Product Description

Part coming-of-age story, part mind-altering manifesto on gender and sexuality, coming directly to you from the life experiences of a transsexual woman, Gender Outlaw breaks all the rules and leaves the reader forever changed.26 black-and-white illustrations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28691 in Books
• Published on: 1995-04-25
• Released on: 1995-04-25
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Library Journal
Bornstein considers herself a gender outlaw because she breaks the laws of nature. A former heterosexual male and now a lesbian woman, Bay Area Reporter writer, and actor who has appeared on talk shows, she has completed the transsexual process, including surgery. As she considers her workplace the theater, about a third of this autobiographical work is devoted to queer theater, including her play, Hidden: A Gender. The black-and-white photos were not seen but are apparently a significant part of this informative and humorous book.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A thoughtful challenge to gender ideology that continually asks difficult questions about identity, orientation, and desire. Bornstein cleverly incorporates cultural criticism, dramatic writing, and autobiography to make her point that gender (which she distinguishes from sex) is a cultural rather than a natural phenomenon. The chapters range from ``fashion tips'' on her writing style to dialogue between herself and another about the ``nuts and bolts'' of the surgical process of a gender change (which she has undergone). Confronting transgenderism and transgendered people is not easy for many individuals, but Bornstein does it in a way that sparks debate without putting her audience on the defensive. She suggests that ``the culture may not simply be creating roles for naturally-gendered people, the culture may in fact be creating the gendered people.'' Her discussion of the ``parts'' of gender is based on respected sources and includes analyses of gender assignment, identity, and roles. Things get mixed up, according to Bornstein, because ``sexual orientation/preference is based in this culture solely on the gender of one's partner of choice,'' in effect confusing orientation and preference. Seeing queer theater as a place in which gender ambiguity and fluidity can and should be explored, she includes in the book her play, Hidden: A Gender. Bornstein uses the term ``gender defenders'' to describe those who work hard to maintain the current rigid system of gender, and she claims that her ``people'' (i.e., the transgendered) are just beginning to challenge the system and to demand acceptance and understanding. Bornstein's witty style, personal approach, and frankness open doors to questioning gender assumptions and boundaries. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
Gender Outlaw is an eye-opening book, combining the emotional force of a coming-of-age story with a savvy cultural critique. -- Out
[Kate Borstein] offers us an abundance of questions--thoughtful, disarming, revelatory questions. Gender Outlaw is an invitation to dialogue, and it's a conversation well worth having. -- Ms.
Gender Outlaw is a radical document. . . -- The Nation
a pastiche of oddments--dreams and memories, influences and quotations, fresh ideas and numerous received wisdoms. . . -- Richard McCann, author of Ghost Letters
In an age of often hostilely expressed gender politics, Ms. Bornstein gently leads audiences through her own psychic labyrinth without antagonism. She is sweet, sincere, lucid and sometimes as corny as Kansas in August. She really should have her own television show. -- New York Times
...it is a pastiche of oddments--dreams and memories, influences and quotations, fresh ideas and numerous received wisdoms.. -- The Nation
To help us rise above the Geraldo mentality of genital fixation, Bornstein has avoided writing a traditional, tell-all autobiography. Instead, her book is a stream-of consciousness essay designed to make us think for ourselves. -- The Boston Phoenix
Bornstein's revolutionary ideas about gender and sexuality are authentic precisely because they come from one who's been there. . .By the time readers finish Gender Outlaw, they may indeed wonder why we live in a world with only two genders, let alone why we place so much importance one which one someone happens to be. -- San Francisco Bay Guardian

Customer Reviews

Food for Thought
You know this is not a subject that I know a whole lot about...though I do profess some interest and curiosity about the reasons why people choose gender reassignment surgery. Mostly I was interested in exploring the why's and if's about gender and the myriad of choices and ways of being that people encounter and deal with or embrace in their lives. I wasn't sure what to expect...and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this book, but I've finished reading it and it's time to write down my thoughts about it. First and foremost, this is a book that doesn't just rehash the same debates one sees nearly everywhere these days about how little Tommy can play with dolls and Sally can play with cars or how Molly can be a doctor and Biff can be a nurse...this goes beyond what's considered politically correct or "allowable" excursions outside the comfort zone of the tribe. In Gender Outlaw Borenstein really tries to examine why we need gender at all and how gender is really determined in today's societies, she looks both backward and forward with regards to this issue in a way that is both informative and entertaining. Gender Outlaw is a strange blend of biography and gender theory written with a theatrical flair. The author is really not looking to redefine gender so much as she is looking to toss it out altogether, in favor of a gender model that is more dynamic and fluid. Now for what I didn't like about the book...well, I do understand that the author is an artist and performer at heart, but I read because I LIKE to read and while I like most of what I read to be entertaining and informative, I DON'T like to have to struggle to read it because the author thought it would be interesting and creative to create columns and make the reader have to read from side to side skipping about on the page. There is a serious lack of continuity in the format of the text that makes it a bear to read. Everything does not have to be performance; everything does not have to be art. Sometimes a book should just be a book. Outside of that, I enjoyed reading Gender Outlaw, I think the author wanted to reach the mainstream and this book is certainly readable and accessible to the general public...now if we could just get them to read it and open their minds to the ideas presented. Borenstein certainly got there with me, as I had no quarrel with the gender I've been assigned, but it certainly gave me lots of food for thought and I'll probably never think of gender the same way again. I give it a 4 stars (3.5 really, but since Amazon doesn't allow ½ stars, I'll settle for 4, round up instead of down).

Gender Outlaw
I so wish I had read this book at 30 years of age. I so wish everyone would read this book.
Kate Bornstein is right. There simply is no gender. Anima, animus.
Sometimes we do need to have our ideas challenged. I am happy to have had my old ideas changed by this book. It seems to have given me answers for so many vague questions I had in my mind.
Valuable book for heterosexual ppl and homosexual ppl. Valuable book for ppl.

'Trotskyist' TS
Gender Outlaw is considered a classic and a step forward. And it is, annoyingly.

A lot of her fearless theory, proto-GenderQueer, I believe is totally right on - and certainly harmonizes with my ideal of Permanent Transition. Yet Bornstein, with her conventional SRS, might not the most compelling proponent of smashing the binary chains. Like Trotsky, Bornstein has a populist (often gimmicky) style in which to place her epistemology and, like Trotsky, Bornstein is a tireless self-publicist: Just how many times does the reader need to know she appeared on the Geraldo Show?

Kinda the right book, by the wrong author.