Just released in paperback…
It’s been 15 years since Jennifer Finney Boylan’s landmark She’s Not There warmly welcomed curious readers to empathize and understand the heart and mind of a transgender woman.Now, at long last, in Arlene Stein’s Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity (Pantheon, $27.95. www.arlenestein.weebly.com), we are offered a similarly sensitive and intimate look at transitioning transgender men.
While described by its publisher as a “sociological portrait” and researched with academic rigor, Stein writes in a highly accessible style to help readers connect with subject matter that might initially strike them as remote from their own experience.
While presenting the nuanced stories of four distinctly different people scheduled to have “top surgery” performed by the same doctor, Stein generously puts her own identity (she’s cisgender female, feminist, and lesbian) and preconceptions up for examination as well. Unbound lays bare both the gains and the sacrifices in identifying as transgender, from perplexing relationships with one’s parents to the sometimes slippery interface of gender-identity and sexuality. At a time when the queer community needs to stand together for social and political change, this book can be instrumental in building bridges among us.
