Gender Outlaw
On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
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- $52.99
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- $52.99
Publisher Description
Gender Outlaw is the work of a woman who has been through some changes--a former heterosexual male, a one-time Scientologist and IBM salesperson, now a lesbian woman writer and actress who makes regular rounds on the TV (so to speak) talk shows. In her book, Bornstein covers the "mechanics" of her surgery, everything you've always wanted to know about gender (but were too confused to ask) addresses the place and politics of the transgendered and intterogates the questions of those who give the subject little thought, creating questions of her own.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fifteen years after Bornstein's groundbreaking Gender Outlaw, this follow-up collection presents the wide-ranging voices of a new generation of gender radicals. In thought-provoking essays, poems, and comics, contributors address the problematic nature of language and labels, which often force people into two categories; "People get upset with transgender people who choose to inhabit a third gender space rather than pick a side.'" A lack of acknowledgment of alternate gender labels in public spaces such as restrooms, and on official documentation highlights this issue on a daily basis. Lypsinka, Ryka Aoki, Katie Diamond and Johnny Blazes and other contributors reveal how far we've come in defining ourselves, and some, like Janet Hardy, resist definition entirely: "I am perfectly comfortable not choosing a fixed identity location." Self-assuredness and self-acceptance exude from these deeply personal writings ("Let's stop trying to deconstruct gender into nonexistence, and instead start celebrating it as inexplicable, varied, profound, and intricate"). Non-Western perspectives, including a description of a ritual for Maasai women who can't reproduce, broaden the concept of "gender outlaw" and further challenge accepted notions of what is normal.
