The glorious wave of new feminist books published in this decade has been one of the joys of the women’s rights campaign. For a while, my favourite was Julie Bindel’s Feminism for Women… Oh hang on, before that there was Caroline Criado Perez’s Invisible Women… A lot of people swear by Helen Joyce’s TRANS, but Sharron Davies’ Unfair Play really blew my socks off, not least when she demonstrated that we already have a tragic and detailed catalogue of what happens to women who took T as youngsters… The one that I loved most this year was Karen Ingala Smith’s Defending Women’s Spaces but you know what? You absolutely need Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader.

I’ve been trying to get around to writing this review all week but I’ve been too busy looking up the answers to things. It’s been like that, this campaign – every time you think you’ve got on top of the subject, someone says something new about the law as applied to women, or about this or that aspect of biology, or politics, or sport, or culture, or how this or that issue pans out in the United States as opposed to the UK, and you find you need that paragraph from that article you saw… where?

This book is the answer to that constant problem. Edited by Alice Sullivan and Selina Todd, with chapters on all the topics that constantly burn in the women’s rights debates, written by many of the people you’ve come to know through the campaign, it’s a thoroughly well organized source of answers.

I particularly liked the who and the why and the when of Selina Todd’s chapter on second wave feminism and all that our 20th century sisters brought to the world – most pleasing of all is her demonstration that second wave feminists’ extensive research and discussion of sex and gender is a large part of the reason the UK didn’t fall for the regressive onslaught of gender ideology the way so many countries did. Salute your elders, Britain – they laid the ground for TERF Island.

I have already made good use of Shereen Benjamin’s chapter on feminism and gender identity theory in schools, pleased to see a clear explanation of why social transitioning is a really bad idea and Susan Matthews’ chapter on children’s literature is an irresistible challenge to more feminist writers to take up the battle.

There’s also Cathy Devine on sport, Jo Phoenix on criminology, Michael Biggs on puberty blockers, Sullivan, Murray and Mackenzie on data collection; and wherever you open the book, you can hear the fireworks cracking from Jane Clare Jones’ chapter on ‘the History of Sex: Sex Denial and Gender Identity Ideology’ and after all that, you still have Emma Hilton, Colin Wright, Sophie Scott, Kathleen Stock, Rosemary Auchmuty, Rosa Freedman, Lisa Littman, Callie H Burt…

Oh hold on, someone in our FB group just asked about NHS record keeping (whips out book, turns to Alice Sullivan…)

How on earth did I survive before I had this book? When someone asks you what you want for Christmas, don’t hesitate…

Sex and Gender: A contemporary reader ed. Alice Sullivan and Selina Todd, Routledge, ISBN 9781032261195

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