gement | Mustn't get distracted... (Reply)

While skimming for an assignment (I had to evaluate the experience of reading an e-book), I lost 45 minutes absorbed in my selection, despite the painful interface.

The Man Who Would Be Queen, written by an obviously sympathetic clinical psychiatrist on transexualism and tranvestitism among biological males. (The foreword assures us that the only reason it's not on both male and female trans is that the butches deserve their own book.)

I haven't read enough of it to figure out if this person needs to be slapped, of course. Academics is tricky. You can be careful to respect every single point of view and never say anything substantial. You can make some assumptions and sweeping interpretations and take the risk of misinterpreting the whole thing, and eventually get a spot next to Freud in the Hall Of Goofy Ideas About People.

This author is definitely leaning to the latter. He's willing to say straight-out that he sometimes disagrees with trans self-assessments of their feelings, including stating that a motivation seems sexual to him when the individual does not perceive it that way. He's also willing to state that he can make certain assumptions about particularly flamboyant people just by looking at them. He points out that a lot of the reason for avoiding such assumptions is the fear of offending or the fact that femininity is still unfairly stigmatized, but I'd like to see his statistics.

While I don't quite trust "interpretations" like that, he's reaching toward an interesting proposed model for classifying types of trans, based on what he sees as clear patterns and subsets of behavior and presentation. (The gay ones that try on high heels from the age of three versus the het ones that head for the lingerie at 14, for example.) I'm partly writing this note so I'll remember to go check out a hard copy.

Edit: Thanks to