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Liu Yan

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None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary

by Travis Alabanza

bookshelves: currently-reading, fluidity

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Liu Yan said: " I am listening to Travis Alabanza’s audiobook None of the Above. I am blown away by her honesty, humility and her deep insights in questioning her own identity. Although I am a mother to support a trans girl for 5 years, I still feel that there are s I am listening to Travis Alabanza’s audiobook None of the Above. I am blown away by her honesty, humility and her deep insights in questioning her own identity. Although I am a mother to support a trans girl for 5 years, I still feel that there are so many blindspots and unconscious biases that are expressed through my interaction with my daughter and other people who identify themselves as transgender.

The first chapter, " So, when do you know?" shows that knowing is such a crucial safety and comfort factor for everyone in society around fluidity, to pinpoint a time, a place, an event, a cue or an ah-hah inner exclamation all give us a sense of assurance. Although the author admits that deep inside herself, she doesn't know, she never would know, and she is ok with this fact... but people around her NEEDs to know in order to act in accordance, the doctors, the medical system, the parents, the school...etc because fluid challenges the structure and order of the binary system we live in. So at the end of the day, the transgender person has to conform to make up a "moment" and a "place" where they "know". The "when did you know?" chapter resonates deeply because it reveals something uncomfortable: the question itself is an act of gatekeeping. It requires a trans person to construct a narrative that satisfies other people's need for certainty, not their own lived experience. The story becomes a passport to being believed.

The second chapter: "What's proper?" again it is about being able to pinpoint between male and female, and the space in between is not recognised as proper, or finished... but in reality, gender is a verb, it is a constant changing phenomema. One thing that hits me the most is that, the queerness is not problem of the queer people, it is the problem created by the binary society. ---- I am because you are - that's Ubuntu philosophy. The idea that selfhood is inherently relational. It's interestingly placed here, because it cuts both ways: my daughter's identity is partly shaped by how I see her, and my understanding of myself is being expanded by who she is.

Half way through the book, I decided to buy 4 of them for myself and anyone whom I believe would benefit from reading this amazing book! ...more "

Mar 04, 2026 10:56AM · see review

Liu Yan is currently reading

Compassionate Counterterrorism: The Power of Inclusion In Fighting Fundamentalism

by Leena Al Olaimy (Goodreads Author)

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Sep 08, 2022 01:07PM

Liu Yan is currently reading

Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing through Other Patterns

by Nora Bateson

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jul 17, 2020 07:47PM

Liu’s Quotes

“I loved you so much once. I did. More than anything in the whole wide world. Imagine that. What a laugh that is now. Can you believe it? We were so intimate once upon a time I can't believe it now. The memory of being that intimate with somebody. We were so intimate I could puke. I can't imagine ever being that intimate with somebody else. I haven't been.”
― Raymond Carver, Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

tags: distraction, intimacy, love, memory, past

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