In 1967, after a twin baby boy suffered a botched circumcision, his family agreed to a radical treatment that would alter his gender. The case would become one of the most famous in modern medicine—and a total failure. As Nature Made Him tells the extraordinary story of David Reimer, who, when finally informed of his…
Alternately unsettling and affirming, devastating and delicious, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You, is a new collection of essays on gender and identity by S. Bear Bergman that is irrevocably honest and endlessly illuminating. With humour and grace, these essays deal with issues from women’s spaces to the old boys’ network, from gay male…
This pioneering anthology is the first of its kind, presenting raw, unadulterated testimonies of transsexual men’s experiences of sex reassignment surgery. The collection offers a comprehensive understanding of why transsexual men choose genital surgery and its trans-formative impact on their lives. Hung Jury has widespread appeal, catching the attention and interests of a wide and…
In three critically acclaimed novels, Akwaeke Emezi has introduced readers to a landscape marked by familial tensions, Igbo belief systems, and a boundless search for what it means to be free. Now, in this extraordinary memoir, the bestselling author of The Death of Vivek Oji reveals the harrowing yet resolute truths of their own life.…
Review of two books: Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spirituality. Edited by Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, and Sabine Lang. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Men as Women, Women as Men: Changing Gender in Native American Cultures. By Sabine Lang. Trans. John L. Vantine. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1998.
This article examines the emergence of a travesti political movement out of a work group of transgendered sex professionals run by the Grupo de Apoio à Provenção da AIDS/Rio Grande do Sul (Support Group for AIDS Prevention, or GAPA/RS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The author first discusses the history of GAPA/RS’ involvement with sex workers…
When “rights” go wrong. Does gay marriage support the right-wing goal of linking access to basic human rights like health care and economic security to an inherently conservative tradition? Will the ability of queers to fight in wars of imperialism help liberate and empower LGBT people around the world? Does hate-crime legislation affirm and strengthen…
Archive News Vol. 3 No. 1 (October, 1992) Bulletin of the Trans-Gender Archive A News and Information Bulletin for the International Trans-Gender Community
In Cherokee Asegi udanto refers to people who either fall outside of men’s and women’s roles or who mix men’s and women’s roles. Asegi, which translates as “strange,” is also used by some Cherokees as a term similar to “queer.” For author Qwo-Li Driskill, asegi provides a means by which to reread Cherokee history in…
A Two-Spirit Journey is Ma-Nee Chacaby’s extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby’s story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism. As a child,…