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Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash
Not yet published
Expected 11 Aug 26What if the fiercest battles over gender today aren’t just about identity—but about punishment, fear, and control?
The “gender wars” in Britain have been driven by a powerful and seductive narrative: that safety can be achieved through exclusion, surveillance, and the policing of difference. From feminist campaigns to media scandals, punitive logics have gained momentum across the political spectrum, fuelling a backlash against trans rights and distorting the meaning of safety itself.
Unsafe is a clear-eyed and decisive challenge to the toxic ideas at the heart of anti-trans feminism. With patient rigor, Sarah Lamble exposes how carceral solutions to safety always fail to address the root causes of harm, and only deepen divisions within our communities.
But Unsafe isn’t just about critique—drawing on abolitionist feminism and insights from grassroots organizing, Lamble makes a principled case for a different vision: one where safety isn’t built on punishment but on collective care, material justice, and radical solidarity.
The “gender wars” in Britain have been driven by a powerful and seductive narrative: that safety can be achieved through exclusion, surveillance, and the policing of difference. From feminist campaigns to media scandals, punitive logics have gained momentum across the political spectrum, fuelling a backlash against trans rights and distorting the meaning of safety itself.
Unsafe is a clear-eyed and decisive challenge to the toxic ideas at the heart of anti-trans feminism. With patient rigor, Sarah Lamble exposes how carceral solutions to safety always fail to address the root causes of harm, and only deepen divisions within our communities.
But Unsafe isn’t just about critique—drawing on abolitionist feminism and insights from grassroots organizing, Lamble makes a principled case for a different vision: one where safety isn’t built on punishment but on collective care, material justice, and radical solidarity.
- GenresNonfictionLGBT
302 pages, Paperback
Expected publication August 11, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
July 15, 2026
This was a deeply wreath searched exploration of anti-trans sentiment and movements, focusing in particular on Britain and to a somewhat lesser extent America and on the connections between those efforts and a resurgent in pro-carceral sentiments within Queer and Feminist spaces. I appreciated the depth of and clear documentation of research, it results in lots of places to explore these arguments further if desired, and a clear explanation of the lines that draw two subjects that do not necessarily at first glance seem closely intertwined together, and I found the discussion of what to do now that we are here and the discussion of a need to address these issues as part of a whole of societal problems compelling but I’m not sure that these two aspects of that hole are uniquely connected in ways that do not apply to for example Pro prison sentiments and racism. Consequently, I think this book might be best suited to someone who is curious about learning more around and somewhat sympathetic to prison abolition and things like self identification.
I happen to be that someone and this book definitely holds arguments and points. I feel like it take into discussions with people who are less comfortable with these ideas, but I wouldn’t necessarily hand them the book to read directly.
I happen to be that someone and this book definitely holds arguments and points. I feel like it take into discussions with people who are less comfortable with these ideas, but I wouldn’t necessarily hand them the book to read directly.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The State Prefers a Villain It Can Put on a Form
“Unsafe” follows the bureaucratic conversion of diffuse violence into innocent victims, dangerous offenders, enforceable boundaries, and tidy annual reports.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | July 29th, 2026
“The Body at the Door” – A solitary figure pauses before an institutional threshold whose promise of protection has hardened into scrutiny, rendered in the hot fuchsia, alarm red, deep plum, and sparing yellow drawn from the cover of Sarah Lamble’s “Unsafe.”
Danger becomes politically useful when it can be made locatable. A reform to paperwork produces an intruder at the bathroom door. A failed prison placement becomes evidence against a class. In “Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash,” Sarah Lamble argues that Britain’s gender wars found political purchase in an old promise: locate the dangerous person, fortify the threshold, and rename control as protection.
Early in the book, Lamble returns to Theresa May’s 2017 proposal to simplify legal gender recognition. The reform did not determine access to most single-sex spaces. Its opponents nevertheless translated it into a referendum on predatory men entering women’s prisons, shelters, toilets, and changing rooms. A form became a threat. Recognition became infiltration. The imagined abuse of a policy began to stand in for the policy itself.
Much of the first part follows that translation through Britain’s anti-trans backlash. Karen White and Isla Bryson, both trans women convicted of serious offenses, became public evidence for the supposed danger of trans inclusion. Lamble neither softens what they did nor excuses prison systems that mishandled placement and risk. Her point is narrower and more damning. Individual wrongdoing became an indictment of a population, while staff power, suicide risk, violence within custody, and failed assessment slipped out of view. One person caused harm; an entire population inherited the charge.
Even doubtful claims acquired an institutional lanyard. A Swedish study was invoked as evidence that trans women retain “male-pattern” criminality, although its lead researcher rejected that interpretation. The claim moved from activist reports into newspapers, parliamentary submissions, social media, and celebrity commentary. Each repetition cited the last. Lamble is less interested in swatting every falsehood than in showing how falsehood becomes civic furniture: familiar enough that no one remembers who ordered it.
The book calls this “carceral safety politics.” Violence is assigned to dangerous individuals or populations; surveillance, exclusion, criminalization, and confinement follow as ready-made remedies. Someone is designated the victim, someone else the threat. Low wages, insecure housing, inadequate services, and institutional neglect remain where they were. Lamble’s question is blunt: who is protected, who is inspected, and who bears the cost of the distinction?
Rather than arrange the backlash into a tidy coalition of reactionaries, Lamble keeps its disagreements visible. Conservative Christians may regard traditional gender as social order; some feminists regard gender itself as oppression. Nationalists, media personalities, liberal institutions, lesbian separatists, and party activists bring other commitments. They do not need to agree about the house. The language of women’s and children’s protection gives them the same person to keep outside.
In this respect, “Unsafe” belongs near Leah Cowan’s “Why Would Feminists Trust the Police?” and Shon Faye’s “The Transgender Issue.” Cowan traces feminism’s entanglement with policing; Faye places trans liberation within housing, health, work, and class. Lamble follows the transfer between those histories: movements seeking relief from violence learned to treat criminalization as proof of seriousness, and anti-trans campaigners inherited the lesson. The state does not merely answer a movement’s demand. It edits the demand until it resembles the state.
Posters from Britain’s earlier women’s-liberation movements ask for pay, housing, child care, reproductive freedom, lesbian liberation, and an end to male domination. Lamble places those demands beside the professionalized anti-violence institutions that followed. As organizations relied more heavily on public funding and partnership with police and government, the problem changed shape. Dependency, poverty, and patriarchal authority were difficult to count. Offenders, prosecutions, and sentence lengths were easier. Patriarchy became the “bad man.” Prevention became management. Justice became a number ready for the annual report.
“Justice Ready for the Annual Report” – An emptied institutional office holds the residue of broader liberation demands after safety has been narrowed into files, forms, countable outcomes, and the administrative furniture of seriousness.
All of this could have hardened into a prosecution of other people’s compromises. Lamble refuses that comfort. Trans and queer advocates can repeat the same punitive grammar through hate-crime enhancements, longer sentences, public banishment, or contests over who counts as the “real victim.” The harms on opposing sides are not equivalent. But each side can still seek recognition through the same narrow cast: innocent victim, punishable offender.
Protection talk persuades because it fastens itself to genuine fear. A woman’s history of male violence may make discomfort in a shared space immediate and painful. That feeling is real; it does not establish that the trans person before her caused or embodies the danger. Lamble handles this distinction by cooling the scene down. She restores the date, the law, the number of people involved, the policy’s actual reach. Panic thrives on compression. Her prose keeps putting the missing pieces back.
Across the book, her sentences are methodical and mostly medium in length, moving from claim to evidence and then qualification. The vocabulary comes from abolitionist, feminist, queer, and criminological traditions: carceral, material, structural, collective, punitive. Lamble’s most useful phrases are conceptual rather than decorative. Symbolic safety versus material safety. Individual protection versus collective conditions. Punishment versus accountability. These are not flourishes. They are handles.
Designed for reuse, the prose sometimes behaves like a lecturer who suspects half the room has misplaced the handout. A pattern is named, demonstrated, and named once more for the walk home. The recurrence has a purpose: Lamble wants readers to recognize the same operation elsewhere. Yet later sections can feel pre-interpreted, as though the label reached the evidence a moment before the reader did. Occasionally the book packs its own luggage twice.
Its chapters move by a familiar argumentative staircase. First comes the backlash, then the history that made its safety claims intelligible, then the attempt to build another account of protection. The final movement turns from symbolic measures to material provision, from private vigilance to collective capacity, and finally from punishment to non-disposability. By then the body at the door is no longer the only object in view. So are the rule, the budget, and the employee asked to enforce them.
Material safety begins with an almost impolite question: what keeps people alive and able to move through the world? A ruling, ban, sentence, or posted sign is politically legible. Housing, medicine, income, accessible transport, public toilets, survivor services, and crisis responders are slower, costlier, and less camera-ready. Punishment poses; infrastructure is usually under the sink with a wrench. Lamble does not claim that every symbolic measure is empty. She asks why visibility is so often mistaken for effect.
“What Keeps People Alive” – A public-service room waits in practical readiness: an open passage, a bench, water, a folded covering, and a staffed window, with the cover-derived reds and fuchsias warmed by a carefully rationed light.
In Britain’s 2025 Supreme Court ruling on the legal meaning of “woman” and “sex,” Lamble finds that confusion made operational. A statutory definition does not remain politely inside the judgment. It reaches the shelter, hospital ward, workplace, toilet, and changing room. Staff members and strangers are invited to decide who looks legible enough to enter. The imagined threat is contained in law; the labor of suspicion is distributed among ordinary gatekeepers. A protected category becomes a queue of bodies awaiting visual approval.
This pattern helps “Unsafe” explain other panics without pretending that every history is the same. The migrant accused of importing violence, the prisoner made to embody crime, and the trans woman imagined as an intruder occupy different histories and face different institutions. The recurring move is narrower: one person’s act becomes a group’s character, and a social failure receives a suspect body. The comparison loosens when the book crowds too many histories beneath one carceral roof.
Reconstruction forces harder questions. Lamble proposes mutual aid, transformative justice, mediation, mental-health response, survivor support, community accountability, and redistribution. She is clear that care is not a warm disposition possessed by unusually generous neighbors. It needs paid responders, training, transport, accessible facilities, time, and a fair division of labor. Communities can reproduce abuse; care itself can become coercive. Hope, here, is asked to submit a budget.
One question remains insufficiently answered: who may impose a restraint, for how long, and under what conditions when violence is immediate or repeated? Lamble accepts that separation, supervision, altered access, and firm boundaries may be required. Yet the book lacks a precise rule for distinguishing limited protective restraint from punishment or abandonment. A prison sentence, emergency removal, shelter admission decision, workplace boundary, and temporary exclusion do not exercise the same authority. “Carceral” illuminates their shared assumptions but can blur their unequal powers.
Precisely because her critique persuades, the missing rule matters. Lamble is better at dismantling the locked room than drawing the fire escape. What happens at two in the morning when someone is violent, earlier interventions have failed, and every available choice burdens someone vulnerable? “Unsafe” offers a map rather than a blueprint. That is an honest description. Some bridges remain lightly inked.
Over the book, even the verbs change. The early chapters identify, exclude, monitor, punish. The final chapters provide, practice, repair, sustain. Alarm gives way to disappointment with institutions once asked to deliver justice, then to a disciplined hope in collective capacity. Lamble does not indulge the soft-focus idea that community naturally heals what the state has broken. Collective safety is learned work, and some lessons are expensive.
Ultimately, “No One Is Disposable” poses the argument’s hardest case. The easy defense of trans rights would insist that trans people are harmless. Lamble insists on something less flattering and more durable: some trans people will cause grave harm, as members of every population do. Rights cannot depend on immaculate representatives. Karen White and Isla Bryson cannot define trans people, but neither should anyone need to declare them counterfeit before defending everyone else.
Lamble separates non-disposability from impunity. A person who has harmed others may lose access to a relationship or space, face supervision, make restitution, or spend years demonstrating change. Survivors need not forgive or reconcile. What remains nonnegotiable is the person’s claim to housing, health care, food, and a future. Here abolition stops being a judgment on someone else’s cruelty and becomes an inventory of one’s own exceptions.
Objections will gather here. Some readers will think Lamble too quickly translates concerns about sex, trauma, and safeguarding into punitive habits. Others will welcome her indictment of anti-trans politics while resisting her criticism of hate-crime laws or banishment within activist communities. Readers committed to conventional punishment will ask for firmer answers to immediate danger. The book’s most original explanation is also its most uncomfortable: a feminist who sees gender as oppression and a conservative who sees it as order can still agree on whom to keep outside.
Still, “Unsafe” earns 83/100 and 4/5 Goodreads stars. Its diagnosis is more exact than its reconstruction, and its recurrent vocabulary sometimes arrives before the evidence has finished speaking. Yet Lamble exposes, with unusual steadiness, the little stage on which punishment has so often impersonated protection: a frightened person, a suspect body, and a locked door mistaken for a future.
A literary watercolor portrait of Sarah Lamble, holding “Unsafe” inside the threshold world of the review, where the author’s composed presence meets the book’s questions of punishment, protection, public legibility, and collective safety.
The color plan for “The Body at the Door” translates the cover’s unequal visual balance rather than merely borrowing its hues: fuchsia carries atmosphere, alarm red builds architecture, plum and carmine create depth, and yellow, orange, and peach remain brief visual signals.
The swatch sheet assigns each cover-derived pigment a different responsibility – dominant fields remain physically dominant, structural shadows receive supporting weight, and the brightest accents are reduced to narrow chips and rare sparks.
Six early arrangements test how much distance, architecture, and negative space the scene can bear before the composition settles on the narrow interval between the waiting figure and the institutional threshold.
These figure studies search for a body held between composure and hesitation, refining balance, shoulder tension, hand placement, and forward intention while resisting both theatrical defeat and uncomplicated heroism.
The first full underdrawing exposes the image’s quiet scaffolding – perspective lines, doubled contours, an abandoned doorway edge, and the still-unpainted space where passage has not yet become permission.
The first washes establish the governing hierarchy at once: broad fuchsia atmosphere and alarm-red architecture claim most of the paper while the figure remains largely graphite and the rarer yellow and orange accents are withheld.
The border studies test enclosure without sealing the image shut, translating the cover’s red-magenta pressure into broken frames, raw-paper openings, and a signature line that begins to dissolve into the margins.
This speculative full-jacket study extends the threshold, border, and proportional palette of “The Body at the Door” across front cover, spine, back cover, and flaps, testing how the review image might become a complete publishing object without copying the original design.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
Watercolors are done on 140lb vellum and then scanned into the computer using an Epson scanner. From there, they are finalized in Procreate. All art and opinions are my own.
“Unsafe” follows the bureaucratic conversion of diffuse violence into innocent victims, dangerous offenders, enforceable boundaries, and tidy annual reports.
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | July 29th, 2026
“The Body at the Door” – A solitary figure pauses before an institutional threshold whose promise of protection has hardened into scrutiny, rendered in the hot fuchsia, alarm red, deep plum, and sparing yellow drawn from the cover of Sarah Lamble’s “Unsafe.”
Danger becomes politically useful when it can be made locatable. A reform to paperwork produces an intruder at the bathroom door. A failed prison placement becomes evidence against a class. In “Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash,” Sarah Lamble argues that Britain’s gender wars found political purchase in an old promise: locate the dangerous person, fortify the threshold, and rename control as protection.
Early in the book, Lamble returns to Theresa May’s 2017 proposal to simplify legal gender recognition. The reform did not determine access to most single-sex spaces. Its opponents nevertheless translated it into a referendum on predatory men entering women’s prisons, shelters, toilets, and changing rooms. A form became a threat. Recognition became infiltration. The imagined abuse of a policy began to stand in for the policy itself.
Much of the first part follows that translation through Britain’s anti-trans backlash. Karen White and Isla Bryson, both trans women convicted of serious offenses, became public evidence for the supposed danger of trans inclusion. Lamble neither softens what they did nor excuses prison systems that mishandled placement and risk. Her point is narrower and more damning. Individual wrongdoing became an indictment of a population, while staff power, suicide risk, violence within custody, and failed assessment slipped out of view. One person caused harm; an entire population inherited the charge.
Even doubtful claims acquired an institutional lanyard. A Swedish study was invoked as evidence that trans women retain “male-pattern” criminality, although its lead researcher rejected that interpretation. The claim moved from activist reports into newspapers, parliamentary submissions, social media, and celebrity commentary. Each repetition cited the last. Lamble is less interested in swatting every falsehood than in showing how falsehood becomes civic furniture: familiar enough that no one remembers who ordered it.
The book calls this “carceral safety politics.” Violence is assigned to dangerous individuals or populations; surveillance, exclusion, criminalization, and confinement follow as ready-made remedies. Someone is designated the victim, someone else the threat. Low wages, insecure housing, inadequate services, and institutional neglect remain where they were. Lamble’s question is blunt: who is protected, who is inspected, and who bears the cost of the distinction?
Rather than arrange the backlash into a tidy coalition of reactionaries, Lamble keeps its disagreements visible. Conservative Christians may regard traditional gender as social order; some feminists regard gender itself as oppression. Nationalists, media personalities, liberal institutions, lesbian separatists, and party activists bring other commitments. They do not need to agree about the house. The language of women’s and children’s protection gives them the same person to keep outside.
In this respect, “Unsafe” belongs near Leah Cowan’s “Why Would Feminists Trust the Police?” and Shon Faye’s “The Transgender Issue.” Cowan traces feminism’s entanglement with policing; Faye places trans liberation within housing, health, work, and class. Lamble follows the transfer between those histories: movements seeking relief from violence learned to treat criminalization as proof of seriousness, and anti-trans campaigners inherited the lesson. The state does not merely answer a movement’s demand. It edits the demand until it resembles the state.
Posters from Britain’s earlier women’s-liberation movements ask for pay, housing, child care, reproductive freedom, lesbian liberation, and an end to male domination. Lamble places those demands beside the professionalized anti-violence institutions that followed. As organizations relied more heavily on public funding and partnership with police and government, the problem changed shape. Dependency, poverty, and patriarchal authority were difficult to count. Offenders, prosecutions, and sentence lengths were easier. Patriarchy became the “bad man.” Prevention became management. Justice became a number ready for the annual report.
“Justice Ready for the Annual Report” – An emptied institutional office holds the residue of broader liberation demands after safety has been narrowed into files, forms, countable outcomes, and the administrative furniture of seriousness.
All of this could have hardened into a prosecution of other people’s compromises. Lamble refuses that comfort. Trans and queer advocates can repeat the same punitive grammar through hate-crime enhancements, longer sentences, public banishment, or contests over who counts as the “real victim.” The harms on opposing sides are not equivalent. But each side can still seek recognition through the same narrow cast: innocent victim, punishable offender.
Protection talk persuades because it fastens itself to genuine fear. A woman’s history of male violence may make discomfort in a shared space immediate and painful. That feeling is real; it does not establish that the trans person before her caused or embodies the danger. Lamble handles this distinction by cooling the scene down. She restores the date, the law, the number of people involved, the policy’s actual reach. Panic thrives on compression. Her prose keeps putting the missing pieces back.
Across the book, her sentences are methodical and mostly medium in length, moving from claim to evidence and then qualification. The vocabulary comes from abolitionist, feminist, queer, and criminological traditions: carceral, material, structural, collective, punitive. Lamble’s most useful phrases are conceptual rather than decorative. Symbolic safety versus material safety. Individual protection versus collective conditions. Punishment versus accountability. These are not flourishes. They are handles.
Designed for reuse, the prose sometimes behaves like a lecturer who suspects half the room has misplaced the handout. A pattern is named, demonstrated, and named once more for the walk home. The recurrence has a purpose: Lamble wants readers to recognize the same operation elsewhere. Yet later sections can feel pre-interpreted, as though the label reached the evidence a moment before the reader did. Occasionally the book packs its own luggage twice.
Its chapters move by a familiar argumentative staircase. First comes the backlash, then the history that made its safety claims intelligible, then the attempt to build another account of protection. The final movement turns from symbolic measures to material provision, from private vigilance to collective capacity, and finally from punishment to non-disposability. By then the body at the door is no longer the only object in view. So are the rule, the budget, and the employee asked to enforce them.
Material safety begins with an almost impolite question: what keeps people alive and able to move through the world? A ruling, ban, sentence, or posted sign is politically legible. Housing, medicine, income, accessible transport, public toilets, survivor services, and crisis responders are slower, costlier, and less camera-ready. Punishment poses; infrastructure is usually under the sink with a wrench. Lamble does not claim that every symbolic measure is empty. She asks why visibility is so often mistaken for effect.
“What Keeps People Alive” – A public-service room waits in practical readiness: an open passage, a bench, water, a folded covering, and a staffed window, with the cover-derived reds and fuchsias warmed by a carefully rationed light.
In Britain’s 2025 Supreme Court ruling on the legal meaning of “woman” and “sex,” Lamble finds that confusion made operational. A statutory definition does not remain politely inside the judgment. It reaches the shelter, hospital ward, workplace, toilet, and changing room. Staff members and strangers are invited to decide who looks legible enough to enter. The imagined threat is contained in law; the labor of suspicion is distributed among ordinary gatekeepers. A protected category becomes a queue of bodies awaiting visual approval.
This pattern helps “Unsafe” explain other panics without pretending that every history is the same. The migrant accused of importing violence, the prisoner made to embody crime, and the trans woman imagined as an intruder occupy different histories and face different institutions. The recurring move is narrower: one person’s act becomes a group’s character, and a social failure receives a suspect body. The comparison loosens when the book crowds too many histories beneath one carceral roof.
Reconstruction forces harder questions. Lamble proposes mutual aid, transformative justice, mediation, mental-health response, survivor support, community accountability, and redistribution. She is clear that care is not a warm disposition possessed by unusually generous neighbors. It needs paid responders, training, transport, accessible facilities, time, and a fair division of labor. Communities can reproduce abuse; care itself can become coercive. Hope, here, is asked to submit a budget.
One question remains insufficiently answered: who may impose a restraint, for how long, and under what conditions when violence is immediate or repeated? Lamble accepts that separation, supervision, altered access, and firm boundaries may be required. Yet the book lacks a precise rule for distinguishing limited protective restraint from punishment or abandonment. A prison sentence, emergency removal, shelter admission decision, workplace boundary, and temporary exclusion do not exercise the same authority. “Carceral” illuminates their shared assumptions but can blur their unequal powers.
Precisely because her critique persuades, the missing rule matters. Lamble is better at dismantling the locked room than drawing the fire escape. What happens at two in the morning when someone is violent, earlier interventions have failed, and every available choice burdens someone vulnerable? “Unsafe” offers a map rather than a blueprint. That is an honest description. Some bridges remain lightly inked.
Over the book, even the verbs change. The early chapters identify, exclude, monitor, punish. The final chapters provide, practice, repair, sustain. Alarm gives way to disappointment with institutions once asked to deliver justice, then to a disciplined hope in collective capacity. Lamble does not indulge the soft-focus idea that community naturally heals what the state has broken. Collective safety is learned work, and some lessons are expensive.
Ultimately, “No One Is Disposable” poses the argument’s hardest case. The easy defense of trans rights would insist that trans people are harmless. Lamble insists on something less flattering and more durable: some trans people will cause grave harm, as members of every population do. Rights cannot depend on immaculate representatives. Karen White and Isla Bryson cannot define trans people, but neither should anyone need to declare them counterfeit before defending everyone else.
Lamble separates non-disposability from impunity. A person who has harmed others may lose access to a relationship or space, face supervision, make restitution, or spend years demonstrating change. Survivors need not forgive or reconcile. What remains nonnegotiable is the person’s claim to housing, health care, food, and a future. Here abolition stops being a judgment on someone else’s cruelty and becomes an inventory of one’s own exceptions.
Objections will gather here. Some readers will think Lamble too quickly translates concerns about sex, trauma, and safeguarding into punitive habits. Others will welcome her indictment of anti-trans politics while resisting her criticism of hate-crime laws or banishment within activist communities. Readers committed to conventional punishment will ask for firmer answers to immediate danger. The book’s most original explanation is also its most uncomfortable: a feminist who sees gender as oppression and a conservative who sees it as order can still agree on whom to keep outside.
Still, “Unsafe” earns 83/100 and 4/5 Goodreads stars. Its diagnosis is more exact than its reconstruction, and its recurrent vocabulary sometimes arrives before the evidence has finished speaking. Yet Lamble exposes, with unusual steadiness, the little stage on which punishment has so often impersonated protection: a frightened person, a suspect body, and a locked door mistaken for a future.
A literary watercolor portrait of Sarah Lamble, holding “Unsafe” inside the threshold world of the review, where the author’s composed presence meets the book’s questions of punishment, protection, public legibility, and collective safety.
The color plan for “The Body at the Door” translates the cover’s unequal visual balance rather than merely borrowing its hues: fuchsia carries atmosphere, alarm red builds architecture, plum and carmine create depth, and yellow, orange, and peach remain brief visual signals.
The swatch sheet assigns each cover-derived pigment a different responsibility – dominant fields remain physically dominant, structural shadows receive supporting weight, and the brightest accents are reduced to narrow chips and rare sparks.
Six early arrangements test how much distance, architecture, and negative space the scene can bear before the composition settles on the narrow interval between the waiting figure and the institutional threshold.
These figure studies search for a body held between composure and hesitation, refining balance, shoulder tension, hand placement, and forward intention while resisting both theatrical defeat and uncomplicated heroism.
The first full underdrawing exposes the image’s quiet scaffolding – perspective lines, doubled contours, an abandoned doorway edge, and the still-unpainted space where passage has not yet become permission.
The first washes establish the governing hierarchy at once: broad fuchsia atmosphere and alarm-red architecture claim most of the paper while the figure remains largely graphite and the rarer yellow and orange accents are withheld.
The border studies test enclosure without sealing the image shut, translating the cover’s red-magenta pressure into broken frames, raw-paper openings, and a signature line that begins to dissolve into the margins.
This speculative full-jacket study extends the threshold, border, and proportional palette of “The Body at the Door” across front cover, spine, back cover, and flaps, testing how the review image might become a complete publishing object without copying the original design.
All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.
Watercolors are done on 140lb vellum and then scanned into the computer using an Epson scanner. From there, they are finalized in Procreate. All art and opinions are my own.
Read
August 3, 2026Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash is a timely, rigorously argued, and thought-provoking examination of one of the most contested social and political debates of our time. In this compelling work, Sarah Lamble explores how contemporary conversations about gender, safety, and public policy have become increasingly shaped by punitive frameworks rooted in surveillance, exclusion, and institutional control. Moving beyond polarized rhetoric, Lamble offers a careful analysis of the relationship between safety, justice, and state power while presenting readers with an alternative vision grounded in collective care and social responsibility. The result is a significant contribution to discussions on gender, criminal justice, feminist theory, and human rights.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its willingness to examine the deeper structures underlying contemporary debates. Rather than focusing solely on individual controversies or political flashpoints, Lamble investigates the broader systems and ideologies that influence public discourse surrounding gender and safety. By tracing the historical and institutional roots of carceral approaches, the book encourages readers to consider how assumptions about punishment and protection shape social policy in ways that often extend far beyond debates about gender identity.
Particularly compelling is the author's examination of the concept of safety itself. Lamble challenges readers to question whether exclusion, surveillance, and punitive responses genuinely produce safer communities or whether they instead reinforce cycles of fear and division. This thoughtful exploration reframes safety not simply as protection from perceived threats but as a broader social condition shaped by justice, inclusion, and community well-being.
Another notable strength is the book's integration of feminist theory with broader discussions of criminal justice and public policy. Drawing upon abolitionist feminist scholarship and grassroots organizing, Lamble presents a coherent framework for understanding how systems of punishment intersect with questions of gender, power, and inequality. Her analysis invites readers to engage with complex ethical and political questions while remaining grounded in practical concerns about social change.
The book also excels in its careful engagement with contemporary public discourse. Rather than reducing complex disagreements to simplistic narratives, Lamble examines how media narratives, political movements, and institutional practices contribute to the current landscape of debate. This nuanced approach encourages critical thinking and provides readers with valuable context for understanding why these issues have become so prominent in public life.
Despite engaging with sophisticated ideas from political theory, feminist scholarship, and criminal justice, the writing remains clear, well-structured, and accessible. Lamble successfully translates complex theoretical concepts into arguments that are understandable for scholars, policymakers, students, activists, and general readers interested in questions of justice, equality, and social policy.
Perhaps the book's most significant contribution is its presentation of an alternative framework for thinking about safety and justice. Rather than relying primarily on punitive responses, Lamble argues for approaches centered on collective care, material support, and community accountability. Whether or not readers ultimately agree with every conclusion, the book provides a carefully reasoned perspective that broadens the conversation and challenges conventional assumptions about how societies respond to harm.
Insightful, intellectually engaging, and deeply relevant, Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash is an important contribution to contemporary discussions of gender, criminal justice, feminist theory, public policy, and human rights. Sarah Lamble has produced a thoughtful work that will resonate with scholars, policymakers, students, legal professionals, activists, and readers interested in the evolving relationships between safety, justice, social institutions, and democratic debate.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its willingness to examine the deeper structures underlying contemporary debates. Rather than focusing solely on individual controversies or political flashpoints, Lamble investigates the broader systems and ideologies that influence public discourse surrounding gender and safety. By tracing the historical and institutional roots of carceral approaches, the book encourages readers to consider how assumptions about punishment and protection shape social policy in ways that often extend far beyond debates about gender identity.
Particularly compelling is the author's examination of the concept of safety itself. Lamble challenges readers to question whether exclusion, surveillance, and punitive responses genuinely produce safer communities or whether they instead reinforce cycles of fear and division. This thoughtful exploration reframes safety not simply as protection from perceived threats but as a broader social condition shaped by justice, inclusion, and community well-being.
Another notable strength is the book's integration of feminist theory with broader discussions of criminal justice and public policy. Drawing upon abolitionist feminist scholarship and grassroots organizing, Lamble presents a coherent framework for understanding how systems of punishment intersect with questions of gender, power, and inequality. Her analysis invites readers to engage with complex ethical and political questions while remaining grounded in practical concerns about social change.
The book also excels in its careful engagement with contemporary public discourse. Rather than reducing complex disagreements to simplistic narratives, Lamble examines how media narratives, political movements, and institutional practices contribute to the current landscape of debate. This nuanced approach encourages critical thinking and provides readers with valuable context for understanding why these issues have become so prominent in public life.
Despite engaging with sophisticated ideas from political theory, feminist scholarship, and criminal justice, the writing remains clear, well-structured, and accessible. Lamble successfully translates complex theoretical concepts into arguments that are understandable for scholars, policymakers, students, activists, and general readers interested in questions of justice, equality, and social policy.
Perhaps the book's most significant contribution is its presentation of an alternative framework for thinking about safety and justice. Rather than relying primarily on punitive responses, Lamble argues for approaches centered on collective care, material support, and community accountability. Whether or not readers ultimately agree with every conclusion, the book provides a carefully reasoned perspective that broadens the conversation and challenges conventional assumptions about how societies respond to harm.
Insightful, intellectually engaging, and deeply relevant, Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash is an important contribution to contemporary discussions of gender, criminal justice, feminist theory, public policy, and human rights. Sarah Lamble has produced a thoughtful work that will resonate with scholars, policymakers, students, legal professionals, activists, and readers interested in the evolving relationships between safety, justice, social institutions, and democratic debate.
Read
July 8, 2026Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti Trans Backlash is a powerful, deeply researched, and thought provoking examination of how ideas about safety, punishment, and social control shape public conversations around gender and justice. Sarah Lamble presents a compelling analysis of the relationship between fear, exclusion, and systems of harm while challenging readers to think more critically about what genuine safety means within communities.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its careful exploration of how responses to social issues can become centered around punishment rather than addressing deeper causes of harm. Lamble thoughtfully examines the ways institutions and public narratives shape understandings of safety, encouraging readers to consider alternative approaches built around care, accountability, and meaningful support.
The book stands out for its clarity and depth of analysis. Complex discussions surrounding gender, justice, social movements, and public policy are presented in a way that encourages thoughtful reflection and engagement. Rather than relying on simple explanations, Lamble offers a nuanced examination of the forces influencing contemporary debates and invites readers to consider broader questions about fairness, dignity, and community responsibility.
Another notable strength is the connection between theory and lived experiences. Drawing from abolitionist feminist perspectives and grassroots organizing, the book explores how communities can imagine different approaches to creating safer environments. This focus on collective solutions adds a valuable dimension to the discussion and expands the conversation beyond criticism toward possibilities for meaningful change.
Sarah Lamble's writing is rigorous, accessible, and deeply engaging. The careful structure of the book allows readers to follow complex arguments while appreciating the historical and social contexts behind them. Each section contributes to a larger examination of how societies respond to vulnerability, conflict, and difference.
Beyond its central arguments, Unsafe encourages readers to reflect on the values that shape communities and institutions. It raises important questions about how safety is defined, who benefits from certain approaches, and how societies can work toward systems that prioritize dignity, understanding, and human connection.
Overall, Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti Trans Backlash is an important and compelling work that offers a significant contribution to conversations about justice, safety, and social change. Sarah Lamble has created a thoughtful resource for readers interested in gender studies, social movements, law, and contemporary debates about community well being. I highly recommend this insightful book to academics, activists, educators, students, and anyone interested in understanding the complex relationship between safety, power, and society.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its careful exploration of how responses to social issues can become centered around punishment rather than addressing deeper causes of harm. Lamble thoughtfully examines the ways institutions and public narratives shape understandings of safety, encouraging readers to consider alternative approaches built around care, accountability, and meaningful support.
The book stands out for its clarity and depth of analysis. Complex discussions surrounding gender, justice, social movements, and public policy are presented in a way that encourages thoughtful reflection and engagement. Rather than relying on simple explanations, Lamble offers a nuanced examination of the forces influencing contemporary debates and invites readers to consider broader questions about fairness, dignity, and community responsibility.
Another notable strength is the connection between theory and lived experiences. Drawing from abolitionist feminist perspectives and grassroots organizing, the book explores how communities can imagine different approaches to creating safer environments. This focus on collective solutions adds a valuable dimension to the discussion and expands the conversation beyond criticism toward possibilities for meaningful change.
Sarah Lamble's writing is rigorous, accessible, and deeply engaging. The careful structure of the book allows readers to follow complex arguments while appreciating the historical and social contexts behind them. Each section contributes to a larger examination of how societies respond to vulnerability, conflict, and difference.
Beyond its central arguments, Unsafe encourages readers to reflect on the values that shape communities and institutions. It raises important questions about how safety is defined, who benefits from certain approaches, and how societies can work toward systems that prioritize dignity, understanding, and human connection.
Overall, Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti Trans Backlash is an important and compelling work that offers a significant contribution to conversations about justice, safety, and social change. Sarah Lamble has created a thoughtful resource for readers interested in gender studies, social movements, law, and contemporary debates about community well being. I highly recommend this insightful book to academics, activists, educators, students, and anyone interested in understanding the complex relationship between safety, power, and society.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I was given this book for free as an e-ARC on NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
This book was clearly deeply researched, which I appreciated. Sarah Lamble did a good job of using an informative tone that is good for teaching others the facts and history of a fraught subject. I do not think I learned much from this book personally, but that could be because I already considered myself quite informed on this topic beforehand. I know it's beyond the scope of this book, but I would have been interested in being more informed about the history of attitudes toward trans people in a more historical sense, as in before the 1980s.
I feel I got a lot out of the parts of the book which are more clearly focused on the author's own experiences and events, such as going to gender-critical events to take notes, as the rhetoric described there is quite interesting. That they're able to look at women as a whole who are in prison as victims of systemic inequality, but also to say that these women are voiceless and will never become advocates for single-sex prisons, so they need to be spoken for by the more privileged, for instance. There is a very real difference in how people imagine women in prison compared to what real women in prison are experiencing.
It's also quite horrific that there are claims that cis women can be traumatized by the mere sight of a trans woman in a prison. It's akin to the idea that the mere discussion of trans people (or other LGBT people) is confusing or inappropriate for children.
One part of the book which I took some issue with was in the discussion of Karen White. While I thought that Lamble generally had well thought out opinions and this case was no exception, I didn't really like the wording of the way the unwanted touching was described as not a sex attack---yes, it wasn't violent, but I would still describe it as a significant sexualized attack on another person's bodily autonomy. Perhaps if that paragraph had been removed or reworded I would have liked it better.
I did think it was an interesting section where Lamble discussed why perpetrators of sexual assault are not seen as true perpetrators if they don't fit the stereotype of the "predator".
I was unsure if Lamble did enough to explain how a world entirely without prisons is safer? On one hand, she addresses that community support associations have better reoffending rates, but doesn't entirely address if this is true for all crimes or not and how to separate people who have harmed another person from that person while they get the community support needed to prevent reoffending.
I also noticed a few typos - discretely instead of discreetly and a few missed hyphens - but I know that no one can proofread perfectly.
This book was clearly deeply researched, which I appreciated. Sarah Lamble did a good job of using an informative tone that is good for teaching others the facts and history of a fraught subject. I do not think I learned much from this book personally, but that could be because I already considered myself quite informed on this topic beforehand. I know it's beyond the scope of this book, but I would have been interested in being more informed about the history of attitudes toward trans people in a more historical sense, as in before the 1980s.
I feel I got a lot out of the parts of the book which are more clearly focused on the author's own experiences and events, such as going to gender-critical events to take notes, as the rhetoric described there is quite interesting. That they're able to look at women as a whole who are in prison as victims of systemic inequality, but also to say that these women are voiceless and will never become advocates for single-sex prisons, so they need to be spoken for by the more privileged, for instance. There is a very real difference in how people imagine women in prison compared to what real women in prison are experiencing.
It's also quite horrific that there are claims that cis women can be traumatized by the mere sight of a trans woman in a prison. It's akin to the idea that the mere discussion of trans people (or other LGBT people) is confusing or inappropriate for children.
One part of the book which I took some issue with was in the discussion of Karen White. While I thought that Lamble generally had well thought out opinions and this case was no exception, I didn't really like the wording of the way the unwanted touching was described as not a sex attack---yes, it wasn't violent, but I would still describe it as a significant sexualized attack on another person's bodily autonomy. Perhaps if that paragraph had been removed or reworded I would have liked it better.
I did think it was an interesting section where Lamble discussed why perpetrators of sexual assault are not seen as true perpetrators if they don't fit the stereotype of the "predator".
I was unsure if Lamble did enough to explain how a world entirely without prisons is safer? On one hand, she addresses that community support associations have better reoffending rates, but doesn't entirely address if this is true for all crimes or not and how to separate people who have harmed another person from that person while they get the community support needed to prevent reoffending.
I also noticed a few typos - discretely instead of discreetly and a few missed hyphens - but I know that no one can proofread perfectly.
Read
August 3, 2026This book covers the recent anti-trans movement from a perspective I had never considered before, addressing the carceral logic behind it and how we should rethink what safety actually means. It was genuinely fascinating, providing unique insights in concise, well-worded arguments, and it was never difficult to follow the logic.
I especially found Chapter 7, "from individual to collective safety," interesting, as it covers all the ways that we can collectively act to reduce harm rather than the current individualistic approach, and offers actionable suggestions.
Another notable chapter was Chapter 6, which covered symbolic vs material safety. I ended the chapter having had my mind completely changed on the issue, as the author's points were both persuasive and empathetic - they always made sure to consider all viewpoints and non-judgementally state the logical flaws in them. The example that was used was the campaign to reform the Gender Recognition Certificate application process in the UK: Lamble pointed out how aiming for this sort of symbolic change has little real impact on trans people's safety, and instead shifts the focus away from addressing the material causes that make up the real issues, like housing or healthcare.
Overall, this was a great informative read that I would recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in the topic.
I especially found Chapter 7, "from individual to collective safety," interesting, as it covers all the ways that we can collectively act to reduce harm rather than the current individualistic approach, and offers actionable suggestions.
Another notable chapter was Chapter 6, which covered symbolic vs material safety. I ended the chapter having had my mind completely changed on the issue, as the author's points were both persuasive and empathetic - they always made sure to consider all viewpoints and non-judgementally state the logical flaws in them. The example that was used was the campaign to reform the Gender Recognition Certificate application process in the UK: Lamble pointed out how aiming for this sort of symbolic change has little real impact on trans people's safety, and instead shifts the focus away from addressing the material causes that make up the real issues, like housing or healthcare.
Overall, this was a great informative read that I would recommend to anyone with even a passing interest in the topic.
August 6, 2026
4⭐️
I liked that this book acknowledged the connection between the rise in anti trans propaganda and the rise in the far right ideology but how in the uk those barriers aren’t as consistent as they r in other places
The exploration of how trans rights and views of trans people have become more negative in the past few years compared to how they where was done very well and clearly showed the decline
This book made me angry as it was supposed to it really reinforced how negative the treatment of trans people has become so much more prevalent in all aspects through out the uk
There is a strong focus on trans women over trans men and non binary people
Strongly displays the connections between misogyny and transphobia
While I didn’t agree with some of the points and opinions in this book it did a very good job at portraying why people believe in these concepts and what they could do to help society be more equal
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in why trans right and views of trans people are the the way they currently are in the uk and the effect this is having on many other aspects of society
Thank you Netgalley and Haymarket books for the digital arc
I liked that this book acknowledged the connection between the rise in anti trans propaganda and the rise in the far right ideology but how in the uk those barriers aren’t as consistent as they r in other places
The exploration of how trans rights and views of trans people have become more negative in the past few years compared to how they where was done very well and clearly showed the decline
This book made me angry as it was supposed to it really reinforced how negative the treatment of trans people has become so much more prevalent in all aspects through out the uk
There is a strong focus on trans women over trans men and non binary people
Strongly displays the connections between misogyny and transphobia
While I didn’t agree with some of the points and opinions in this book it did a very good job at portraying why people believe in these concepts and what they could do to help society be more equal
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in why trans right and views of trans people are the the way they currently are in the uk and the effect this is having on many other aspects of society
Thank you Netgalley and Haymarket books for the digital arc
June 12, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and Haymarket Books for providing me with an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.
“Unsafe” examines the safety politics that have lent anti-trans arguments legitimacy and helped them become mainstream in the UK and beyond.
The author’s framing of the topic in this way is illuminating, reaching far beyond the single dimensional identity politics debate that has co-opted the conversation on trans rights and inclusion. Lamble’s insistence on intersectionality, solidarity, and confronting material reality and harm is extremely relevant and expands far beyond trans inclusion to encompass many other important issues.
The writing is accessible but at the same time deeply profound and nuanced. I came away from this book with new ideas and frameworks to ponder and above all, a gratitude for the thoughtful work being done by this author and others to counteract the harmful narratives that base a sense of community on exclusion.
This book is a must read for all of us striving for a politics of solidarity and care that resists against mainstream narratives of exclusion and punishment.
“Unsafe” examines the safety politics that have lent anti-trans arguments legitimacy and helped them become mainstream in the UK and beyond.
The author’s framing of the topic in this way is illuminating, reaching far beyond the single dimensional identity politics debate that has co-opted the conversation on trans rights and inclusion. Lamble’s insistence on intersectionality, solidarity, and confronting material reality and harm is extremely relevant and expands far beyond trans inclusion to encompass many other important issues.
The writing is accessible but at the same time deeply profound and nuanced. I came away from this book with new ideas and frameworks to ponder and above all, a gratitude for the thoughtful work being done by this author and others to counteract the harmful narratives that base a sense of community on exclusion.
This book is a must read for all of us striving for a politics of solidarity and care that resists against mainstream narratives of exclusion and punishment.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A well-researched and well-written analysis of anti-trans movements within the UK. Even as an American, I can see the same sentiments within US politics today.
As a queer woman with a Criminal Justice degree and deeply anti-carceral sentiments, I am likely the target audience for this book, and it landed perfectly. I left it with a list of referenced books that I'd like to read, as well as some new insights into UK politics. I found that the strongest anti-carceral background begins around Chapter 3 (and continues to pick up in Part 2), so anyone without much context on the subject may need to power through the opening chapters to understand why Lamble calls for sweeping transformation.
I would recommend this to anyone who wants to read about an alternate ideology for communal wellbeing. I doubt this book would change the mind of many gender critical individuals, nor would it be particularly convincing for someone who is pro-policing/incarceration. But I couldn't recommend it more for anyone who has asked: "Isn't there a better way?"
Thank you, Sarah Lamble and Haymarket Books, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
As a queer woman with a Criminal Justice degree and deeply anti-carceral sentiments, I am likely the target audience for this book, and it landed perfectly. I left it with a list of referenced books that I'd like to read, as well as some new insights into UK politics. I found that the strongest anti-carceral background begins around Chapter 3 (and continues to pick up in Part 2), so anyone without much context on the subject may need to power through the opening chapters to understand why Lamble calls for sweeping transformation.
I would recommend this to anyone who wants to read about an alternate ideology for communal wellbeing. I doubt this book would change the mind of many gender critical individuals, nor would it be particularly convincing for someone who is pro-policing/incarceration. But I couldn't recommend it more for anyone who has asked: "Isn't there a better way?"
Thank you, Sarah Lamble and Haymarket Books, for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
UNSAFE makes clear the connections between anti-trans* sentiment and carceral politics in a way that I think is incredibly accessible to those who are new to this way of thinking and those who are familiar with these issues alike. Lamble’s writing is fantastically accessible, and firmly rooted in the history of anti-trans* sentiment and legislation in the UK.
I am not as familiar with prison abolitionist thought as I am with trans*feminist sentiment, so this book was especially useful as a way of showing me how those two spheres connect. I think it would be a great read for others like me, who are very interested in prison abolition and getting to the root of the carceral politics white liberalism has become so invested in, but who maybe don’t know a ton about it yet. I also think this is a good addition to the overall field of trans* theory and trans*feminism; I could see it easily fitting into my theory and/or history classes in my WGSS master’s program.
Thank you to Netgalley and Haymarket Books for the ARC!
I am not as familiar with prison abolitionist thought as I am with trans*feminist sentiment, so this book was especially useful as a way of showing me how those two spheres connect. I think it would be a great read for others like me, who are very interested in prison abolition and getting to the root of the carceral politics white liberalism has become so invested in, but who maybe don’t know a ton about it yet. I also think this is a good addition to the overall field of trans* theory and trans*feminism; I could see it easily fitting into my theory and/or history classes in my WGSS master’s program.
Thank you to Netgalley and Haymarket Books for the ARC!
June 30, 2026
"Unsafe" takes a much-needed look into how we view those who are "other." Do we view them with suspicion and assume the worst or do we consider the systems that we all interact with? Lamble takes from real-life examples in the UK regarding trans-related issues and lets readers know how carceral feminism ultimately endangers us all by assuming that punishment equals justice. In the end, with these prison-based "fixes," none of us are "safe."
June 21, 2026
A very thorough explainer of how the larger legislative backlash against trans people, mostly using examples in the UK because it is where our author is active for her work, and how to move forward towards more anti carceral solutions, and what that actually looks like in practice. Highly recommended read.
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