THIS is the expansive and inclusive way I want us to be talking about our history. I sometimes feel that much of what is deemed expansion/inclusion of trans and other marginalized gender history and experience is actually closer to cooptation, appropriation, romanticization, etc. This is the first book in a while that discusses non-binary identity in a way that doesn't make me.... irritated. The author goes into two spirit, intersex, hijira, etc histories not as an extension of Western and/or colonized transgender experience but as their own things of equal weight. Diversity is celebrated, not tokenized in this book.

Most of all, it's readable. Many of the people it's about can actually read it. And it's actually saying something interesting and important, not just a ton of jargon to hide the few decent repetitive points that needed filler to be made into an article or book. There are a ton of mind-blowing academic texts out there that will never reach the minds of who they're discussing. Replace the excessive jargon with style like this.

There was an odd police analogy at the end that I'm not quite sure I understood the point of. Like yeah acknowledging the flaws of institutions and history which cannot be reformed is important, but that's not the same as cops. Though maybe Hayem was emphasizing more what they FEEL when trying to be a good historian in a problematic system rather than actually saying it's like cops who try to change things from within or some shit.