Book Review – Eliza Mondegreen
Whipping Girl – Julian Serano
Trans Awareness Week 2022: Eliza reads Whipping Girl (again)
ELIZA MONDEGREEN – 18 November 2022 – gender:hacked
If you’ve ever expressed misgivings about our new national religion of gender in public, you’ve probably been asked this question: “Have you even read Whipping Girl?”
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, a 2007 book by longtime trans activist Julia Serano, has become a touchstone in progressive circles. “Not since bell hooks has someone so turned feminism on its head and located the heart of sexism in such a revelatory way,” the Toronto Xtra gushes. Professional feminist Jessica Valenti coos that “Serano’s thinking continues to challenge and delight… Whipping Girl is a foundational text that will prove to be timeless.” The San Francisco Chronicle praises Serano’s “literate discussions of historical references, psychological and psychiatric studies and sociological data, the reader cannot help but receive an education… With Whipping Girl, Serano has, depending upon your vantage point, either opened a door into a new world or widened the scope of an already informed discussion of gender, transsexuality and femininity.” Whipping Girl is “the most eye-opening, most mind-blowing, most important book” you’ll ever read.
But—having actually read Whipping Girl—I struggle to make sense of its reputation.
Here’s the best I’ve come up with: If you’ve been assured that Whipping Girl is so vital, so revelatory, and that when you read it you will finally totally 100% understand why it’s imperative to support your ‘trans sisters,’ and then you actually read the book—knowing that you must come to that conclusion and no other—you will engage in a highly effective/devastating process of self-brainwashing. That’s how Whipping Girl works….