Customer Reviews

GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary

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Saw it on the shelf at a local bookstore, started reading, and took it home. The individual pieces range from good, to stunning ("Packing a Rod" by Allen James and "The Gender Cops Work Overtime" by Gina Reiss are immediate standouts, both good enough to demand being read aloud). The authors address behavior, family relations, social relations, sex-reassignment surgery (whether or not to have it), the bi-gender system, and other topics.

"Genderqueer" is a "pull it off the shelf for guests" book - I don't know any other way of putting it. As a transgendered person, I have a number of books on the topic, including Riki Wilchins' excellent "Read My Lips." However this is the one that I find myself repeatedly grabbing for non-transgendered friends and family to highlight ideas and create awareness of the range of gender expression and identity issues. It is also a book that I have to work hard to keep it coming back to me - it has a tendency to go home with guests.

Be forewarned, though - this is not a book for the easily offended, be you straight, gay, queer, trans- or not. If you need your own feelings and ideas confirmed and validated, better to read something else. A number of the authors are brutal in their honesty, coarse in their language, and express disturbing opinions. For me, though, "Genderqueer" was enlightening, stimulating, often hilarious, and occasionally infuriating.

Although a lot has been written about gender already, the editors--all acclaimed activists in their own right--go beyond the usual discussion of MTF and FTM. Instead, they talk about all kinds of people who fit outside gender norms, and argue that it is more complicated than we thought. If more people are included in this category, there is a better chance of fighting for acceptance. Gender equality is the latest battle in the quest for civil rights, and it's an interesting one.

But this is more than gender theory. The personal stories are all thought-provoking. I found myself thinking about them long after I stopped reading them. You will too.

In this amazing collection, various first-hand stories and essays from people in the nebulous area between male and female make the case of deconstructing gender. Including sections from Nestle and Wilchins, who have both already contributed much to the gender discussion already, the book lets those who live in between male and female have a voice. Ranging the length of queer gender from intersexuals to transexuals to femmes, "GenderQueer" doesn't leave any gender stone unturned, and expands the gay and lesbian rights debate to include gender issues, which the editors feel are at the core of the argument and of the harassment of queers and perceived queers in the United States. I found myself inspired by many of these personal tales, and I found myself reflected there as well. The final essay by Wilchins is especially moving and is the luscious cherry on the delicacies here.

Fascinating critters, slugs.

"True" hermaphrodites, each possess female and male reproductive organs. Although slugs can, and will, fertilize themselves, they prefer mating. Both mates lay eggs. Often in the process, "apophallation" occurs - that is, in order to disengage their sperm-producing organs, both slugs must undergo "castration." Starting out hermaphroditic, slugs default "female." Since slugs mate only once, it's a tidy arrangement. Baby slugs hatch independently and fend for themselves. Communists.

My daughter and I raised a clutch of eggs once. 55 of the little rice-sized goobers turned into slithering 6-inch mollusks. Big appetite for cucumbers and mushrooms. We took 'em to her kindergarten show 'n tell, put them all out on a big, wet plate, their eyeball stalks a-quivering. "EEEwwww!" groaned the gals. All the boys wigged, eyes-popping, challenged, upstaged. My little girl, ostensibly sugar and spice, was the class rebel hero. Now she's raising 9 rats. The neighborhood kids are impressed.

With a high-testosterone mom and a superfem dad, her parents, a gender-variant unity of opposites, often joke that we live the Munsters' life, two outcasts who produced, magically, a beautiful and socially normative Marilyn. Time (and puberty) will tell, however. I like to think normative will be an option by then; goth, hippie, punk, queer - imagine there's no genders, it's easy if you try.

Gender was bewildering to me "when I was a boy" - I thought I was in with the hopscotch girls 'til someone's older sister poured a cream soda on my head and told me to go - but soon I discovered Keith Richards' outfit on the cover of Satanic Majesties Request. It's no coincidence 1967 was the year of paisley, beads, long hair and flower power; what defied the draft better than fem? And, all these years later - consider the New York Dolls' reunion - rock and trans continue to crossfertilize, positively.

"Are you a man or a woman?"

"I'm Mick Jagger!"

Back to the garden.


After reading the dense, academic, postmodern Transgender Studies Reader (Stryker, Whittle), GenderQueer was a shock of pure pleasure!

Interesting ideologies, told personably, credibly, even forcefully through street-smart prose. Most essays are very short, and assume the readership has been around the block. Mercifully free of superstar surgery stories, GenderQueer troubles all TG hierarchies and identity politics. Men-horny lesbians and T-girls refusing to pass, and plenty inexplicable more: "It's a whole different generation" ["Disorderly Fashion"].

Smash.

A combination of fairytales ("Loving Outside Simple Lines"), tearjerkers ("Passing Realities," "Preadolescent Drag King"), horrorstories ("The A Train"), ravers ("World's Youngest"), mindbenders ("Wanting Men"), clarion calls ("Do It On The Dotted Line," "Transie," "Do I Dare?") and supertight essays by editor Riki Wilchins, GenderQueer is, to date, the latest word in the expanding, increasing visible TG universe.

Absolutely essential vitamins - and psychedelic, too.

this book holds a great collection of people living outside the gender binary. few fall into the trap of political soapboxing and instead tell honest, beautiful stories. i'd recomend this over "from the inside out" by morty diamond if your looking for a well written and engaging book of writing by gender queers.

I love this book owned two copies now and every time i get a new one there is someone i know that needs to borrow it or have it. So i end up giving it to them and start looking for a new copy. The one I just recently recieve is now passed down to a deer friend... If you want real life short biographies of queer lives, people pushing social boundaries... breaking gender stereotypes into pieces. this is the book for you... love it live it

this was an excellent book that completely blew my mind about what i previously thought i knew about gender, even about transgendered persons. it peaked and held my thirst for understanding, and though it is not all encompassing....it opens the door wide and then pushes you into the deep end frocing you to swim through all the preconceived ideas that we have always been taught about gender and sex roles and identities...every author should be commended for sharing their deeply personal and often touching stories...i highly recommend this book to any and everyone

This is an interesting, inspirational, and well written anthology from a variety of different perspectives and experiences with genderqueerness. It gives a great insight into some of the history of queer movements, into the minds and hearts of some queer individuals, and into the eyes and ears of significant others of genderqueers.

Perhaps my favourite part of this book is how unique each voice is. They don't always agree with each other, they don't always focus on the same issues, they don't always try to get the same points across- and what this produces is something very powerful.

As a genderqueer myself, reading this book provided me with some amazing confidence. It has also provided me with some interesting perspective. Overall, I highly recommend this for anyone interested in gender related issues, and especially for those of you who feel you're not quite within the lines.

this was one of the greatest books i have ever read. It was soo touching. With ever story i felt so at home reading it. I cried during one of the story's it really touched me i felt like someone was stalking my emotions and writing them down. Some stories where so funny and good. I couldn't stop reading it was addictive. My teacher borrowed it from me. although i have people in my class saying i was a freak for reading this book. it didn't matter to me(it bothered me a little for a day but i got over it) i felt comfortable reading my genderqueer book for everyone to see. A MUST READ!!