Mirrors: Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual [Paperback]

Geri Nettick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1996

The alternately heartbreaking and empowering story of one woman's long road to full selfhood. Born a male, Geri Nettick knew something just didn't fit. And even after coming to terms with her own gender dysphoria, and taking steps to correct it, she still fought to be accepted by the lesbian feminist community to which she felt she belonged. A fascinating, true tale of struggle and discovery.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Beth Elliott is a San Francisco Bay Area-born writer, musician and activist focused on women’s rights issues. In the early 1970s, she served as vice-president of the San Francisco chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis, served on the board of directors of the California Committee for Sexual Law Reform, and was a founding member of the Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club. The author of the original edition of “Mirrors: Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual” and the satirical lesbian time-travel novel “Don’t Call It ‘Virtual,’” she was a regular contributor to “Telewoman,” “TransSisters,” the “Bay Area Reporter,” and other lesbian, gay and feminist publications. Her essays supporting and advocating for the diversity of woman-loving women were published in the anthologies “Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out” and “Closer to Home: Bisexuality and Feminism.” In addition to public relations copywriting for a number of not-for-profit projects, Elliott handled communications for Applied Space Resources, Inc. and HitComedy.com. In 2005, Elliott re-engineered a number of earlier live and studio recordings, and recorded two new songs, for a "checkered career retrospective" CD titled "Buried Treasure." The CD and individual track mp3s are available from cdbaby.com. Beth Elliott has now lived in Oakland, California for most of her adult life. An avid softball player and hiker, she has traveled the world chasing and photographing solar eclipses. She is the historian and genealogist for her long-time California family, which has welcomed this wayward daughter back to its bosom. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 364 pages
• Publisher: Masquerade Books (July 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563334356
• ISBN-13: 978-1563334351
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,067,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A warm encouraging book which I would enjoy giving to others, July 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mirrors: Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual (Paperback)

As a Lesbian Transsexual myself, this book has come closer than any other in catalyzing my own understanding and appreciation for myself. It has also helped significantly to clear the mental and emotional confusion that to date, has been my life inheritence. Geri's story helps to elucidate and cystallize in down to earth fashion the unique anxieties and prejudices that us Lesbian Transsexuals share in a supposedly modern twentieth century society. I was so impressed by it that I recently gave it to my mother when she visited, in the hope that she too would come some distance in understanding me. I am only sorry that Geri's mother never managed to bridge that gap in understanding her own daughter.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book!, March 30, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Mirrors: Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual (Paperback)

Geri Nettick has absolutely "nailed" the transsexual lesbian experience. She describes her own experiences in a very articulate and moving way.

In addition to telling her story well, Geri presents a very intelligent, informed analysis of the transsexual phenomenon in the context of our culture and a larger world view. She also dissects the lesbian community's discomfort with lesbian transsexuals and presents a resounding rebuttal to the hostile, anti-transsexual "thinking" of certain radical lesbian separatists.

Geri also includes a list of resources for transsexuals which would be enormously useful to anyone going through transition.

As a lesbian transsexual, all I can say is that I wish this book had been around when I was transitioning!

Oh well. At least I don't have to write a book about my transition story because Geri has already done it! The details are different; the story is the same.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars shared wisdom, June 8, 2000

By 

"cassandra_iris" (France, close to Paris) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mirrors: Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual (Paperback)

first, I hope you will forgive my poor english, but It's not my first tongue. well, since I have said it. I was facinated by this book, I couldn't take my hands of it, even geting late at work for a few days, 'cause of the night reading. for this is a book with so much to say, I mean, it's a book with a historical and socioligical look at the San Francisco area during the hippie emergence to our days; it's a book telling and teaching a lot about love, love of ourself, and love of the others; it's an in depth look at the lesbian comunity; it's a brillant feminist perception of the world; and finaly, it's a wonderfull book about a combat, a combat to survive, to become who we are, to express our deep self, to come to terms with our first suffurings to a more brillant life, it's the book of hope, reminding us that we don't have to give up when we stand firm in the recognition of our true identitie. and last but not least, it's also a book of wisdom, teaching the do's and don't about transition (hmmmm, did I mention I am myself a Lesbian Transsexual). Again, sorry for my poor english