Customer Reviews

The End of Gender: A Psychological Autopsy

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The End of Gender is, by far, the most comprehensive and best-researched book on human sexuality written by a psychoanalyst. Thurer writes in a highly readable style and her humor is easily detectible. She writes this book as a practicing clinician hoping to better understand the gender and sexuality continuum expressed in her patients. In achieving this goal, she incorporates biology, neuroscience, sociology, queer theory, feminist theory, and various schools of psychoanalysis. While this sounds intimidating, Thurer remains readable as she successfully convinces us that sexuality and gender are constructs that cannot be contained in the boxes we have traditionally shoved them in.

Thurer has written an amazing, powerful book. The first half reads like a cultural critique whereas the second half focuses on a variety of theories that are almost beyond comprehension for the layperson. But Thurer writes well, and it is nearly impossible to resist the beauty of her arguments. While this book does not put forth a psychological theory of gender and sexuality by which a psychologist may formulate workable hypotheses for use in clinical practice, it does raise important questions about the commonly held views regarding gender and sexuality. After finishing this text, the reader is left with a new understanding of the world. I highly recommend this book to anyone attempting to understand gender and sexuality as they exist today.

This clear, lively book offers an overview of current debates about the nature of gender and sexuality in fields ranging from literary and cultural studies to the social, behavioral and biological sciences--fields among which there has been deplorably minimal cross-fertilization. I developed one of the early college courses on gender roles in the 1970s; were I still teaching, what a resource it would be! While threading her way through the mazes of contemporary psychoanalyic, postmodern, and queer theories, Shari Thurer, a clinician as well as a scholar, never loses sight of real people who are trying to make sense of their lives.

If you've ever struggled with the opaque writing style of some queer theorists, like Judith Butler, this is a book you must own. Not only does Thurer do a brilliant job of synthesizing queer/post modern theory down to clearly understandable terms, she goes one further by illustrating how practitioning Freudian psychoanalysts can employ queer theory in treatment of patients.
End of Gender's "postmodernism for those who missed it" makes it an accessible reference that deserves its place on the required reading lists of Queer and Gender Studies classes across the country.

What a fabulous piece of work. Dr. Thurer combines an astute clinical eye to take up queer theory in a way that is intelligent, humorous, and enjoyable to read. Bravo!