One of the most entertaining and vitally important superhero novels I have read since Perry Moore's 'Hero'. And like 'Hero', it is gold for LBGTQ representation. It could not have come out at a better time, yet it is timeless.
In a world where superheroes and villains are a common and accepted fact of life, many facets of intolerance towards "the Other" still exist. Fifteen-year-old Danny Tozer always knew she was a girl, born in the wrong body. But she also knows society won't accept that of her, especially not her emotionally abusive, toxic masculinity ideas-spewing father. The only way she finds she can be herself is in hiding, away from home and school. It is slowly killing her, being forced to act like her birth gender is supposed to.
Until one day, whilst Danny is hiding to paint her nails, the world's most famous superhero Dreadnought crashes down beside her. Before he dies, he gives her his mantel, his powers. As well as receiving Dreadnought's super-speed, strength and flight, Danny now has the physical body she always wanted. She has super powers, but she is happy for the first time in her life because she is a girl at last.
Amid the transphobia Danny endures with her new identity - from her in-denial father who thinks he can "cure" her, from her best friend David whose misogyny is clearer to her than before and who sees her as a sex object he's entitled to date, and TERFs like the superheroine Graywytch - will she take up the mantel of her hero - or "cape" - identity as the new Dreadnought? There's also Dreadnought's murderer, the villain Utopia, to consider.
Will the world accept a girl Dreadnought, let alone a transgender one?
Even with all the serious issues 'Dreadnought' addresses, and the painfully harsh and real low self-esteem issues Danny faces as a result of years of domestic abuse, it is still an incredibly fun book. There's plenty of action, comedy, and most prominent, female alliances and friendships.
'Dreadnought' is full of girl power and diversity. The charming and sympathetic Danielle "Danny" is a lesbian as well as transgender. She sticks up for herself when someone misunderstands and misgenders her, having to constantly tell the ignorant that she is a girl. But for her bravery and selflessness as she fights bad guys and saves lives, the book is ultimately about a trans girl finding the courage to stand up to her abusive father; that love and acceptance are important for a healthy life.
Doc Impossible is one of the best characters I've come across in contemporary lit - smart, eccentric and a ton of fun to read about, I adore her. With what's revealed about her character towards the end, her mentoring, allying and compassion towards Danny is greater still.
Calamity the rogue (or "graycape" as heroes like her are called) cowgirl superhero is Danny's crime fighting partner. A dark-skinned badass who knows her way around (her catchphrase is "I'm possessed of an idea..." etc, at least I think it is because who talks like that?), and is a true friend. There is no romance in 'Dreadnought' since there is no need of it, what with everything else going on in young Danny's life, but I loved seeing her friendship with Calamity develop throughout. Her sexuality is barely made a focus in the plot, for while it is a part of her identity, there is no reason to make a big deal out of it, and that is awesome. Hints of something more in her relationship with Calamity may come in the sequel.
Other superheroes such as Valkyrja, Danny's fangirl crush, are cool too, though they don't appear nearly as much as they perhaps should. The transphobes I mentioned - Danny's dad, David and Graywytch - can go straight to hell. It's sickening that people like them exist in real life. In a lot of ways they are worse than the spotlighted villain of 'Dreadnought', Utopia the female cyborg, who as it turns out has one of the most interesting motivations for her crimes. No one sees themselves as evil, and the bad guys here really think they are doing the right thing.
'Dreadnought' is a thrilling, touching and original superhero story and I can't recommend it enough. As part of #ownvoices, it is absolutely relevant, and how important it is in our political climate right now cannot be stressed enough.
I am cisgender. By all rights I am not a person who should pompously tell exactly what it means to be trans. Even as an ally, and a sympathetic and empathetic human being, I know I can't fully understand their experiences. No one individual has had the same experiences, not the marginalized, not anyone. No matter how much research I do, no matter how much exposure, I don't know shit. But I am going to try explaining my own experiences with acknowledging the transgender community.
My parents are friends with at least one person who is a transgender woman. Other than that there are very few trans people I've met in real life. Throughout my youth most of what I'd learned about them is from watching television which, yeah, is a highly toxic place. Apart from that one British reality TV show season where a trans woman won (that is literally the only good thing I can ever say about reality TV), TV gave away nothing but offensive stereotypes and misinformation. Transgender women (it was always women) were seen as jokes - inherently walking jokes - played for laughs at the expense of their humanity; where the writers genuinely seem to have thought that trans females and gay males are the same. One might think this is kinder than having them portrayed as sexual predators and deceivers of poor straight cisgender men, but it really isn't better. The punchline to these "jokes" always comes right down to this: Trans women are not real women, they're just men in dresses. Men who have given up their manhood and so must be punished for it, for what is worse than being a woman? Being happy to be a woman. Transmisogyny was everywhere, and this kind of dehumanization still exists to this day.
Even films with positive representation, good intentions or not, are merely for Oscar-bait (as if acting as a decent human being earns you a gold star nowadays), and show their lack of dedicated effort and respect when they cast a cisgender actor to play a trans person (looking at you, 'The Danish Girl', which is based on a real trans person's life so there is no excuse). In a way it is still erasing the experiences of the marginalized, when they are not even consulted in the making of a film.
These depictions literally get hundreds in the transgender community killed.
Take the BS bathroom bills in the US, and "trans panic", which allows for the legal murder of trans people out of so-called shock from a deception. These exist purely from transphobic myths with no basis in facts whatsoever. They are still around. Agreeing that the trans community are human beings living their lives like everybody else is still a controversial debate. An example of "othering" them is telling them where they should go to the toilet. Politicians and powerful and influential leaders can remove the rights and protection of transgender youth - without which more of them will get murdered or attempt suicide every year, and the numbers are so much higher for trans people of colour - simply because they can. They don't care that trans men and women are their own people who are dying, and they think nobody else should care about "the Other" either. All due to baseless fear and rampant misinformation from the past, creeping up on the present.
Overall transphobes believe transgender people shouldn't exist, or can't exist, because they appear outside comforting, black-and-white societal boxes, and challenge the perception of gender. Transphobes don't like changes and complications (which they make themselves), and in the patriarchy a man rejecting manhood - wanting to be a woman comfortable and confident in her own skin - is emasculating. Emasculation is the ultimate insult, and downright terrifying to these bigots. So like bullies they will try to stomp them out, ridicule them, take away their basic human rights, and choose not to hear them when they cry out for help. The deaths of trans people, including trans POC, are almost never on the news for a reason. The message is clear: You don't matter.
TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist) are no better. They claim to want equal rights for ALL women, and if that doesn't include women who were not assigned as such at birth, then what are they doing? Their close-mindedness and tone-deafness infuriates me. They don't seem to realize that their own ideas about gender are as dated as non-feminists'. It broke my heart when I recently heard that Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of the best modern writers and feminists of our time, doesn't consider trans women to be real women because they got to experience male privilege early on in their lives. While not as aggressive a statement as other transphobic feminists of the past, like Germaine Greer, have made, it still assumes that the trans community is a hive mind of those who all have similar experiences to one another, and that being a woman comes down to biology and the societal expectations that come from that; something feminists have always struggled to fight against, risking their lives in the process. Transgender females are dying due to invisibility and lack of positive representation and caring, and TERFs want to deny they are even women in the first place and so are not worth helping. They are bigots. Exclusionary feminism is not feminism, period.
Not such a funny joke now, is it?
So along comes 'Dreadnought', a book about a transgender superhero. She is the lead. This is her story. Fuck knows that transgender people, especially the youth, need a hero, someone to look up to and see themselves in, as a symbol of strength against adversity. 'Dreadnought' should be a movie. No question, no debate, just make it happen. Cast someone who is actually transgender as Danny Tozer - superhero and teen, living in a world which, with bright spots here and there, is struggling to accept her for who she is, and also doesn't want to accept her. She can be a life saver.
No joke, 'Dreadnought' and books like it could save lives. Hopefully more good will come out of it in its wake and success.
Here's only a couple of the best quotes:
'I see a world that is terrified of me. Terrified of someone who would reject manhood. Terrified of a girl who knows who she is and what she’s capable of. They are small, and they are weak, and they will not hurt me ever again. My name is Danielle Tozer. I am a girl. No one is strong enough to take that from me anymore.' - page 69 of my copy
'"You think it’s a uterus that makes a woman? Bullshit. You feel like you’re a girl, you live it, it’s part of you? Then you’re a girl. That’s the end of it, no quibbling. You’re as real a girl as anyone"'. - page 51 (Doc Impossible, you are also a hero)
Final Score: 4/5
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