In Book Swap, a Reader staffer recommends two to five books and then asks a local wordsmith, literary enthusiast, or publishing-adjacent professional to do the same. In this installment, Reader digital managing editor Karen Hawkins swaps book suggestions with author, visual artist, and educator Xandria Phillips.
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton (University of Minnesota Press) is the book from 2018 that has continued to populate my headspace daily. I think we live in a time when gender is considered precious and overexamined. Snorton shows us that gender has always been elastic—and a matter of life and death for black people, beginning with its mutability during chattel slavery. The language in Black on Both Sides manages a buoyancy in its lyricism despite its weighty context. The tether I feel to this book is in the consistent subversion of gender expectations as a means to liberation. Here I read the ways my ancestors’ very breath was abolition.
