None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary

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As well as a writer, Alabanza is also a performance artist, and in 2017 they became the youngest recipient of an artist residency at the Tate. Their debut show, Burgerz, won the Edinburgh fringe total theatre award in 2019.

Educational, illuminating and hilarious. Not only an empowering and enriching read for those that are treated like outsiders on this confusing and cluttered planet but a book that leaves readers with a far better understanding of issues that are faced’ Both accounts also betray, albeit perhaps less intentionally, a father-shaped hole. Alabanza fondly recalls “Hangwolf”, a childhood-era German lodger who served as temporary father-figure, then later reflects on “the man who drove me to football because my own was too busy somewhere else”, and “how so many of us grow up with fathers playing hide and seek, so the wider community becomes our dads”. Being called “son”, for Alabanza, could thus feel “like both a punch and a hug”. Travis Alabanza: It feels like a trap that you can’t avoid. I actually started writing a completely different book which was information-heavy, instructive and modelled off Reni Eddo-Lodge [the author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race ] and Shon Faye [the author of The Transgender Issue ]. But then, after reading Shon’s book, which is so great, I thought, ‘oh it’s already been done, I don’t need to do this,’ and deleted the whole thing. I wish you would not say ‘proper’ as a qualifier before trying to split up me and my other sisters and siblings. You may think it is a natural thing to split people up, that it is already embedded within the thing itself, but that shit is done to us externally. Eventually that stuff seeps into us. It affects how we think, how we treat other people, how we treat ourselves.

No one has to conform to socially constructed stereotypes, but every mammal is either male or female and cannot change from one to the other. Mammals are sexually dimorphic because that is how they reproduce. Sex-defined behaviours are all around mating, reproduction and the protection of young, and are apparent in all species. Behaviours that only humans have invented – wearing clothes, doing specific jobs, adopting or giving names, playing with toys or at sports – are all artificial social constructs and have no relation to sex. Anyone can do any of them but it doesn’t make them the other sex or ‘non-binary’. Her honesty felt refreshing: at least I did not need to decipher what she may have meant, or how she truly felt. Sometimes I wish for the more out and out, retro bigotry – at least then I know where I stand. Absolutely stunning . . . Travis is one of the sharpest writers out there and everyone should read this book’ IONE GAMBLE Travis' book will challenge the reader to reflect on the ways we treat each other, pushing for a brighter future where gender structures aren't being weaponised in the ways they currently are’

Travis Alabanza writes about gender and its possibilities with such generosity and ease even the most provocative suggestions start to seem obvious, despite their challenges to society at large. This anti-memoir, which is at times both profound and funny, will make anyone question the stories we tell about ourselves, how we tell them and even who the telling is for -- SHON FAYE, author of THE TRANSGENDER ISSUE

Unfortunately, though, None of the Above doesn’t stop there, but attempts to theorise each personal anecdote to make wider points about “life beyond the binary”: for example, whether or not there’s such a thing as “proper” trans, or how such identities interact with race and class. And once away from personal stories, the prose is relentlessly awkward.

So Travis, when did you know?” I think of other people I have heard speak about their moment of knowing, how they say their parents recall them crying whenever they were in the wrong clothing. I think of an article I read by another trans person speaking of the indescribable pain of knowing innately they were not in the body they were supposed to be, how their childhood was plagued with the consistent reminder of being told they were a gender they were not. And I draw a blank. I cannot pin this reality on to mine. The Library's buildings remain fully open but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We're None of the Above by Travis Alabanza is a thoughtful, stunningly crafted meditation on identity, survival, resilience and defiance that inhabits the personal but also transcends it to speak to universal ethical, moral and human concerns,” she continued. “When Our Worlds Collided is compelling young adult novel that is urgent, necessary and intensely compassionate.” None of the Above explores the nuance of self-understanding in an honest, hilarious, and heartfelt way. It is a stunning intersectional interrogation of gender that reads like a conversation with a friend." —Blair Imani, author of Read This to Get Smarter: About Race, Class, Gender, Disability & More Alabanza’s book has a reflective quality that touches the heart and engages the mind,” said judge Anthony Vahni Capildeo. “It feels like being invited into someone’s interiority.”A vivid reminder that, to be neither, within a binary world, is to sacrifice both state and sometimes community protection." When you are someone that falls outside of categories in so many ways, a lot of things are said to you. And I have had a lot of things said to me.' In None of the Above, Travis Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them about their gender identity. These phrases have stayed with them over the years.