I READ THIS IN EXACTLY ONE (1) HOUR AND IT IS AS THE KIDS SAY EXTREMELY LIT

I can't say enough good things about this book. Firstly, it's written by two authors, who each have different lived experiences and approaches to gender. Though they both reject our culture's insistence on a gender binary system and both share many commonalities, having two writing styles and approaches makes for an interesting read that never gets complacent. Secondly, the short format, which Ivan Coyote has mastered (do go read everything else Coyote has written too, because the use of languag...

Gender Failure presents both the authors' personal stories, which led to the realization of their non-binary identities, as well as their thoughtful takes on the non-linear nature of the gender spectrum itself. I learned a LOT.

I have read few books that have gotten my feelings about my gender correctly on the page. Gender has always been a stingy topic for me, just because I have so many confusing thoughts on it and some things people said weren’t even close to how I felt. But Gender Failure really hit my feelings on the nose. I couldn’t read this book in public because I had so many warring emotions about this book and the subject that I knew I would just break.Read my full review on The Book Deviant!Reread October 2...

As a parent whose child has experienced many years and forms of bullying because of sexual orientation, I approached this very moving book hoping to gain understanding and to learn compassion. This book offers both to the reader with an open mind.Ivan and Rae describe experiences shrouded in confusion, alienation, fear, frustration, and anger, and they also speak of courage, friendship, determination, growth, love, and evolution. In spite of the painful challenges along the way, each refuses to

This book literally MADE me who I am today

Very interesting read. A lot of it was basic enough for new readers of any trans content, but well written enough to be worth reading as someone who already knows the lesson. Great discussions of complicated matters like discrimination within the LGBT community. I've read a lot of Ivan Coyote's writing, but none of Rae Spoon's (just listened to their music), and I was really impressed by Spoon's chapters. Even Ivan seemed to have had a lot more critical breakthroughs since the last time I checke...

Almost every chapter of Gender Failure made me cry. It's incredibly easy, in a world obsessed with the idea that your genitals determine who you are at the most fundamental level, to feel that your own understanding of gender, and your own perception of self is faulty; that, at some level, you're just making it all up. So when two people you've never met, from the other side of the world, and assigned by society to the other side of the gender binary, write a book and express many of the same th...

Couldn't put it down. Ivan and Rae tell their stories about their gender journey with such honesty and authenticity - it makes you chuckle sometimes, tear up sometimes, and sometimes all of the above. Being a cishet woman, I am in no position to put their experiences and any of mine side by side. However, I do believe that every one of us has felt lonely and out of place to some degree, in varying aspects. In any case, whether you relate these experiences to your own or not, these incredibly hum...

I’ve been putting off writing a review of Ivan E. Coyote and Rae Spoon’s collaborative book Gender Failure since I read an advanced reading copy back in March. This is despite the fact that I had two type-written pages of notes that I’d made as I was reading the book. The thing is, this book started off on the wrong foot with me, and I was never able to quite shake it.Let’s go back a step: Gender Failure is an adaptation of Ivan and Rae’s extremely successful performance tour of the same name. T...

I loved this book a lot, and even though neither of the authors' stories are exactly mine, there were parts that resonated with me, especially Rae's "My Body is a Spaceship" and Ivan's "The Rest of My Chest" but really the whole book was amazing. There were times I wanted to cry and times I wanted to cheer, and it was exactly what I needed in my current gender mood. I will definitely seek out more books and videos by both of them!

If I had to put the way I felt about Gender Failure in a couple of words, those words might be "behind the times." I would have been ecstatic to read this before about 2012 or 2013 (ask me why The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard marks a watershed in transgender fiction and memoir---but that's another review), but it was published in 2014.That's partly for intensely personal reasons: my own butch-identified top surgery was in February 2014, two months before "Gender Failur...

What would it mean to "retire from gender"? When I first read that phrase in this book it took me a moment to digest. But! Aha! If we are often performing our gender in one million ways big and small (even those of us who are cisgender. boys don't cry? girls, close your legs when you sit?), what would it mean to sit out that performance (and for some, that charade)? Retiring, in that case, turns out to require actively resisting, pressing forward, swallowing pain, constantly extending compassion...

Gender retirement? What a wonderful idea! Everyone should read this beautifully written book, not just those affected by gender or sexuality. We have this whole ridiculous way of carrying on from birth to death that assigns our children with not only a genitally defined gender - which excludes intersex variations anyway - but along with that prescribes how we should behave – our jobs, interests, dress codes, hobbies and physical mannerisms. Ever stop to think how wrong this is? I have. Physique

In Gender Failure, the book, musician Rae Spoon and writer Ivan E. Coyote re-imagine their ground-breaking Gender Failure live show as a heartfelt collaborative memoir. In alternating chapters, the two of them explore the very different journeys they each took to arrive at a non-binary gender identity. For me, it was especially powerful to get their two stories simultaneously. This reinforced the book's central idea that there are as many individual paths and relationships to gender as there are...

I liked this book, but it wasn't AMAZING. Ivan's writing is clearly stronger than Rae's, so maybe that had something to do with it. There were a few things that were written that, as a 25-year-old also white afab nonbinary person, made me cringe because we're all very sure that the way we talk and think about gender is the correct way. Ivan and Rae struck me as a little more old school ("transgendered") but for me it was a good exercise in learning about the nuances of similar trans and queer ex...

Personal note:In the last several months, I have started to explore my own gender identity. I have always felt like the idea of maleness, especially in our culture, does not fit who I am inside. It has not been until the last few years where I have seen that gender is not such a cut and dry concept. I have been reading articles and blogs recently, and a friend recommended that I try out this book. The book had helped them in their own genderqueer journey. Since no two people's journeys are the s...

I can't stop thinking about this book. It's a collection of essays by two queer artists. The essays alternate between Coyote and Spoon's perspectives and are interspersed with photos, song lyrics, and anecdotes. The essays contain stories about medical transition (including surgery) and social transition (including pronouns and presentation). Many of those stories are also about pursuing an arts career, spending time with friends and neighbors, and so on. Those everyday experiences that cis peop...

Sometimes I read one of these books where people are writing about their gender(s) and it just makes me really really want to be friends with the writer(s). This was very much one of those times. Their trans experiences are so different from mine in so many ways, but there are so many overlaps too, and there's something powerful about reading these stories that feel like I'm receiving the transmitted wisdom of "my people" being passed down.

Lately I've been thinking about my gender, being transgender, being nonbinary. I particularly related to Ivan's conception of their gender. The reason I didn't rate this higher is because both authors do offer a very white and thin presentation of gender, an issue which I do appreciate them addressing in the book. At the same time, it's an unavoidable criticism. It has given me a lot to think about, though.