Jaxon Feeley – Fear Proof book review: A powerful trans perspective on fear, growth and self-acceptance
The trans rights activist and motivational speaker's debut book examines what it means to build your life from the ground up
When we call someone ‘fearless’, it’s usually with a sense of awe – a prelude to some superhuman feat or record-breaking triumph. The word becomes a marker of distance, dividing them, the extraordinary, from us, the ordinary fearful. Jaxon Feeley‘s Fear Proof achieves the opposite: uniting through decoding the undeniably human.
It turns out, the procrastination in making a seemingly small lifestyle change versus the crippling anguish prior to a life-altering decision is made of the same atoms and molecules. And whatever fear or paralysis is felt by a reader considering change (big or small), Feeley is not a judging voice. He instead gently brings to life a framework of self-awareness, peppered with extraordinary and touching insights into his story of gender transition. He encourages, regardless of what it is, to “do it scared.”
And one should listen. Feeley, who transitioned publicly while working in His Majesty’s Prison Service, knows what it means to live under terrifying scrutiny. His story carries a weight few could fathom – yet his writing never feels heavy. Instead, it’s gentle and empathetic. It thrums with an energy that is both vulnerable and quietly defiant.
Fear Proof is a hybrid of manual and memoir. Lived experience interweaves with science, offering reflective exercises that soothe rather than prescribe. Sometimes it’s simply about sitting in silence – for yourself, for your truth, for another day. There’s no sermonising here – just a man who has done the work and now holds out a hand to those who may be trembling on the edge of a new beginning.
This is a book that is grounded in the trans experience, yet transcends identity and politics. Feeley’s fear is the great leveller – the constant hum beneath our paralysis.
By the time you reach the final pages, Fear Proof feels less like a book and more like a companion; a voice that steadies rather than shouts. It’s impossible not to feel moved by Feeley’s honesty, his refusal to polish the pain, and his insistence that growth is available to anyone willing to begin again, even when the ground beneath them still shakes.
In a ‘personal growth’ book market saturated with questionable credentials, Fear Proof stands apart as authentic, grounded, and, most importantly, thrumming with heart. It is tenderly dedicated “To Little Jess – who never gave up”. And in Feeley’s words, “thank God she didn’t.”
Fear Proof by Jaxon Feeley is available to order now on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.