Customer Reviews

Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood

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READ THIS BOOK! You don't have to be a transsexual, homosexual, male, or female to get a lot out of this book. I'm a married heterosexual female and read this book with an open mind, and am so glad I did so. Kholsa's transition from a female body to a male one that matched his male brain offers insights on the societal and biological constructs of gender and how our bodies are hard-wired to think and behave in certain ways by our hormones, our sociology, and so many other things. The fact that Kholsa has experienced both sides can help you learn more about yourself and the opposite sex than you ever thought possible.

Written in gorgeous, dramatic prose that will keep you turning pages well into the wee hours. Fantastic! A great choice for your book club, too---sure to inspire hours of lively discussion.

This book changed my life...I mean really. The writter struggled with the very same things I did...that is until I read his book! After reading it I aquired the same courage that he did and solved the same problem. I only wish that books and other information such as this had been made avalible sooner. I found it hard to put down. I laughed and cried along the way. I would recomend this book to anyone struggeling with similar innertermiol and you will no longer feel alone!

Dhillon Khosla, in his book, Both Sides Now, offers readers an intimate chronicling through which he presents his bodily transformations from female to male. His chapters are broken down by the month and range from July 1997 (when Khosla is twenty-eight years old) to November 1999, moving readers through various steps in his transitions as a transsexual man.

Although not exclusively focused on the various medical and surgical procedures Khosla undergoes (including, but not limited to a full mastectomy, testosterone shots, hysterectomy, and metoidioplasty) Both Sides Now does center heavily on such bodily transformations. Khosla's memoir makes evident the extent to which he lives in and through his body, and the utmost significance it is to his well-being (mental, emotional, physical, etc.) that his body not only match his gender identity as a man, but also that others in the world receive him as a man and his body as male.

Many may not understand the depth of the despair Khosla feels whenever he is addressed as "ma'am" instead of "sir." I certainly don't purport to fully understand the utter dejection Khosla conveys at such instances. But, to his credit, Khosla tells his story in such a manner that demonstrates to readers the necessity of such bodily transformations for him, if not for readers themselves.

With this said, I would expect Both Sides Now to appeal to other transsexual men looking for affirmation for their own choices to undergo various sex-alignment surgeries, while possibly being met with some skepticism from those transgender and genderqueer people who find themselves in various relationships to the question of hormones and surgery, whether in favor of some surgeries but not others, against any hormones and surgery whatsoever, and all other possible options.

An element concerning his various surgeries that I especially appreciated was Khosla's descriptions of his pre-surgery routines and his post-surgery recuperations. Khosla gives us several glimpses of the processes circumscribing surgery--from researching surgeons, scheduling appointments, finding the money to pay for surgeries that health insurance won't cover, getting home after surgery, dealing with drainage bulbs and catheters, as well as adjusting to the external physical changes (or lack thereof) accompanying surgery.

The struggles to find money to pay for transsexual-related surgeries are certainly not a new topic within transsexual narratives, nor are the concerns about post-operative satisfaction. However, I did find Khosla's discussion of various pain medications and post-op recoveries (with and without complications) to be rather unique. It is in large part due to his struggles around surgery that he is able to so convincingly sway readers as to the vitality of surgery for him. (And, I doubt that we were even privy to the most gruesome details his post-op experiences.)

Another element that could have proved unique would have been if Khosla had said a little more about how his race came into play in his transition (he was born to an East Indian father and a German mother). We get glimpses of his racial identity in relationship to food, language, and growing up outside of the U.S., but never really in terms of his sexual or gender identities (with the exception of the name he chooses for himself).

[Hopefully race will figure more centrally in the book I picked up alongside Khosla's, Max Wolf Valerio's The Testosterone File: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male.]

This is much more than a story about a man born in a woman's body who then went through life threatening surgery and alot of sole searching to become the person he is today. It is also a study in determination and perserverance. I saw Dhillon Khosla on the View and immediately bought his book. I could not believe that he was born a woman. When I received his book I read it through in one night (something new for me) because I had to know the whole story. While this book will interest those who feel they too are trapped in the wrong body,it is also the story of an incredible journey full of sandtraps and brick walls. The intimate story is told with intellectual honesty and is an excellent read.

"Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood" by Dhillon Khosla takes you along with him on a journey no mere mortal could
imagine. But this is not some science fiction fantasy novel, no, this is in fact a very personal memoir. Thanks to a simple twist of fate, Mr. Khosla was assigned at birth a body by Kafka. His clarity and his intelligence and his perseverance helped him survive and overcome difficult odds.For his relatively rare birth defect, (about one in ten thousand children are born this way) there are no telethons and the cure is expensive. Mr. Khosla had to jump through many hoops to get where he is today- a successful lawyer and talented musician- and the obstacles he faced and conquered in this epic journey were often fore-shadowed in his dreamlife.
The book is smartly laid out- it includes seventeen black and white photographs and twenty-eight of the twenty-nine chapters cover a specific month in his life with the last chapter a jump cut to the present. Each chapter begins with a short but telling entry from his dream journal, and throughout the book the high caliber of his writing keeps you right there beside him.
I rushed home from work each day until I finished this book and thought of little else in the interim. A fantastic story, all the more remarkable for having been lived, one can only hope he tries his hand at novel writing next. He is a relatively young man so one hopes he will write another memoir someday having lived through more adventures, but he has already lived what one could call a crowded hour so his autobiography is by no means premature.
One hopes if there is another installment that the next one will turn out to be a love story.

It's an intellectual book with alot of funny anecdotes. It provides insight as to a person's emotional and spiritual evolvement...the books speaks about many dreams during this transition. It seems to me that Dhillon was so determined to become his real person that the lines between the physical world and the dream world began to blend. It also demonstrates how this person grew spiritually....I mostly appreciated how he kept a kind heart during some very difficult times.

I started off whizzed off at this book 'cause I wanted 'Both Sides Now' for MY memoir title. Khosla doesn't mention Joni Mitchell once, grr. I suspect he prefers stronger stuff, at that. OK.

From the text: "I had been in Reno for two days [of sex shows, cigs, booze and gambling], and yet I felt as if I had become somehow aged. Like that little boy was on his way to becoming a man."

There it is: Khosla is a yuppie, lawyer, aspiring indie rocker, tattooed tough dude - totally superficial. His revelations are rarely internal. He's a wall-punching, skirt-chasing MAN.

So, that's the idea. Little genuflection, a lotta physical descriptions. His world rocks on appearances, appointments, accomplishments. No doubt here, Dhillon is a DUDE.

I wouldn't date 'em myself, but, hey, I don't trust MEN.

So ... the chronicle of his journey is ... perfect, crystalline. Terse. Male. Shallow. Feral. Uncompromising as as a credit card.

This is the first book that has profoundly moved me in so many ways. It has inspired me beyond what I thought a book ever could.