Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude [Paperback]

Amy Bloom (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 9, 2003

Amy Bloom has won a devoted readership and wide critical acclaim for fiction of rare humor, insight, grace, and eloquence, and the same qualities distinguish Normal, a provocative, intimate journey into the lives of “people who reveal, or announce, that their gender is variegated rather than monochromatic”—female-to-male transsexuals, heterosexual crossdressers, and the intersexed.

We meet Lyle Monelle and his mother, Jessie, who recognized early on that her little girl was in fact a boy and used her life savings to help Lyle make the transition. On a Carnival cruise with a group of crossdressers and their spouses, we meet Peggy Rudd and her husband, “Melanie,” who devote themselves to the cause of “ordinary heterosexual men with an additional feminine dimension.” And we meet Hale Hawbecker, “a regular, middle-of-the-road, white-bread guy” with a wife, kids, and a medical condition, the standard treatment for which would have changed his life and his gender.

Casting light into the dusty corners of our assumptions about sex, gender and identity, Bloom reveals new facets to the ideas of happiness, personality and character, even as she brilliantly illuminates the very concept of "normal.”

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Taking in an amazing range and diversity of the human experience of gender and sexuality, novelist Bloom (Love Invents Us) devotes an essay each to three phenomena: female to male transsexualism, heterosexual cross-dressing and the intersexed, or those with ambiguous genitalia or confusing chromosomal balance. But she is most interested in examining "why the rest of us struggle" with gender and sexual experiences we do not share. Bloom interviews people from each of the above groups (as well as doctors, social scientists and gender activists) and brings together, in graceful, readable prose, a plethora of facts, ideas, arguments and personal responses to help us reconsider received ideas about gender. While some of her information is surprising (babies born with "confusing" gentials are more common than babies born with cystic fibrosis), she never uses the lives of her subjects to titillate. Bloom is happy to confess her own, and others', confusions and lack of information, pointing out that there is no reliable information on the number of heterosexual cross-dressers, for instance. And she allows her subjects like the female-to-male-transsexual who has not undergone phalloplasty and claims, "I can live this way, as a man with a vagina" their complicated lives. Fascinating without being prurient, detailed without being overly scientific, the book opens new ways of viewing not only gender but our own inability to accept difference.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Exploring territory that lies beyond the dichotomies of female and male, gay and straight, Bloom, a National Book Critics Circle finalist for her story collection, A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You, introduces members of three very different groups who challenge common definitions of gender and sexuality. For her first nonfiction book, she interviewed women who have surgery in order to conform physically with the male gender they have always seen themselves as having; heterosexual men who satisfy a sexual fetish (they prefer to call it a hobby) by dressing in women's clothing; and the intersexed, whose prime political objective is to do away with the unquestioned cosmetic surgery on children born with ambiguous genitalia. A practicing psychotherapist, fiction writer, feminist, and lesbian, Bloom dares the reader to be willingly confounded by her always engaging, frequently humorous interviewees while also airing her own reactions, particularly her outrage at the brutal surgeries whose benefits have yet to be proven performed on unwitting infants. As an accessible, nonsensationalistic introduction to a fascinating and controversial subject, this volume is recommended for all collections. Ina Rimpau, Newark P.L., NJ
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (September 9, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140003244X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400032440
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #163,927 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

AMY BLOOM is the author of two novels and two collections of short stories, one a nominee for the National Book Award and the other a National Book Critics Circle Award nominee. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. She has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, Slate, and Salon, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award. Her first book of nonfiction, Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude, is an exploration of the varieties of gender. A practicing psychotherapist, she lives in Connecticut and teaches at Yale University. Multiple Audie®; Award winner Barbara Rosenblat has been named a "Voice of the Twentieth Century" by AudioFile magazine. The New York Times writes,"Watch Ms. Rosenblat work...and you get the sense that even an Oscar winner might not be able to pull this off." She created the role of "Mrs. Medlock" in the Tony®; Award-winning Broadway musical The Secret Garden.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight January 4, 2003

By Ralph Hummel

Format:Hardcover

This lucid book surprised me twice: first, when it exposed me to valuable information I'd never seen before despite a lifetime of study of sexual deviance and, second, when it entertained me with a quality of writing rarely seen. Amy Bloom is, without doubt, an extraordinary writer capable of graceful prose.

Her inquiry into the three subjects of transexualism, transvestism and intersexuality mirrors that of an investigative journalist or probing sociologist: Bloom went into the field, conducted extensive first- and secondhand research and brought home interesting and unexpected insights. No matter how familiar you are with any of these subjects, you will learn something new and useful from this book.

And the pleasure of reading it makes the book doubly enjoyable.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Human variety December 31, 2002

By "blissengine"

Format:Hardcover

In "Normal", Bloom chronicles her journey into understanding female-to-male transsexuals, heterosexual male crossdressers, and the intersexed. Intersexuality is the more preferred term than hermaphroditism. Intersexed babies are those born with genitals that are not as easily identifiable as either male or female, so doctors and surgeons perform often unnecessary and traumatizing surgery to force the baby to conform to what society and the medical community believe the standards to be. Bloom ultimately finds that our notions of what is normal are very constrained, and are much more variegated than the general population believes. By getting beyond the medical and technical jargon and interviewing the people in these categories, she discovers that even in minority groups like these, there are differences between the individuals, so she must dispel her own expectationss about commonalities within minorities. "Normal" is a wonderful introduction into understanding the human varieties on the margins, as well as understanding what is normal.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Keen Insight, Delightful Style, and Fascinating December 5, 2003

By Lori L. Lake

Format:Hardcover

After a popular novel and two stunning collections of short stories, psychotherapist and fiction writer Amy Bloom turns an eye toward gender, and her new non-fiction book is a knockout. Made up of three individual essays and an Afterword called "On Nature," Bloom examines issues of gender that are outside what most of society calls "normal." In "The Body Lies: Female-to-Male Transsexuals," we are introduced to a number of people born genetically male who are living as women (with or without sex reassignment surgery); in the section on "Heterosexual Crossdressers," we learn about manly men who, at times, enjoy dressing in feminine garb; the last segment, "Hermaphrodites with Attitude," is about people born with ambiguous "genital anomalies." The author interviewed numerous transsexuals, crossdressers, and intersexed people as well as doctors, educators, sex researchers, and others to give readers an engrossing glimpse at the confusion, prejudice, and misunderstanding that occurs when people are not so easily boxed into categories of "male" or "female." With a deft touch and a wry sense of humor, Bloom makes a cogent argument for acceptance and understanding. In a segment that will no doubt be much quoted, she writes, "(O)ur mistake is in thinking that the wide range of humanity represents aberration when in fact it represents just what it is: range. Nature is not two little notes on a child's flute; Nature is more like Aretha Franklin: vast, magnificent, capricious-occasionally hilarious-and infinitely varied" (p. 149)

Anyone interested in a combination of delightful writing style and keen insight about issues of gender will find this book fascinating. I highly recommend it.