Abstract:

Forty-five female-to-male transsexuals from diverse backgrounds and at different stages of transition were interviewed in depth about their sexual attractions, sexual practices, and sexual orientation identities prior to their transitions into men. Forty-three participants had been sexually attracted to women at some time prior to their transitions. Thirty-five participants engaged in homosexual activity, 25 of whom adopted lesbian identities before coming to recognize themselves as female-to-male transsexuals. The information provided by participants suggested that they were initially attracted to lesbian identities on the basis of popular images of lesbians as mannish women. However, they later rejected lesbian identities at least partially in response to politicized lesbian-feminist definitions of lesbians as women-loving-women who emphasize womanhood and eschew manliness. Participants adopted identities as female-to-male transsexuals because they believed that such identities more accurately captured the natures of their sex, gender, and sexual orientation identities.

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Abstract:

Prior to the publication of this book, very little was known about female-to-male transsexuals. Who are they? How do they come to know themselves as transsexual? What do they do about it? How do their families cope? Who loves them? What does this mean for the rest of us? FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society answers these questions and more. It provides a detailed, compassionate, intimate, and incisive portrait of the life experiences of 45 female-to-male transsexuals. Based on a series of in-depth interviews and years of field work and friendships with transsexual and transgendered people, Devor traces the everyday events and significant moments which coalesce in transsexual identities and culminate in gender and sex transformations. After an introduction which grounds the discussion in historical and theoretical contexts, the author takes a life course approach to understanding female-to-male transsexualism. Liberally using their own words as illustrations, Devor looks at how childhood, adolescent, and adult experiences with family members, peers, and lovers work to shape and clarify female-to-male transsexuals' images of themselves as men and as males. With passion and pathos transsexual men tell their stories about how they decided to, and proceeded to, alter their lives and their bodies so that they could live fully as men. With humour and determination they disclose how they, and the people around them, adjusted to their radical transformations and the many lessons which they learned along the way about the mysteries of life on both sides of the great gender divide. FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society is highly readable, emotionally engaging, intellectually rigourous, comprehensive, sharply analytic, and theoretically wide-ranging. It will be an invaluable resource for transsexual people and their loved ones. It will be a key reference work for professionals and for students. Anyone who has ever wondered about gender, sex, and sexuality or who simply enjoys reading absorbing real-life drama will find FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society to be both fascinating and challenging.

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Abstract:

A number of recent debates in gender studies have focused upon the links between gender and sex, and the question of whether or not it is viable at this moment in time to ‘undo’ gender (e.g. Lorber, 2000; Butler, 2004; Ruspini, 2007). Within this paper I aim to explore the usefulness of bringing the narratives of transpeople and their partners to bear on these debates. Firstly, I shall briefly review the current theories relating to trans, as well as introducing governmentality as the theoretical framework to be used herein. The research this paper draws upon will be described, in order to introduce the subsequent sections, which review and analyse the narratives of transpeople and their partners, firstly with respect to the overarching influence of the gender binary, and secondly with regard to the strategies employed by individuals to resist binary gender norms. The final substantive section explores the theoretical implications of involving the diverse narratives of both those who conform to and those who diverge from the norms of the gender binary, in debates concerning the undoing of gender. Concluding remarks include consideration of possible ways to move forward past the current impasse between, for example, trans and lesbian feminist theorists, and feminists and post-structuralists.

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