Gender Blending: Transvestism (Cross-Dressing), Gender Heresy, Androgyny, Religion & the Cross-Dresser, Transgender Healthcare, Free Expression, Sex Change Surgery (Hardcover)

by Bonnie Bullough (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A compendium of papers presented at a recent symposium sponsored by California State University's Center for Sex Research, this open-minded exploration of cross-dressing, transsexualism and cross-gender behavior bills itself as "a scholarly version of Stonewall." Combining research reports, case histories, personal narratives and manifestos, this eye-opening survey searchingly delves into trans-gender phenomena across centuries and cultures, from Joan of Arc to Native American peoples to present-day Brazil, Indonesia, Costa Rica and the U.S. The academic authors provide unusually thorough coverage of coming out, counseling, health care, the legal system, political activism and how the world's religions regard cross-gender behavior. Certain essays, however, border on the nonsensical; for instance, one academic argues that Wagner's fondness for fabrics, frills and dressing gowns is indicative of the androgyny permeating his music, while another writer concludes, on the basis of extremely slender archeological evidence, that pharaoh Akhenaten's alleged trans-gender identity led him to formulate revolutionary monotheism. Sexologist Vern Bullough is visiting professor at the University of Southern California, where the late Bonnie Bullough was a professor of nursing; Elias teaches sex therapy at California State.

Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review
"...offers essays from researchers, cri de coeur from the transgendered... [and] new information about the most perplexing aspects of human sexual identity." -- Men and Masculinities, July 1999

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 524 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; 1 edition (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573921246
• ISBN-13: 978-1573921244
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,706,056 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great for educating the masses., November 13, 2000

By A Customer

I read this book, but as a cross dresser, I did not find answers for me in this book. I found it informative about the many diverse classifications of transgenderism. I would not suggest this for a transgendered person to find help, but I would suggest it for a person trying to learn about transgenderism and it's many facits. I found many of the statements in the book to come from the psychiatric community, not from transgenderd people themselves. It is a book looking in, not a book from within.