Transgender Voices ─ Beyond Women and Men

In this extraordinary book, based on 150 in-depth interviews, Lori B. Girshick, a sociologist and social justice activist, brings together the voices of sex- and gender-diverse people who speak with absolute candor about their lives. Girshick presents transpeople speaking in their own voices about identity, coming out, passing, sexual orientation, relationship negotiations and the dynamics of attraction, homophobia (including internalized fears), and bullying. She exposes the guilt and the shame that "gender police" use in their attempts to exert control and points out the many ways transpeople are discriminated against in daily life, from filling out identification documents to gender-segregated bathrooms.

By showing us a variety of descriptions of diverse real lives and providing a thorough exploration of the embodied experiences of gender variant people, Girshick demonstrates that there is nothing inherently binary about gender, and that the way each of us experiences our own gender is, in fact, normal and natural.

LORI B. GIRSHICK has dedicated her life to working for social justice and ending inequalities. A nationally known trainer in LGBT domestic and sexual violence and LGBT sensitivity, she is author of three books, Soledad Women: Wives of Prisoners Speak Out (1996), No Safe Haven: Stories of Women in Prison (Northeastern, 1999) and Woman-to-Woman Sexual Violence: Does She Callit Rape? (NUP, 2002). Currently she is a professor in Sociology at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler, Arizona. JAMISON GREEN is an educator, policy consultant, and corporate diversity trainer specializing in transgender and transsexual issues. He serves on the boards of directors of the Transgender Law & Policy Institute and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. He is also a member of the advisory boards for the Institute for Intersex Children and the Law and the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality at San Francisco State University. He is the author of Becoming a Visible Man (2004).