Transgender Voices

Beyond Women and Men

Lori B. Girshick

In this extraordinary book, based on 150 in-depth interviews, Lori B. Girshick, a sociologist and social justice activist, brings together the voices of sex- and gender-diverse people who speak with absolute candor about their lives. Girshick presents transpeople speaking in their own voices about identity, coming out, passing, sexual orientation, relationship negotiations and the dynamics of attraction, homophobia (including internalized fears), and bullying. She exposes the guilt and the shame that “gender police” use in their attempts to exert control and points out the many ways transpeople are discriminated against in daily life, from filling out identification documents to gender-segregated bathrooms. By showing us a variety of descriptions of diverse real lives and providing a thorough exploration of the embodied experiences of gender variant people, Girshick demonstrates that there is nothing inherently binary about gender, and that the way each of us experiences our own gender is, in fact, normal and natural.

Paper: $24.95 | E-book: $22.99

ISBN-13: 9781584656838

Pages: 208 | Size: 6 in. x 9 in.

Date Published: June 30, 2009

Imprint:

University Press of New England

Reviews

…gives us perspective into the long history of gender variance and its natural place in human cultures…

Feminist Review
Sociologist and activist Lori B. Girshick provides a literature review of the most cutting-edge gender theory, gives us perspective into the long history of gender variance and its natural place in human cultures and among animals of other species, and ends with advocating the adoption of a radically inclusive alternative model of gender and sexuality.The book's greatest strength, however, lies in its extensive quoting of the in-depth interviews with 150 sex- and gender-variant people that formed the basis of Girshick's research. Their candid and sometimes heart-rending accounts reveal diverse experiences of self-definition and coming out, of evolving relationships and sexual orientations, and of all-too-frequent encounters with discrimination and violence. These stories, and Girshick's insightful analysis, clearly show how normal and natural gender variance is - and how much harm is caused by cultural assumptions that it is not. Transgender Voices points a way forward toward a more inclusive and liberated world for us all.

Feminist Review
... interesting and important book . . . highly recommended for readers at all levels.

Choice
Lori Girshick's helpful, provocative book is a real contribution to the science and sociology of transgender people. Her many luminous interviews allow trans people to speak for themselves; her uncanny and cutting-edge criticism provides both the theory and the compassion in order to further illuminate these voices. Transgender Voices speaks with wisdom, complexity, and insight on a topic key to our understanding of men, women, and everyone else.

Jennifer Finney Boylan
author of She’s Not There and I’m Looking Through You
Transgender Voices will become required reading for my Sociology of Gender and Psychology of Gender classes. Lori Girshick's comprehensive style of writing and presenting information makes it a first choice for someone planning to read only one book. The personal testimonies from her interviews are very compelling and touched my heart.

Allison Elise Cleveland
Executive Director, the Gender Center, Inc.

About the Author

Lori B. Girshick

Lori B. Girshick has dedicated her life to working for social justice and ending inequalities. A nationally known trainer in LGBT domestic and sexual violence and LGBT sensitivity, she is author of three books, Soledad Women: Wives of Prisoners Speak Out (1996), No Safe Haven: Stories of Women in Prison (Northeastern, 1999) and Woman-to-Woman Sexual Violence: Does She Call it Rape? (NUP, 2002). Currently she is a professor in Sociology at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler, Arizona.

Jaminson Green is an educator, policy consultant, and corporate diversity trainer specializing in transgender and transsexual issues. He serves on the boards of directors of the Transgender Law & Policy Institute and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. He is also a member of the advisory boards for the Institute for Intersex Children and the Law and the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Becoming a Visible Man (2004).

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