Customer Reviews

Fixed for Life: The True Saga of How Tom Became Sally

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Ms. Preiss is not a great writer of literature, but she has a unique way of telling her story in sparse, short, economical sentences that lured this reader along. On page 1 of Chapter l he was Tom, an 18-year-old sailor who was wet behind the ears in terms of any kind of sexual experience, yet longing to give expression to the woman inside him. He called her Sally. By the final chapter, we had watched Tom disappear as Sally emerged from her chrysalis, mourned the loss of her wives who loved Tom, grieved at the rejection of her children while marveling at her resolve to be successful in her life's twin goals: becoming Sally and making an excellent living. Despite the heart-breaking frustrations of dealing with those who could not understand her inner self, she never looked back, and became the fully transsexual woman in body, mind and spirit that she is today.

If you ever wanted to know what it would feel like to be male (physically) but have an ardent wish to experience life as a female, read this book. This is the story of an ordinary man, a good man with everyman's successes and failures, who realized over the years that he really wanted to be an "ordinary" woman. The author relates his childhood and youth, and the lonely confusion of being different but having no words to describe it and no one in whom to confide. He was well into adulthood before he found others who were transsexual or transvestite and discovered that he was not alone. The author, as Tom and Sally, shows us the complexities of coming to terms with him/herself, making a living (yes, men get higher salaries), and navigating relationships and rejection.

Ms. Preiss's style is straightforward and leavened with wry humor that occasionally had me laughing out loud. The writing of this book took a great deal of courage and honesty. It provides the reader a thoughtful, down-to-earth introduction into a world most of us do not understand and cannot imagine.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but this book fascinated me.

My friend wrote this book so I liked it lots.