Book. With this first book published by the publishing house La Déferlante, newly created in the wake of the success of the “review of feminist revolutions” which bears his name, it was above all a question of speaking again. Take it back from institutions – medical and judicial, in particular – which have long had the monopoly of legitimate discourse on transidentities; take it back from the polemicists and political actors, who, for several years, have been increasing their attacks against a supposed “transgender ideology” ; take it back to give it to the first concerned. And as such, The End of Monsters. Story of a trans trajectory manages to say a lot with few words.
Tal Madesta indeed delivers in this short autofiction the story of his own gender transition, which began in 2020. This journey, punctuated by childhood dreams and love letters, is rendered step by step: it first took forgetting yourself, then taking the leap, and arming yourself against stares and intrusive questions before you can invent yourself.
However, and while trans people are often forced to wear a “stereotypical shemale costume” in order to obtain recognition, access to care or change of marital status, it is above all for the author to recall: “Just as there are a thousand ways of being in the world for cis women and men, the same is true for us. » And that trans people, like the others, have the right to question themselves, to doubt, to deviate from the marked paths, without these human hesitations being systematically exploited.
“Forced Marginality”
Designed both as a plea for the emancipation of transgender people and as an educational tool for cisgender people (i.e. those who identify with the gender igned to them at birth), the his book takes the time to put it into context, to explain the concepts, to construct its comments. Above all, it tells the story of a perpetual battle against cis – the belief that the identity of cisgender people is more natural and legitimate than that of transgender people – and the ravages it has had on the lives of trans people.
Expensive and exhausting, this fight also provides Tal Madesta with weapons: “Because we had to fight to be recognized as full members of our sex, we developed a strong reflexive sense of our masculinity, by constraint, by necessity and by survival. » Taking advantage of his “forced marginality”the author exposes the way in which he tirelessly questions and sorts out each element of the masculine to become “the man who[’il] want[t] be “ and not build as so many others do – that is, against women. A program from which each and everyone could draw inspiration to emancipate themselves from masculinities and femininities that are too often narrow.
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