Sex In Transition

Honorable Mention, 2013 Ruth Benedict Book Prize presented by the Association for Queer Anthropology Honorable Mention, 2014 Distinguished Book Award presented by the Section on Sexualities of the American Sociological Association Winner of the 2013 Sylvia Rivera Award in Transgender Studies presented by the Center for Gay and Lesbian Studies Sex in Transition explores the lives of those who undermine the man/woman binary, exposing the gendered contradictions of apartheid and the transition to democracy in South Africa. In this context, gender liminality—a way to describe spaces between common conceptions of "man" and "woman"—is expressed by South Africans who identify as transgender, transsexual, transvestite, intersex, lesbian, gay, and/or eschew these categories altogether. This book is the first academic exploration of challenges to the man/woman binary on the African continent and brings together gender, queer, and postcolonial studies to question the stability of sex. It examines issues including why transsexuals' sex transitions were encouraged under apartheid and illegal during the political transition to democracy and how butch lesbians and drag queens in urban townships reshape race and gender. Sex in Transition challenges the dominance of theoretical frameworks based in the global North, drawing on fifteen years of research in South Africa to define the parameters of a new transnational transgender and sexuality studies.

Argues that South Africa’s apartheid system of racial segregation relied on an unexamined but interrelated system of sexed oppression that was at once both rigid and flexible.

"Chase Joynt and Mike Hoolboom here give each other the gift so many people only dream of: ample, unhurried space to unspool crucial stories of one’s life, and an attentive, impassioned, invested, intelligent receiver on the other side. The gift to the reader is both the example of their exchange, and the nuanced, idiosyncratic, finely rendered examination it offers of biopolitical experiences which, in many ways, define our times. I’m so glad they have each other, and that we have this." – Maggie Nelson "You Only Live Twice is an intelligent ode to enchantment, to the possibilities that arise in their 'second lives' when all past expectations have been foreclosed." – Chris Kraus "The writing is out of the park — strong and surprising, a relay race of brilliant twirling, tossing thoughts back and forth like balletic rugby bros. Joynt and Hoolboom’s dances of disclosure are so courageous and generative, gifts to us all." – John Greyson What if it's not true that you only live once? In this genre-transcending work of true fiction, trans writer and media artist Chase Joynt and HIV-positive movie artist Mike Hoolboom come together over the films of Chris Marker to exchange transition tales: confessional missives that map out the particularities of what they call "second lives": Chase's transition from female to male and Mike's near-death from AIDS in the 1990s. Chronicling reactions from friends and families, medical mechanics, and different versions of "coming out,' YOLT explores art, love, sex, death, and life in changed bodies. The unspoken promise was that in our second life we would become the question to every answer, jumping across borders until they finally dissolved. Man and woman. Queer and straight. Mike Hoolboom is an author and filmmaker based in Toronto. He has written four books, received more than thirty international film prizes, and enjoyed nine international retrospectives of his work. Chase Joynt is a Toronto-based moving-image artist and writer who has exhibited his work internationally. He recently received a Mellon Fellowship in Arts Practice and Scholarship at the University of Chicago.

Finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction "Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs." --The New York Times Book Review "A ball of light hurled into the dark undertow of migration and survival." --Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous A singular, beautifully written coming-of-age memoir of a Filipino boy with albinism whose story travels from an immigrant childhood to Harvard to a gender transition and illuminates the illusions of race, disability, and gender Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a "sun child" from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni's Room. Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.

"International sex researcher, neuroscientist, and frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Debra Soh [discusses what she sees as] gender myths in this ... examination of the many facets of gender identity"--

Based on leading empirical psychological research from around the world, this book offers valuable insights on women who sell sex. It synthesizes the extensive body of scholarly work on the topic of women selling sex from a psychological perspective in order to understand why women choose to do so. In turn, the book highlights a range of important sociocultural contexts surrounding the sale of sex that are major sources of stress, and examines how women cope with these circumstances. Illustrating the multi-faceted nature of selling sex, the book will contribute to debates on individual and societal responses to this major sociopolitical—and at the same time, deeply personal—issue. Including original case material and outlining future directions for researchers, it offers an informative and engaging resource for academics, researchers, students and professionals around the globe.

How Sex Changed is a fascinating social, cultural, and medical history of transsexuality in the United States. Joanne Meyerowitz tells a powerful human story about people who had a deep and unshakable desire to transform their bodily sex. In the last century when many challenged the social categories and hierarchies of race, class, and gender, transsexuals questioned biological sex itself, the category that seemed most fundamental and fixed of all. From early twentieth-century sex experiments in Europe, to the saga of Christine Jorgensen, whose sex-change surgery made headlines in 1952, to today’s growing transgender movement, Meyerowitz gives us the first serious history of transsexuality. She focuses on the stories of transsexual men and women themselves, as well as a large supporting cast of doctors, scientists, journalists, lawyers, judges, feminists, and gay liberationists, as they debated the big questions of medical ethics, nature versus nurture, self and society, and the scope of human rights. In this story of transsexuality, Meyerowitz shows how new definitions of sex circulated in popular culture, science, medicine, and the law, and she elucidates the tidal shifts in our social, moral, and medical beliefs over the twentieth century, away from sex as an evident biological certainty and toward an understanding of sex as something malleable and complex. How Sex Changed is an intimate history that illuminates the very changes that shape our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality today.

Imagine if, after fifteen years as a lesbian couple, your partner turned to you and said, "I think I'm really a man." What would you do? How would you respond? For Diane and Jacob (nŽe Suzy) Anderson-Minshall this isn't a hypothetical question. It's what really happened. Eight years later, the couple not only remains together, they still identify as queer, still work in LGBT media, and remain part of the LGBT community. How did their relationship survive a gender transition? The authors explore this question and delve into their relationship to reveal the trials and tribulations they have faced along the way. In doing so, they paint a portrait of love, not only to each other, but to the San Francisco Bay Area, LGBT publishing, and the queer community. Queerly Beloved is a love story that flies in the face of expectations and raises questions about the true nature of identity, sexuality, and love.