Self-Organizing Men: Conscious Masculinities in Time and Space
"...mold-breaking..." --Charlie Anders, author of Choir Boy"I loved this anthology. I found the overall quality of Self-Organizing Men to be superior." --Max Valerio, author of The Testosterone FilesJay Sennett's new anthology, Self-Organizing Men, represents an  ambitious effort to grapple with issues of social privilege, cultural  assumptions, and public presentation, versus personal subjectivity among  trans-masculine individuals and transgender communities. Like most anthologies that have documented both emerging theory and current  practices, Self-Organizing Men alternately falters and triumphs. The  writing moves unevenly, from essay to poetry to a mix and a mutual  interview. Art is dappled throughout: pictures, small sculptures, drawings,  cartoons. Some pieces reinforce gender norms based in male privilege, by  focusing on female-to-male transsexuals' relationships to their bodies in  terms of "lack," or by describing transsexual and transgendered men's  struggles for acceptance as struggles for recognition as "real" men rather  than for fully realized and respected selfhood. The best pieces, including essays by Aren Azura and Bobby Noble, and poems  by hip-hop statesman Tim'm West and Vermont's own Eli Clare, contribute to  the growing discourse of transfeminism, not merely seeking ethical models  of manhood, but challenging the gender-binary scaffolding of patriarchy,  and analyzing gender in relation to race, class, and capitalism.  Tim'm West's poem closes the collection, a contribution of introspection  and self-declaration from a place many FTMs choose to recover from the pain  and aftermath of transition. West offers us a history of sorts, and reminds  us that all gay men - not just transsexual gay men - struggle with  acceptance and self and what masculinity can mean to a person who doesn't  fit the dominant image of a man. Clare offers a poem about testosterone and  butchness and queerness. How does one make the decision to stop living as a lesbian and live as a  gay man? How does one make any decision to come out? Clare does so with  eloquence; articulating the dissonance that many transmen feel about the  choices that are presented to them at the beginning of their medical  transitions. Noble, who discusses female-to-male transition as a racialized experience  with very different ramifications of power and status for transmen of  color, offers a new theoretical paradigm, which encapsulates the strengths  of Self-Organizing Men: trans in-coherence, a positive, productive  disharmony, a collective state of paradox and flux. If you are FTM identified or if you are not, this is a highly valuable  collection of stories from members of a community that never fully  coalesced. From members of a community that may always be in some kind of  transition, whether we see it or not. --Out in the Mountains, December 12, 2006