None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary

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Her honesty felt refreshing: at least I did not need to decipher what she may have meant, or how she truly felt. Sometimes I wish for the more out and out, retro bigotry – at least then I know where I stand. The Library's buildings remain fully open but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We're Travis Alabanza writes about gender and its possibilities with such generosity and ease even the most provocative suggestions start to seem obvious, despite their challenges to society at large. This anti-memoir, which is at times both profound and funny, will make anyone question the stories we tell about ourselves, how we tell them and even who the telling is for -- SHON FAYE, author of THE TRANSGENDER ISSUE Educational, illuminating and hilarious. Not only an empowering and enriching read for those that are treated like outsiders on this confusing and cluttered planet but a book that leaves readers with a far better understanding of issues that are faced’

No one has to conform to socially constructed stereotypes, but every mammal is either male or female and cannot change from one to the other. Mammals are sexually dimorphic because that is how they reproduce. Sex-defined behaviours are all around mating, reproduction and the protection of young, and are apparent in all species. Behaviours that only humans have invented – wearing clothes, doing specific jobs, adopting or giving names, playing with toys or at sports – are all artificial social constructs and have no relation to sex. Anyone can do any of them but it doesn’t make them the other sex or ‘non-binary’. None of the Above is a well-crafted and considered work of literature . . . [Alabanza's] analysis of how gender is experienced in the world is nuanced, ambiguous and often unexpected in its conclusions. The book is also very funny’ Well, when I was around three years old my mother took me to the doctor because I had not spoken my first word yet. She was worried. I was her second child and my older brother couldn’t shut up, making full sentences by the age of three … ” Brilliant . . . This is a book which everyone can learn from, whether you’re a cis person who hasn’t yet interrogated how your options are shut down or any flavour of trans person pushed towards trying to be less visible but maybe less of yourself for having the options stolen away’ When you are someone that falls outside of categories in so many ways, a lot of things are said to you. And I have had a lot of things said to me.' In None of the Above, Travis Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them about their gender identity. These phrases have stayed with them over the years.

with Travis Alabanza and Reni Eddo-Lodge

Modern political thought has disappeared down the postmodernism rabbit hole but has forgotten that postmodern white rabbit, does not believe in identity itself. Pursuing the endless goal of perfect equality, left wing liberalism has become its own carcinogen. By providing preferential treatment to those with recognised protected characteristics, it incentivises an endless multiplication of identities, each demanding the power of the state is used to rescue it from its oppression. If the political left has come to believe that future of the modern state is as a kind of identerian Leviathan, then non-binary identities actually threaten to become a kind of Russell’s Paradox at its heart, an identity, which is not an identity, and so collapses identities into a subjective, ungovernable morass, as hard categories are replaced with spectra of subjective feelings, which are impossible to ground political power in. JG: The book contains some harrowing descriptions of the violence and harassment which you experience regularly. What is it about gender non-conformity which makes people so angry? Absolutely stunning . . . Travis is one of the sharpest writers out there and everyone should read this book’ IONE GAMBLE So, when did you know, uh … ?” asks a donor to a very popular LGBTQ+ charity in the UK, at a private dinner celebrating volunteers. The “uh” is followed by a grand gesture of her hand, pointing up and down to my outfit and makeup.

Alabanza's memoir is separated into seven chapters, each with a phrase that has been directed at them throughout their life. As a gender-nonconforming, mixed-race person, Travis talks about their life and struggles from living in an estate town to being who they truly are in a binary-focused world. Travis Alabanza is one of the most talented storytellers of a generation. None of the Above is potent, engaging, hilarious, and beautiful, just like Travis.” —Jonathan Van Ness, Emmy-nominated host of Queer Eye and New York Times best-selling author unequalled brilliance (the cerebral narcissist), bodily beauty or sexual performance (the somatic narcissist), or ideal, everlasting, all-conquering love or passion None of the Above is more than a breath of fresh air. It’s a prison break, a revolt, a wild thumb in the eye of a carceral gender system that tries to bind our flesh into rigid and ranked categories.” —Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution Travis Alabanza is] a big voice in multiple intersecting communities . . . This is a book that is supposed to make other people feel seen, heard and help them understand themselves. It's brilliant’

That’s why the last chapter is titled This Is For Us Baby, Not For Them . I’m trying to ask, ‘What would transness feel like if we just stopped reacting? Is it possible? Can we do it for a brief moment?’ My gender looks and feels so different when I’m not trying to persuade anyone else when I’m not trying to make myself legible to others or worried about being misgendered, and instead asking what I’m actually feeling on the inside . That feels much more reminiscent of when I was younger: I’ve been out as [trans] for almost ten years, and I was way freer about it at the beginning, which is not the trajectory you might expect. But during the time I was writing the book, my relationship with my gender was stifled. And I think that can only be the result of this climate. When Our Worlds Collided follows what happens to three teenagers from different walks of life after a 14-year-old called Shaq is stabbed outside a busy shopping centre in Manchester. Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favorable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations

I think of some of the people I have met who say 'My pronouns are she/they,' and when you ask which they prefer, they say, 'Always they, I actually only want they, I just want to be less difficult.'" I guess my way of avoiding the trap – although can you really? Who knows – is that i n this book I am interrogating myself, and I would be doing that anyway, whether or not there was a culture war happening . I still would be asking these questions even if no one else was around.TA: Maybe some people’s dysphoria was so strong that, from the moment they were born, it did feel like that. If that narrative is true for them, that’s great, but this reliance on it makes me nervous because it suggests that we are only asking for acceptance on the basis that we couldn’t possibly change. And that feels apologetic. I do feel like I chose this because in a parallel world there’s a version of me where I hid. Framing it as something that’s been out of my control since birth is so boring, and negates the power of making that choice in the first place.

None of the Above explores the nuance of self-understanding in an honest, hilarious, and heartfelt way. It is a stunning intersectional interrogation of gender that reads like a conversation with a friend." —Blair Imani, author of Read This to Get Smarter: About Race, Class, Gender, Disability & More I needed to write this book because I want to tell my own narrative rather than let everyone fill in the blanks,” Alabanza said. “And I think when an award like this happens for trans people, it just continues to show that there are more people wanting to celebrate us than not.” JG: Do you feel the pressure to be a public spokesperson for trans issues and if so, how does that sit alongside your sense of humour? I am grateful for my body, for how it moves me through the world, but I do experience it as distance, as transient shell that I will walk out of in the same way I walked in. I identify with the gazes put upon it. Their exteriority. To look at myself more than as myself. To experience oneself from within, but, also, crucially, from without.”The “proper” could mean the trans people who have had to save, or fundraise, or wait to afford the costly and arduous medical procedures to make changes to their bodies.