In a near-future, ‘gender recognition’ legislation is repealed, and it becomes illegal for males to identify as females and females to identify as males. However, due in part to the continued conflation of sex and gender and in part to the insistence that gender align with sex, it also becomes illegal for males to be feminine and females to be masculine. A gender identity dystopia.
If you liked Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, you’ll probably enjoy Gender Fraud.
FINALIST FOR THE ERIC HOFFER AWARD 2021
Magenta 2020
If you’d like an ebook version, it’s available in Kindle, Kobo, NookBook, and iBook, but you can download it as an epub or pdf right here! For free. (And here’s why.)
(If you’d like the paperback version, best to purchase online–such as at amazon, barnesandnoble, bookdepository, bookshop, etc.–where you can get a deal on the shipping.)
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“A little bit of 1984, a touch of The Handmaid’s Tale …” Alexandra, Goodreads
“Great premise. Great dialogue.” sojourner_truth, ovarit.com
“The book description says ‘I fear this horror story will take its place’ [and] indeed a horror story it is. And I feel it is already starting. … I found Gender Fraud: a fiction gripping to read … the discussions between the characters. … Kat is a likable, relatable, and extremely intelligent character …” Katya, Goodreads
“You have such an original mind!” WatcherattheGates, ovarit.com
“Wow! I feel like I’ve been on a roller-coaster through to the future and have to catch my breath.” GrumpyCat, ovarit.com
“I know [Gender Fraud: a fiction] might create a controversy for trans-women, but I don’t want to go there, because this was not the message I got from reading it. … It’s about hundreds of years of women being subordinated. There is this standardised image of women that our society promotes. The consumerism society pushes women to buy all sorts of make-up to look better, to hide their age, to not feel comfortable in their own skin. … You need to wear this in order to be attractive to the opposite sex. Everything is made in coordination with men’s needs. No doubt they are behind all this industry. As a photographer and having studied poses in women portraiture, you easily come to the conclusion they were created by men. Every pose either expresses fragility or sensuality. Rarely, some photographers decide to break the rules. However, most women like posing in this way, so I guess the programming worked pretty well. Also, as a woman, you should be quiet, not correct anyone, especially not a man. You should always smile and feel happy. If you fail to do these, you are sanctioned in a way or another. … I enjoyed the dialogue between Kat and Dell (a transman) and her answers to the psychiatrist’s questions were ace. … Overall, I quite enjoyed Gender Fraud: a fiction The ending was unexpected and also came with a twist.” Mesca Elin, Psychochromatic Redemption
“Male domination is the process through which its victims and perpetrators witness the degradation, destruction, diminution, and/or dismissal of female life. In Peg Tittle’s Gender Fraud, the reader witnesses these practices of devolution unfold within a fictional world in which women are arrested for conveying traits associated with maleness … The crimes she is accused of committing include wearing men’s clothing, not wearing make-up, maintaining a short, unkempt haircut, not wearing jewelry, being unmarried, not having children, … nullifying her reproductive capacity via tubal cauterization, and working towards the attainment of an advanced degree. …” Jocelyn Crawley, Women’s Liberation Front (full review here) “True to life under under male domination, the story worsens as time unfolds because, as the narrative progresses, Jones is increasingly subjected to the perverse, pernicious rules of male domination … Gender Fraud will likely motivate the reader to reconsider her presuppositions regarding the sex/gender system and ponder how, within dystopic frameworks in which women who attempt to assert their independence and autonomy are accused of attempting to be male, patriarchy works to perpetuate its project of annihilating, or at least abrading, female subjectivity.” Jocelyn Crawley, Peachy Perspective (full review here)
