Recommended reading

We’ve compiled a list of interesting and informative books which explore issues around sex and gender and how they intersect with feminism and women’s rights.

If you’d like to suggest books for inclusion, please do get in touch with us.

Reading for adults

Born in the right body

Isidora Sanger

2022

This collection of essays explores gender identity ideology from a medical and feminist perspective. It is a testament to the feminists who have campaigned so painfully and courageously, and for so long, and those that continue to fight to this day - and beyond.

Defending Womens Spaces

Karen Ingala Smith

2022

Drawing on her 30 years of experience in researching and recording men’s violence against women and girls, Dr Ingala Smith outlines how certain spaces, including refuges, benefit from remaining single sex – and what they stand to lose. Written with sensitivity and respect for all concerned, this book nevertheless dismantles the idea that we have reached a post-sex utopia.

Detrans. When transition is not the answer

Dr Az Hakeem

2023

This book is about the detransitioners and the desisters for whom gender transition was not the hoped for solution. The people whom society has been led to believe do not exist and who are not followed up by the gender clinics who facilitated their gender transition.

Feminism for women

Julie Bindel

2022

In this searing and ground-breaking book, Bindel deconstructs the many pervasive myths about feminism - Do women really want what men have? Can men be feminists? Are women liberated by sexual violation? - assessing whether feminism has achieved its goals and debunking theories that second wave feminism is irrelevant and one-dimensional.

Gay shame

Gareth Roberts

2024

How and why was the older gay-rights activism, which gifted such progress to homosexual people, hijacked? In this passionate, witty polemic, Gareth Roberts answers these questions and argues that we need a new gay-liberation movement.

Hags. The demonisation of middle-aged women

Victoria Smith

2023

In the last few years, as identity politics has taken hold, middle-aged women have found themselves talked and written about as morally inferior beings, the face of bigotry, entitlement and selfishness, to be ignored, pitied or abused. Hags asks the question why these women are treated with such active disdain.

Hounded. Women, harms and the gender wars

Jenny Lindsay

2024

Hounded charts the often hidden and unspoken harms women face for prioritising and defending sex-based language and rights. Lindsay presents a compelling argument for recognition of the individual and social harms that are being enacted under the auspices of ‘gender identity activism.’

Invisible Women

Caroline Criado Perez

2019

From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, and the media. Invisible Women reveals how in a world built for and by men we are systematically ignoring half of the population, often with disastrous consequences.

Irreversible damage

Abigail Shrier

2020

Irreversible Damage is an exploration of a mystery: Why, in the last decade, has the diagnosis "gender dysphoria", transformed from a vanishingly rare affliction, applying almost exclusively to boys and men, to an epidemic among teenage girls?

Material Girls

Kathleen Stock

2022

Material Girls is a timely and trenchant critique of the influential theory that we all have an inner feeling known as a gender identity, and that this feeling is more socially significant than our biological sex. Professor Kathleen Stock surveys the philosophical ideas that led to this point, and closely interrogates each one.

Sexed. A history of British Feminism

Susanna Rustin

2024

Susanna Rustin's Sexed is a radical retelling of the story of British feminism. Her goal? To show how successive generations have fiercely contested what it means to be a woman, and why this matters. Biology on its own is not destiny. But this book argues that differences between male and female bodies have always been feminist issues.

Sex and Gender. A Contemporary Reader

Alice Sullivan and Selina Todd

2023

Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader is a much-needed exploration of the relationship between sex, gender and gender identity. Its multidisciplinary approach provides fascinating perspectives from the sciences, social sciences and humanities, as well as biology, neuroscience, medicine, law, sociology and English literature.

The Abolition of Sex

Kara Dansky

2021

The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls, shines a light on the truth about “gender identity” the “transgender” agenda, the very real threats that they pose to all of society—specifically to the rights, privacy, and safety of women and girls—and what the global Women’s Human Rights Campaign is doing to fight back.

The End of Gender

Dr Debra Soh

2020

In The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths About Sex and Identity in Our Society, International sex researcher, neuroscientist, and columnist Debra Soh debunks popular gender myths in this research-based, scientific examination of the many facets of gender identity.

The Reckoning

Kara Dansky

2023

In The Reckoning, Kara Dansky, a radical feminist and lifelong Democrat, exposes the invasion by men into female-only spaces, the harming of children, and the silencing, punishment, cancellation and even violence against women who speak out. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, which claims to represent the interests of women, ignores the problem.

The Women Who Wouldnt Wheesht

Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn

2024

The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht captures an important moment in contemporary history: how a grassroots women's movement, harking back to the suffragettes and second wave feminists of the 1970s and 1980s, took on the political establishment - and changed the course of history.

TIme To Think

Hannah Barnes

2023

In Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock Gender Service for Children, Hannah Barnes explains how GIDS has been the site of a serious medical scandal, in which ideological concerns took priority over clinical practice. It is a disturbing and gripping parable for our times.

Trans. Gender Identity and the New Battle for Womens Rights

Helen Joyce

2021

Biological sex is no longer accepted as a basic fact of life. It is forbidden to admit that female people sometimes need protection and privacy from male ones. In an analysis that is at once expert, sympathetic and urgent, Helen Joyce offers an antidote to the chaos and cancelling.

Trans

Dr Az Hakeem

2018

In Trans: Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria, Dr Az Hakeem, has assembled a group of contributors to give readers a truly accessible guide to the psychology and the everyday reality of gender dysphoria, transvestism, gender reassignment, and being trans.

Transsexual, transgender, transhuman

Jennifer Bilek

2024

Drawn from her blog, The 11th Hour, Jennifer Bilek delves into the intricate relationship between transsexualism, transgenderism, and transhumanism. She sheds light on how the push for perceived human rights for marginalised groups often obscures broader societal dynamics.

Trouble with Gender

Alex Byrne

2023

In this provocative, bold, and humane book, the philosopher Alex Byrne pushes back against the new gender revolution. Drawing on evidence from biology, psychology, anthropology and sexology, Byrne exposes the flaws in the revolutionary manifesto.

(Unkind)

Victoria Smith

2025

Using the #JustBeKind trend of the 2020s as a starting point, (Un)Kind explores how traditional beliefs about women's 'kind' nature have been repackaged for an age that remains dependent - socially, politically, economically - on female self-sacrifice while finding the concept outdated and essentialist.

Unfair Play. The Battle for Womens Sports

Sharron Davies

2023

Sharron Davies is no stranger to battling the routine sexism of the sporting world.  Now, biological males are being allowed to compete directly against women under the guise of trans 'self-ID', a development that could destroy the integrity of female sport. This book provides the facts, science and arguments that will help women in sport get the justice they deserve.

When Kids Say Theyre Trans

Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marchiano and Stella O’Malley

2023

Written by three professionals working in the field, When Kids Say They're Trans: A Guide for Thoughtful Parents is explicitly a resource for parents who want their children to flourish, but do not believe that hasty medicalisation is the best way to ensure long-term health and well-being.

Reading for children and teens

My Body Is Me

Rachel Rooney

2015

A rhyming picture book, aimed at 3–6-year olds, written in consultation with Transgender Trend. It introduces children to the workings of the human body, and celebrates similarities and differences while challenging sex stereotypes.

Sex and Gender an Introductory Guide

Phoebe Rose

2021

Helping young people explore questions about sex, gender, sexual orientation and gender stereotypes in an age-appropriate way. It provides a vital opportunity for young people to have positive, healthy discussions that promote true body positivity.

Detransition. A Path Towards Self-Acceptance

Elie Vandenbussche and Nele Peer Jongeling

2020

The book contains 50 stories as well as information and advice related to detransition with illustrations by Nele. It is also available as a free PDF download.

Women & girls are subject to discrimination & oppression on the basis of their sex. To address this inequality, we need our laws, policies & institutions to be clear that sex matters.

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