categories whether the century they lived in or areas they impacted.

3. The text is a celebration, but dead names icons for what appears to be no reason. For example, one icon we are told their impact live to death with their name throughout. Then as what feels like a “fun fact tidbit” we’re told their dead name was left on their tombstone and what it was.

4. The icons that are chosen in this book is extremely extensive. However, they needed to be combed down if the text was supposed to be a celebration. For example, one “icon” is a just a trans person that happened to murder their neighbour and got hung…
No celebration and felt unneeded.

Overall, this text felt extremely unfocused and needed another draft of editing for focus. I can’t find an audience I’d recommend this to, except maybe a fake “woke” ally that wanted a book about trans and nonbinary people for a coffee table book, but didn’t want to learn or read it.

After looking at some of the reviews, I didn’t bother reading deeply into this book. Instead I wrote down any names I didn’t know so I could do my own research away from the problems this book holds

DNF @ 32%

I will try to keep this as short as posible, but this book elicited a lot of thoughts and emotions, and not in a good way, so this will definitely be longer then my average review. I hate not finishing a book and I almost never DNF, but I had to stop reading this one at 32%. I was so disappointed because the concept of this book: highlighting queer people specifically trans, nonbinary, and intersex people is something that’s an instant buy for me. I love the stories of marginalized people who are often forgotten, or purposefully erased from history. I didn’t realize it already had so many low ratings, and had I known I wouldn’t have even picked this one up.

The issues started immediately in the forward where they say people can’t relate, or aren’t interested in historical figures the further you go back. That confused me because was that not the entire purpose of the book? Would that not be why someone would pick up the book? But this was honestly the least of the issues, but I felt important for me to mention because if you don’t fully believe in the subject you’re writing about, why are you even writing about it, endorsing it, or attaching your name to it?

In a book about trans people you’d think the language used would reflect the complexities of gender expression by avoiding the gender binary as much as possible, but that wasn’t the case. This book uses out dated, and offensive terminology to the point that I was convinced the author wasn’t actually serious. In the forward, before the book even actually started the author refers to genitalia as “male genitalia” and “female genitalia” even when referring to specific people saying “female genitalia” in reference to a trans man. When the book actually starts in chapter 1, one of the first things the author says is that they may misgender people, and they do. A lot. At least they warned us. There was constant misgendering and dead naming. The author uses terms like “true gender” and phrasing like “it was discovered” or “they were exposed as female” and saying they were “born female” and started dressing “as a man” in reference to people the author had identified as trans. As focused as the author was on the genitals of the subjects they wrote about it was weird they couldn’t just say vagina.

They also made a distasteful joke, at least in my opinion, about “literally dead naming” someone because their dead name was on their head stone, and next to everything else this ‘joke’ felt especially tone deaf. This was all in the first 32% of a 200 page book I can’t imagine how bad the rest was. I made it to the part where the author put a murderer who bludgeoned their neighbor to death, immediately followed by a story of a murder victim which, again, was not only tone deaf, but it was weird to include a murderer in a “celebration of trans trailblazers” at all. I think this book could have greatly benefited from a trans editer, maybe a couple, and trans, nonbinary, and intersex beta readers; but I also don’t know why the author set out to write a book about something they were clearly not educated in. This book wasn’t just a bad book, it is actually very harmful. It will do a lot of harm trying to portray itself as an educational tool. I would hope people would immediately see how problematic this book is, but that’s just not the case based on some 4 and 5 star reviews of this book.

*a copy of this book was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

This is a short and sweet collection of mini-biographies of various gendery icons throughout history. They’ve included Lili Elbe for the intersex icon, and I think that’s neat! I enjoyed this book, but it was very short. Three and a half stars, rounded up for NetGalley/Goodreads.

Gender Pioneers
by Philippa Punchard
Pub Date: August 18, 2022
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
* Nonfiction *LGBT
Thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I selected this book because I wanted to learn something about this topic. I was disappointed.
1. The title is misleading! There are some in here who many would consider gender pioneering icons, such as Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, Lili Elbe, Anne Lister, and Alan Hart, but there are also those in here who are rapists and murderers. I surely hope that Punchard isn't actually celebrating them.
2. The actual content is plummeting. The book is all over the place. The entries are not organized in order of when they lived, there are several spelling and grammar errors. Possibly poor editing, but it does not make a pleasant reading experience for me.
3. This is not a book I would recommend to someone identifying as any of the groups it covers, nor a youth trying to figure things out for themself, nor potential allies. I cannot recommend this book. 1 star

An incredibly important topic, especially with the number of non-binary and gender fluid students in our school. However, this one misses the mark for me. I’m not a fan of the conversational tone and the book didn’t translate well into kindle format. Some of the uncertainty around several figures ends up making the book feel poorly researched. I plan to check out the actual book in hopes that physical format helps it immensely, but still don’t plan to add it to my library. I hope publishers will continue to focus on the entirety of the gender spectrum even if this book wasn’t a success for me.

This book could have been great if it was edited better and reviewed by actual trans and non-binary individuals before release. Not only were their misspellings and grammatical errors throughout the book, misgendering occurred quite often. For a book about trans and gender-nonconforming icons, I expected better. Other than that, the organization and writing style in the book was awkward and clunky. Not to mention a literal murderer being one of the "icons" highlighted in the book. Yikes.

I’m thankful I downloaded this right away seeing as it was archived MONTHS before being published.

I was excited for this one, it sounded so interesting and the concept is there. Which is why it was given two stars.
However the vague descriptions, clunky writing and sometimes offensive phrasing was just not it.

I was expecting more than what I got from this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for an eARC of this book.

To start off I will say that I don’t really read non-fiction. It’s not something that my brain can handle all the time and I don’t often find non-fiction books I’m interested in, however this one seemed really interested and I loved the idea of reading about historical figures who were trans, non-binary, or intersex.

I thought that this was a really interesting introduction to trans, non-binary, and intersex people from history. The book is comprised of short, 3 to 4 paragraph, long summaries of the life of a gender non-conforming historical figure and what they did, accompanied by an illustration of that person. It was like a very quick tour of a lot of historical figures.

I think this is a great resource for anyone wanting to learn more about historical figures, wanting to discover people they’ve never heard of before, or who are just interested in trans, non-binary, and intersex figures throughout history. For me, I wished that there was more detailed information about each individual rather than just a very short overview. I would have loved detailed accounts or in depth information about these people, their lives, what they did. I can understand that it would be hard to discuss the sheer number of people if the information was longer, but personal it would have interested me more to have more detailed information about the individuals featured in the book.

I definitely think this would be a great read and introduction to trans, non-binary, and intersex people. I think anyone interested in queer history or historical figures would enjoy it!

I really wanted to like this book…

The author uses the word “celebration” in the title, but that is not what this is. This is a hodge podge of random facts strung together amid frequent misgendering of subjects and flippant discussion of sensitive topics - at one point a sentence more or less reads “They were murdered.”

They place a murder victim on the page after discussing a prolific murder.

There is an inordinate amount of time devoted to discussing genitals and the surgery subjects may or may not have had.

Overall a promising idea very poorly executed. Would have benefitted from heavier editing.

I loved Gender Pioneers by Philippa Punchard because it goes way back into history to make visible that gender-diverse individuals have existed for the longest time ever. That this isn't a political or a liberal situation, that it has nothing to do with books, these are pioneers that have existed in the world and have graced us with their presence, they struggled to be their true selves and all that is asked in return is to let them live, to remember them and how they have paved the way which hasn't been easy to do because the fight is still going. It is a great book for anyone and everyone to learn.

This is a DNF for me and I urge the publishing company and author to consider a major overhaul. This book claims to “celebrate” pioneers in the LGBTQIA+ community, however it has misgendered language, highlights a murderer and someone who doesn’t even identify as LGBTQIA+. I’m sure it is well intentioned, but it is poorly executed and factually inaccurate.

Very thankful I got to access this wonderful book! This book offers a much needed and accessible look at the lives of trans, non-binary, two spirit, and gender variant people throughout history, demonstrating that they have always been here. The organization of the book allows for insight into the ebb and flow of acceptance in gender difference throughout history, particularly in Europe and North America, and reveals how social anxieties (like swings towards fascism) result in increased policing and punishment for sexual and gender difference. One star removed, as at times the book felt out of its depth in discussing Indigenous peoples, particularly in North America. For instance, at times the phrase "indigenous natives" was used, which is redundant,

As someone who identifies with my assigned gender at birth I feel it is really important that I listen to those who are meant to be represented in the book and from what I can gather this book does more damage than good. It confused gender and sex, mis-genders people and isn't the most sensitive of works.
I found some the sentence structures of clunky and the books didn't flow well. Overall sadly not a book I would recommended