"What are you reading now?"
-One of Jenny's favorite questions
Book Review: Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers, by Cris Beam.I ventured out to the library last night, and this book caught my eye. I found a place to sit, opened it up, and read almost half in one sitting. Let’s face it, gender identity and sexuality are interesting topics which are growing less taboo. You definitely never would have seen Queer as Folk in the fifties.
So, what happens is you end up with about three categories: biological sex, gender, and sexual preference. For most people, biological sex and gender match, and sexual preference is heterosexual. For some, there’s a shift. The weird thing is, a lot of people seem to get uncomfortable with anyone who’s outside the “norm.” It’s scary to hear of all the gay bashings and other assaults, some of which Beam talks about. Just because someone’s a biological male who wears female garb, that’s enough to permanently injure them? Come on.
Beam, a non-transgender lesbian, talks about the transgender/transsexual teens she met while volunteering, and talks about those teens’ experiences in the transworld. There’s some crazy, hateful stuff. Kids who are literally thrown out because they identify with the opposite gender. I can’t imagine throwing my son out because he wears dresses, that’s too cruel. Of course, these examples come from overall dysfunctional families, so it’s not as big of a stretch to imagine an abusive crack addict disowning their child as it is to imagine people like my parents doing the same – though I know my parents would be uneasy with the concept.
Anyhow, good book. Beam only wanders into the realm of the sappy “I want to be your mommy” once or twice, and she gives a lot of information, most of it disturbing. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
So, what happens is you end up with about three categories: biological sex, gender, and sexual preference. For most people, biological sex and gender match, and sexual preference is heterosexual. For some, there’s a shift. The weird thing is, a lot of people seem to get uncomfortable with anyone who’s outside the “norm.” It’s scary to hear of all the gay bashings and other assaults, some of which Beam talks about. Just because someone’s a biological male who wears female garb, that’s enough to permanently injure them? Come on.
Beam, a non-transgender lesbian, talks about the transgender/transsexual teens she met while volunteering, and talks about those teens’ experiences in the transworld. There’s some crazy, hateful stuff. Kids who are literally thrown out because they identify with the opposite gender. I can’t imagine throwing my son out because he wears dresses, that’s too cruel. Of course, these examples come from overall dysfunctional families, so it’s not as big of a stretch to imagine an abusive crack addict disowning their child as it is to imagine people like my parents doing the same – though I know my parents would be uneasy with the concept.
Anyhow, good book. Beam only wanders into the realm of the sappy “I want to be your mommy” once or twice, and she gives a lot of information, most of it disturbing. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
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