Review: Transgender Voices
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I wish I remember who recommended Transgender Voices: Beyond Women and Men to me. It may have been through this blog, but…oh well! The book is written by Lori Girshick, a “sociologist and social justice activist,” and is an exploration of 150 interviews she conducted with individuals who responded to a survey looking for “gender transgressors.” Much of the book directly quotes these interviews, with Girshick interjecting her summarized opinions and conclusions throughout.
The book is divided into 6 chapters, with multiple sub-headings in each chapter. The chapters are:
- The Social Construction of Biological Fact
- Self-Definition: Birth through Adolescence
- Constructing the Self: Options and Challenges
- Coming Out to Community, Family, and Work
- Gender Policing
- Inner Turmoil and Moving Toward Acceptance
There is also an epilogue, “Gender Liberation,” and an appendix with the survey-advertising flier and the survey itself.
As you may be able to guess from the book’s subtitle, “Beyond Women and Men,” and even more so from the chapter titles, I generally agree with the politics of Transgender Voices. Girshick does a solid job of representing a very wide spectrum of people, and (for the most part) she interjects her own thoughts only to provide context or summarize how aggregate groups felt, rather than impose a specific definition of identity or gender.
However, in the introduction, “Identity Boxes,” Girshick lays the groundwork for a view I’m not 100% comfortable with:
My own bias in this book is to advocate for liberation from the binary gender system, which for many people artificially restricts the fullest expression of self. At the same time, though, I deeply respect those who wish to identify with “male” or “female,” “man” or “woman,” and are willing to undergo expensive and painful medical treatments to achieve physical correspondence with who they feel themselves to be given the current gender system.” (Pg 11, Emphasis in original)
Themocracy