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Transgender Nation

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Packed with information and insight, Transgender Nation challenges the rigid gender norms that victimize people who transgress them, while exposing the mechanism that creates the hate which gets turned against transgender people. Her illumination of the emerging transgender liberation movement is unparalleled and piercing, and the book remains as visionary today as it was when it was published. A 'must read' for anyone with an interest in transgender politics, it places the blame for the violent brutality inflicted on transsexuals, transgenderists and crossdressers squarely on the narrowness of our cultural gender ideals.

This book highlights the sociopolitical aspect of transgender.The author says the ultimate solution of transgender is the change of USA's bipolarism society.In Japan, I think the situation is somewhat different.The bipolarism and homophobia are not so strong.Rather,the phobia for SRS is very strong.The reason is Japanese think the body is as important as the soul and cutting off the part of the body is sinful. So , this book also gave me a chance to think the cultural differences between the two countries.

Gordene Olga MacKenzie
Transgender Nation

(Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1994) 190 pages
(ISBN: 0-87972-596-6; hardcover)
(ISBN: 0-87927-597-4; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: HQ77.M54 1994)

This book supports all variations of sex and gender.
It is written from within the emerging sub-culture itself.
The author has had considerable contact with individuals in New Mexico
who vary from standard patterns of sex and gender in several ways.

As of the early 1990s, there was already a movement
within the 'transgender nation' away from conceptions
imposed by the scientific and medical establishments.
People were beginning to claim the right to live
as any sex or gender they pleased
--with or without the approval and/or physical help
of the medical profession.
Increasingly, these individuals were merely living as the other sex
if that seemed right to them.

This book is another addition to the literature of transsexualism
from the perspective of the transsexuals themselves.
Each person with some variation of sex and/or gender
usually develops some personal explanation
before he or she begins any scientific reading
or begins to consult any professionals.
The author favors transsexual persons remaining active
in the 'gender' community
rather than fading into the population of unremarkable males and females.

If you would like to read reviews of "BOOKS ON TRANSSEXUALISM",
search the Internet for those exact words.

The American society polarizes the genders in many different and harmful ways. The polarization has roots in our massive merchandising economy, our religions, our fears, our ignorance and more. Males and females are so polarized in our society that it is truly a tragedy. Actually, males and females are very much the same people who have been exposed to various varying hormone baths starting early in the womb. Some of these hormone baths are natural and some are manmade. In simple terms it is testosterone vs. estrogen. We all have both hormones, but in varying concentrations. After birth we make our own hormones based on our genetic codes and on our exposure to environmental factors.

Our gender characteristics are on a continuum. Only a few of us are the "perfect" male or the "perfect" female. The tremendous polarization in our society is acting as if there was no continuum. As we all try to fit in to our place in this polarization we may face many challenges of clinical depression, self esteem and self identity. In the United States one's gender is all too often determined by one's anatomical sex, no matter how ambiguous it might happen to be. From birth we are bombarded with gender propaganda that supports a regressive dual gender system pitting the sexes (genders) against one another. Transgender Nation looks at the male to female journey some people take as they try to find their place on the continuum.

One example of our society's polarizing the genders is that restrooms in our society are almost always polarized into men and women. This is even done in the many restrooms where only one person enters at a time so privacy is not an issue. Making these private restrooms male or female is just one sad example of how our society polarizes the genders.