The Transgender Issue

Few books are as urgent as Shon Faye’s debut … The analysis is thorough and heartbreaking … it’s a highly fact-based book backed up with statistics and case studies, but she manages to write it in a hugely emotive and powerful way … Faye has hope for the future - and maybe so should we. – Prudence Wade * Independent *

Faye puts forward a powerful case not of what separates us but what brings us together. Above all, her book is a cry for compassion for an embattled community and a plea to be treated with dignity and fairness. It is, surely, the very least anyone can do.

– Fiona Sturges * The Guardian *
I am profoundly grateful that [this book] exists … A book such as this one, in which a trans person has the opportunity to speak clearly and compellingly on their own terms, is a vitally needed antidote … One book cannot, of course, outweigh such a continual outpouring of animosity. Nevertheless, as drops in the bucket go, this book is an important and weighty one. – Felix Moore * The Observer *
Enter Shon Faye. The journalist and former lawyer might have gathered a following on Twitter for her wry humor, but her first book offers a cold, hard, and, most importantly, convincing look into the facts surrounding trans rights both past and present, as well as a moving and impressively comprehensive overview of trans life in Britain today. Leavened by Faye’s sharp, sparkling writing style … The Transgender Issue is a vital resource for readers outside of the U.K. to understand just what is happening there in terms of trans rights - and how to bring about a long-overdue change to the conversation. * Vogue *
A detailed overview of the systemic violence and discrimination trans people face in Britain today … [Faye is] sanguine, relaxed, and funny while eloquently delivering complex philosophical arguments which, as she explains them, sound so obvious that you wonder why you’ve never thought of them before … The Transgender Issue is fundamentally not a culture-war book. It operates outside the narrow coverage of trans people in the mainstream, and lays bare the inarguable facts of being trans: that’s it’s rare, that it’s misunderstood, that society makes it dangerous. – Sarah Manavis * New Statesman *
A welcome contribution to the trans debate … Faye has written a clear and concise analysis of the presenting issues for trans people today. – Stella O’Malley * Evening Standard *
Faye’s language is precise and the arguments well evidenced. This will be a challenging book for those lulled by the nonsense that sometimes passes for journalism about trans lives … I don’t recall a work like Shon Faye’s that takes the status quo by the lapels and gives it such a shaking. – Christine Burns * Times Literary Supplement *
Draws on wide-ranging research to make her arguments … Faye is highly intelligent and writes with compassion and clarity about marginalised groups that suffer a lot. – Christina Patterson * Sunday Times *

Sets the record straight on a lot of subjects, many of which are hard to misrepresent with the facts in front of you … Once picked up, the book was hard to set down … The book isn’t just about highlighting problems - there are plenty of solutions offered, many of them radical.

– Lee Hurley * Vice *
The Transgender Issue, argues this [feminist] inheritance with energy and clarity … Faye writes well. – Mary Harrington * UnHerd *