Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs
It's a story that extends back far into human history: a boy or girl feels uncomfortable in his or her own gender-"trapped" in the body of the wrong sex-and life becomes an attempt to reconcile the dichotomy. But it's only in the last 75 years or so that, with the help of medical technologies, a third act has been possible for this narrative, one in which the story's hero has the opportunity to bridge the schism by actually changing his or her physical gender. And, as the stories in this remarkable anthology show, it's in this third act that the true difficulties begin. In his introduction, editor Ames argues that the shared narrative that runs through this anthology parallels that of the classic "bildungsroman," and it's true that the book is really a collection of coming-of-age stories. But it's the unique perspective of the storytellers, as well as Ames's editorial decisions that make these 15 memoirs (all excerpts) particularly engaging. The book covers such surprising subjects as a Bond girl, a Gulf War vet turned beauty queen and an amateur tennis champion while offering such prurient details as the gory particulars of the operations themselves and the first post-op sexual encounters. But it's the excerpts' most human moments-attempts to explain the transformation to young (and even grown) children, reactions of family, friends and strangers-as well as otherwise mundane situations (i.e., getting fitted for one's first suit as a man) that truly make the book a worthwhile cover-to-cover read. Being an anthology, the book is naturally uneven in sections, occasionally dull or repetitive but, in general, Ames makes great choices in his excerpts, and his introduction is good enough that one wishes he had inserted his own voice in the volume just a bit more.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.