Yeah, it's quite interesting. She looks at what happened to Michael Bailey after he published The Man Who Would be Queen. She also looks at a couple of other people who were cancelled for unpopular opinions, and she explores the medical treatment of intersex children and youths (her area of interest) and how doctors get away with badly researched interventions that might not be in their patients' interests.

I think you should read the book. It's got a lot of good information in it about the silencing of research and "cancel culture" in academia - from before cancel culture had a name. The author has been targeted and suffered harm to her career for writing the book, even though it takes a middle of the road approach.

Dreger wrote a previous book about the history of intersex individuals and medicine, and is super sex-positive in general. So I'd say my main critique is that of most sex-positive influenced people: In an attempt to move past the problems with slut-shaming and abstinence only education, some people swing 180 the other way to not being critical enough of the harm that the pursuit of pleasure causes.

I think that's where most Radical Feminist objections come from. To get an idea you can read her article on AGP here. She, for example, says that a Philia is a sexual orientation. Having grown up around the normalization of pedophilia in my own family - that's the pedophilia lobby pushing that point of view. If you look at the study of paraphilias in general, you find they can develop at any age - sometimes in teenage hood, sometimes in 40 and 50 year olds. They don't happen in isolation, people usually have multiple philias. Because she has this point of view, it's an orientation that can't be helped, she also is supportive of transition for older adults with AGP - but this was before the whole "affirmation" model took over. Her point of view is "if it helps people, they should be able to transition" - I think I used to agree, but have come to realize that transition isn't as helpful as people claim it is when you really sit down and read the research.

http://alicedreger.com/autogyn

The objections to the book from the trans advocacy sides of things is that "Autogynephilia isn't real" or that its "needlessly stigmatizing" even though it's based on first hand accounts of people describing their own experiences.

Yes, I liked it, I would say read it. You’ll be in disagreement with some sections but it’s a fascinating read. I learned about Dix Poppas years ago and I felt her rage when writing about him.

She spent the whole book being supportive of trans, but at the end, even she acknowledges that the swing towards affirming everything that moves is a mistake and will lead to unnecessary medicalization of children. When your fervent allies can see what’s coming, you need to stop and take stock of your politics

I love this book! I disagree heartily with a lot of her views but the narratives are quite compelling and eye-opening. I think she's honest.

I tried to read it, but found it quite poor and gave up. It's more a memoir about herself, with a lot more emphasis on herself than the subjects at hand.

She also believes sex is a spectrum and promotes that idea by using people with VSDs.

I had mixed feelings about it. There's a lot of interesting information, but she's got a saviour complex, also white knight, defending besieged academics.

After I read it I asked a feminist anthropologist about it. She told me about issues around Napoleon Chagnon and Dreger's support of him, and said she originally assumed that anything Dreger said must be wrong, so she actually supported the people going after Michael Bailey. She changed her mind after listening to them for a while (TRAs are their own worst enemies sometimes), and realized that Dreger actually had a point that time.

Personally I think Dreger oversimplifies things, but it's still worth a read.

I hadn't realized she was one half of whatever organization that was lobbying for people with intersex conditions (she doesn't have an intersex condition).

I liked the book overall, although I found her writing style a bit much at times when she seems to be claiming she and her friends/colleagues alone are capable of critical thought.

I did NOT like her take on AGP. She treats it as a sexual orientation and is perfectly fine with the notion of men flaunting their perversions in public if it makes them feeel better.