Sex change, social change Book

The book is an insightful and, I would argue, mandatory read for anyone who conducts research on the materiality of sex and gender, regardless if you're focus is on trans people or not. What Namaste conveys, quite clearly, is that theory serves a purpose and bodies of theory can only further theoretical progression/understanding if their positionality/identity are taken seriously and incorporated into the theory and do not merely serve a purpose to reach another point. To be it bluntly, gender and queer theory has a bad habit of examining trans embodiment to negotiate or unfold cis people's sexuality. This is mainly seen within the work of Judith Butler, which Namaste heavily critiques. My only issue concerns the polemic nature of the book. While, I whole-heartily argue with Namaste's critique, at times if feels like there are two many structures that she goes after. This is not to suggest that she doesn't handle intersectional politics well (concerning race, class, and sexuality in addition to one's gender), because she handles that quite masterfully. But rather to draw attention to the role of language within this criticism. I completely agree with critiquing the Anglo-American tradition of English that is passed throughout academia but I'm not sure if positioning French above that is the way to go. Of course Namaste is speaking from standpoint of a Quebecois and, yes, in that context it makes perfect sense but when she positions the language problem as an international problem and only speaks attends to French as an alternative is feels lacking and defensive, to me, at least. Of course she is advocating for multicultural understanding of one another and language but I felt like she couldn't unpacked that area a bit more to state the nuance more directly rather than to have readers interpret it.