Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #179519 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-13
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The best thing about this aggressive, emotional memoir by a former lesbian, female-to-male transgender is that its author never elicits easy sentiment or empathy from the reader. This is, by intent and in delivery, a tough book. Born in 1957 in Germany, a part–Native American Army brat, Anita Valerio grew up to be a lesbian-feminist who, after seeing the boxing film Raging Bull at age 23, began to understand that she was really a man. Eleven years later, Valerio is injecting testosterone and well on his journey to manhood. Valerio writes directly and forcefully about his "primal" new male sexual desires, which feel like "an outburst of instinct," as opposed to life on estrogen, which felt like being submerged "in a sweet, dense fog." Valerio's maleness is often expressed in blunt, even offensive language, as at the end of the book, when he realizes, with irony but not sadness, that he has made a further advance into maleness when it becomes more difficult to communicate with women. Valerio's broad, dichotomized stands on politics and gender often feel like just another tough pose. Worse, they flatten out the memoir's emotional landscape. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Determined to convey the experience of "one of the most extravagant experiments of the twentieth century," Native American Latino Sephardic poet and performer Valerio details the physiological, psychological, and social transformations of female-to-male sex change in three "files." The first describes Valerio at the start of the transition. "Before Testosterone" looks back at the internal--external factors leading to then leather-and-spikes lesbian Valerio's decision for the life-altering change. "After Testosterone" assays the "construction" of maleness. Valerio's on-target perceptions reveal such all-important details as increased hair growth on legs and feet, enlargement of the pores, and increased energy. Valerio started testosterone injections on March 20, 1989, and learned to give himself the shots of thick, oily liquid while watching his femaleness recede with attendant joy and nostalgia. Eventually, he built his masculinity physically--the clitoris, a "neocock," enlarged sufficiently to achieve penetration with female partners--and, most important, psychically. A signal addition to gender and sociology collections. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Not just for the fringe
I'm a married, straight guy on the cusp of 30 and I bought this book when someone close to me decided to transgender.

First of all it is very readable. Max has a good voice and a lot of um... vocabulary to work with. Sometimes it's a little much, but only for short periods of time confined to the preface and individual passages.

I'm not intro writing multi-page reviews, but I wanted to share a couple of impressions that the book left on me. The first is that it reminded me how much I like being a guy. Despite the ocean of difference between the author and myself, I identified with and was engaged by his enthusiastic narrative of maturation into a man. I don't propose to suggest to those of us on the outside that transgendering isn't totally insane and bordering on self-mutilation, but I'm definitely in a better position to be sympathetic to those deciding to take such a bold step.

The second impression was more of an idea that it inspired; the idea that transexuals - particularly FTMs - could be extremely talented and valuable as family and relationship counselors. Imagine having a moderator who could perfectly identify with the emotional component of each side of a conflict? Short of that, just reading about the transexual experience gives great insight into what of our behavior stems from true human nature, and what is a product of societal gender roles. Brilliantly interesting stuff. Feminism is old, people! Our generation takes our equal worth for granted. It's time to once again embrace our differences. Sexual dimorphism is hot. But I digress...

Obviously this isn't a book for everyone, but as a guy who takes his reading seriously I would say that it's worthwhile and I'm grateful I picked it up.

Fascinating
I barely made it through the prologue of this book because of the writing style. The author is a poet and it really shows in that section. Unfortunately I'm not too keen on poetry and, while slogging through it, kept mumbling Mark Twain's Rule 14: Eschew Surplusage!

Nevertheless, this book is a fascinating read, and well worth pursuing to the end. Valerio throws amazing revelation after amazing revelation (ok, a little surplusage of my own) at you. I was surprised, for instance, that there are so many things about the effects of testosterone on men that I never knew or suspected.

Valerio does an excellent job sharing his experience, providing insight into the (to me) mysterious feeling that one has been born into a body that does not fit his sexual identity.

Our society would benefit from a greater understanding of LGBT issues, and this book is well-suited to that purpose. Read it and pass it on.

Best FTM information and experiences I have read.
Max Wolf Valerio has a terrific way of providing knowledge and insight into the world of a FTM. Great read. You can even jump from chapter to chapter out of sequence for the information you need and not get lost in this book. The Author has been in many documentaries as well, including the film "Gendernauts". If you want information about being Ftm this is the book for you. Also A great read for anyone that wants to see inside the wonderful world of an amazing transition. It doesn't get much better than this. Don't let this one get away. Get this book and "Becoming Alec" written by Darwin S. Ward together and you have the foundation of the best works on FTM available to date. You'll be glad you did.