Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity by Arlene Stein (English)

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A deep sociological portrait of a new generation of transgender men and of how they see themselves and the world, the dangers they continue to face, and the important ways in which they shape our culture.Ben, Parker, Lucas, Nadia are four patients of Florida's Dr. Charles Garramonepreparing to receive surgery to masculinize their chests on the same day. In the following years, they, along with more than a hundred others across the country, opened up to the award-winning professor of gender and sexuality Arlene Stein about how they conceive of their identities and sexuality, how they decided to transition, how they were received by their families and communities, and the joys and challenges they continue to face after transitioning. Weaving together the history of the transgender movement and the personal journeys of these transgender individuals, Stein sheds light on how transgender men tell their stories, make sense of their lives, and build communities in the face of skepticism, confusion, ignorance, and, often, violence. Because despite any progress we've made as a culture in accepting alternative identities, Ben and the others Stein meets continue to live in a world that is dangerous to them.In this moving, raw, intimate book about the lives of transgender men, Stein reveals how transgender men as a group, largely invisible in previous decades, today exert a significant impact on business, medicine, culture, and have drastically reshaped how we as a nation conceive of gender, sex, and identity. In so doing, Stein has also created an essential resource on female to male transitioning- for parents, educators, friends, and those who question their identities and seek further information.

FORMATHardcover LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Author Biography

ARLENE STEIN is a Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. The author of four books, she received the Simon and Gagnon Award for career contributions to the study of sexualities and the Ruth Benedict Prize. She also serves on the graduate faculty of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies. She has written for The Nation, Jacobin, The New Inquiry, Haaretz, Vice and elsewhere. She lives in New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Introduction 3 ONE Pre-Op 23 TWO Gender Trouble 43 THREE One Life to Live 62 FOUR Transitioning 85 FIVE Designing Men 111 SIX What Kind of Man Am I? 139 SEVEN Last Butch Standing 171 EIGHT Waiting for the Big Reveal 200 NINE Turn and Face the Strange 223 TEN I Am Enough 251 Afterword 279 Acknowledgments 289 Notes on Methods of Research 293 Glossary of Terms 297 Sources Consulted 303 Notes 311 Index 321

Review

"Earnest, diligent and defiantly optimistic....What gives this book its real heat -- is more personal; it's the challenge posed to [Stein's] own cherished beliefs."--Parul Sehgal, The New York Times "A book written by a sociologist who writes like a novelist. It's a rare nonfiction page-turner and an important book."--Rebecca Makkai, Conde Nast Traveler "Sensitive....A much needed primer for those who are puzzled by contemporary discussions about gender."--The New Yorker "Moves beyond the popular fixation on bathroom politics to explore individual lives."--The Washington Post "Moving.... By allowing her subjects to speak for themselves as those selves are reinvented in various ways, Stein leaves room for productive conversations to appear."--Harper's Magazine "For readers bewildered by how to make sense of gender today.... Having received rave reviews, for those wanting to learn more about transgender people, especially as their issues continue to make news, Unbound serves as a useful primer."--The Bay Area Reporter "Stein tracks the rapid evolution of gender identity in this provocative group portrait of trans men....Her book succeeds in documenting what it means to be trans today."--Publishers Weekly "Arlene Stein brings insight, wit, and generosity to this perceptive analysis of the dazzling shifts in how we imagine, and live out, gender today. Unbound will surprise readers who thought they had this figured out decades ago."--Janice Irvine, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts "A new sociological study on transgender individuals and their experience transitioning. This significant book provides medical, sociological, and psychological information that can only serve to educate those lacking understanding and awareness of an entire community of individuals who deserve representation. A stellar exploration of the complexities and limitations of gender."--Kirkus Reviews (starred) "If you've been trying to make sense of how gender today seems to have slipped the chains that bind it to our bodies in familiar ways, Unbound is a book for you. It's a sympathetic account by non-transgender sociologist Arlene Stein, aimed at a primarily non-transgender audience, of four people assigned female at birth who surgically masculinize their chests. Stein helps her readers understand that they, too, no longer need be bound by conventional expectations of the meaning of our flesh." --Susan Stryker, founding co-editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly "In this gripping, illuminating and clear-eyed portrait of what it means to be transmasculine in today's America, Arlene Stein does justice to an oft-misrepresented topic. A vivid and fiercely empathetic narrative that juxtaposes nuanced portraits of these young people with a clearly articulated understanding of what it means to navigate a culture that treats gender minorities with contempt, ignorance, and violence. Unbound is a revelatory read that fills an important role in gender studies."--Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home "Unbound is a timely and critical response to the loud silence permeating the current public discourse on gender and transgender experiences, especially the lived realities of transgender men within the US. A critical and stunning work that will shift the ways gender has been politicized and imagined. Should be required reading for all."--Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America

Promotional

A deep sociological portrait of a new generation of transgender men and of how they see themselves and the world, the dangers they continue to face, and the important ways in which they shape our culture.

Review Quote

"Earnest, diligent and defiantly optimistic....What gives this book its real heat -- is more personal; it''s the challenge posed to [Stein''s] own cherished beliefs." --Parul Sehgal, T he New York Times "Sensitive....A much needed primer for those who are puzzled by contemporary discussions about gender." -- The New Yorker "Moves beyond the popular fixation on bathroom politics to explore individual lives." -- The Washington Post "Moving.... By allowing her subjects to speak for themselves as those selves are reinvented in various ways, Stein leaves room for productive conversations to appear." -- Harper''s Magazine "For readers bewildered by how to make sense of gender today.... Having received rave reviews, for those wanting to learn more about transgender people, especially as their issues continue to make news, Unbound serves as a useful primer." -- The Bay Area Reporter "Stein tracks the rapid evolution of gender identity in this provocative group portrait of trans men....Her book succeeds in documenting what it means to be trans today." -- Publishers Weekly "Arlene Stein brings insight, wit, and generosity to this perceptive analysis of the dazzling shifts in how we imagine, and live out, gender today. Unbound will surprise readers who thought they had this figured out decades ago." --Janice Irvine, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts "A new sociological study on transgender individuals and their experience transitioning. This significant book provides medical, sociological, and psychological information that can only serve to educate those lacking understanding and awareness of an entire community of individuals who deserve representation. A stellar exploration of the complexities and limitations of gender." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred) "If you''ve been trying to make sense of how gender today seems to have slipped the chains that bind it to our bodies in familiar ways, Unbound is a book for you. It''s a sympathetic account by non-transgender sociologist Arlene Stein, aimed at a primarily non-transgender audience, of four people assigned female at birth who surgically masculinize their chests. Stein helps her readers understand that they, too, no longer need be bound by conventional expectations of the meaning of our flesh." --Susan Stryker, founding co-editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly "In this gripping, illuminating and clear-eyed portrait of what it means to be transmasculine in today''s America, Arlene Stein does justice to an oft-misrepresented topic. A vivid and fiercely empathetic narrative that juxtaposes nuanced portraits of these young people with a clearly articulated understanding of what it means to navigate a culture that treats gender minorities with contempt, ignorance, and violence. Unbound is a revelatory read that fills an important role in gender studies." --Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home "Arlene Stein''s group portrait of four transgender individuals preparing for surgery expands our understanding of both the internal experience of gender identity and its fluidity and construction. Deeper than a broad survey, broader than a memoir, Unbound is an enriching sociological account that enables readers to enter a space typically seen only from afar." --Michael Kimmel, author of Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era " Unbound is a timely and critical response to the loud silence permeating the current public discourse on gender and transgender experiences, especially the lived realities of transgender men within the US. A critical and stunning work that will shift the ways gender has been politicized and imagined. Should be required reading for all." --Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America

Promotional "Headline"

A deep sociological portrait of a new generation of transgender men and of how they see themselves and the world, the dangers they continue to face, and the important ways in which they shape our culture.

Excerpt from Book

In current parlance, I am "cisgender," which means I do not identify as transgender. (The prefix "trans" is Latin for "on the other side," and "cis" in Latin means "on the same side.") That is, I experience my assigned sex and gender as congruent, at least to the degree that it has not become a major challenge in my life. When I was a kid growing up, I remember thinking that it would be cool to be a boy. Since I am now middle-aged, I can remember a time when girls were compelled to wear dresses to school, abortion was illegal, and team sports were something that boys, and not girls, could participate in. Boys got to play with electric trains, which I lusted after but my parents refused to give me--they were "boys'' toys." Men didn''t have to go through the pain of childbirth, and they fronted the best rock-and-roll bands. Why wouldn''t one dream of being a man? For me, identifying as a feminist and a lesbian enables me to express my femaleness in ways that seem true enough. But over the years I learned that there are others who feel that they were assigned a gender at birth that seems inauthentic and wrong--so much so that many seek out body modifications to bring their bodies into alignment with their selves. A number of years ago, I noticed a young man working in my campus bookstore who seemed vaguely familiar to me. I stared at him for several moments out of the corner of my eye, racking my brain to figure out how I knew him, while trying my best not to attract his attention. Suddenly, I realized that he had once been a student of mine, and that I knew him as female, but now he had peach fuzz on his face, a deep voice, and was all but indistinguishable from the other young men who worked alongside him selling camera equipment. But I was so ill-equipped to figure out how to respond that I pretended not to recognize him, and he did the same. And then in February 2013, Kate, an artist friend of mine, accompanied a close friend of hers who was undergoing top surgery--chest masculinization--in Florida. "You would not believe the numbers of people there," she told me, describing the long line of individuals, mainly in their twenties, who were waiting in the surgeon''s office. South Florida was once known for a Spring Break scene that drew legions of college students eager for hot fun in the sun--a scene immortalized by the 1960 comedy Where the Boys Are . Today it is also where the "bois"--young, female-assigned people, who identify as masculine, some of whom undergo gender transitions--go to masculinize their chests. The scene at the doctor''s office surprised Kate. "There were people from everywhere you could imagine, and many of them were very young," she told me in her soft Texas drawl. "Some even brought their parents!" In a nearby gated community, a guesthouse had been established to accommodate the steady flow of patients who needed a place to stay while they recovered from surgery. My curiosity was piqued when, a few months later, I happened to hear about another friend whose nephew also underwent "top surgery" in South Florida, and then I saw a mention of the same doctor in a magazine. Why were so many people flocking to Florida to modify their chests? What were they seeking? What did they find? More broadly, what does it mean that more and more female-assigned individuals are choosing to masculinize their bodies today? What might it tell us about how our notions of gender are changing more generally? Sociologists, or at least my breed of sociologist, try to get as close to a subject as they possibly can, immersing themselves in it. That''s how I met Ben. I came across the crowdfunding website he had set up and I e-mailed him. He quickly agreed to let me tag along during his surgery week. So I booked my room and plane ticket and traveled down to Florida from my home in New Jersey to meet him--and, as it turned out, his parents too. At Dr. Garramone''s office, I also met the four others who were scheduled for surgery the same day as Ben. Three of them were good enough to agree to speak with me: Lucas DeMonte, a twenty-three-year-old health outreach worker from Gainesville, Florida; Parker Price, a twenty-four-year-old software sales manager from Austin, Texas; and Nadia Khoury, a twenty-eight-year-old employ

Description for Library

How do transgender men think about their sexuality? How did they decide to transition? How did family and friends react? What was the process like? What dangers do they continue to face? From multi-award-winning Rutgers sociologist Stein, who interviewed over 100 people and here focuses on four.

Details ISBN1524747459 Author Arlene Stein Pages 320 Publisher Random House USA Inc Year 2018 ISBN-10 1524747459 ISBN-13 9781524747459 Format Hardcover Imprint Listening Library Subtitle Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States Media Book DEWEY 306.76/8 Publication Date 2018-06-05 Short Title Unbound Language English AU Release Date 2018-06-05 NZ Release Date 2018-06-05 US Release Date 2018-06-05 UK Release Date 2018-06-05 Narrator Sarah Ridgeway Illustrator Mary Hanson-Roberts Birth 1927 Affiliation Lecturer, University of Fort Hare Position Professor Qualifications J.D. Audience General We've got this

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