Transgender Experience

Filling a gap in literature and fulfilling the need for trans-focused work, TransNarratives is an interdisciplinary collection featuring narratives of transgender experiences, providing a sourcebook of a range of trans perspectives, writing styles, and trans methodological fields of applicability. The works included transcend disciplinary boundaries in the pursuit of academic knowledge and creativity, actively deconstructing binaries wherever they begin to appear, whether with regard to gender, race, ability, or sexuality, or to the binary divisions that can sometimes separate academic and creative production. Calling attention to transgender writers, this unique and timely text showcases a wide variety of material, including scholarship from multi- and interdisciplinary transgender perspectives, poetry and fiction that foregrounds trans experience, and first-person transgender narratives. The essays, poems, and stories cover a range of topics relevant to transgender, gender nonconforming, and nonbinary experiences, across time, geographic location, and cultures. An important addition to the field, this groundbreaking text will serve as an essential collection of works for students and researchers in transgender studies, queer studies, and gender studies. FEATURES - Provides accessible, thematically wide-ranging, and stylistically diverse writings, including scholarship from multi- and interdisciplinary transgender perspectives - Includes multi-generational perspectives and non-able-bodied subjectivities - Uniquely formatted to support a dialogue between creative and scholarly work

A timely and thought-provoking memoir about the trans experience. 'Rees provides us with their deep insights into contemporary trans and gender diverse history as it's being made . . . All About Yves is the book I wish I'd been able to give my mother when I was transitioning.' Sam Elkin, Transgender Victoria Board Member Was I always trans, part boy beneath my skin, or was it that I landed in a place where 'girl' was a container so small it could break your bones? I learn that a ready smile and sympathetic ear are the only props required to impersonate a woman. The performance becomes so familiar I almost forget that it's staged. What happens when, aged 30, you understand you're transgender? This was the question that confronted Yves Rees, a historian whose life was upended by gender transition in 2018. Then known as a woman called Anne, Yves was forced to grapple with the sudden knowledge that they were not, in fact, female at all. But when you've lived a lie for so long, how do you discover who you really are? And how do you re-learn to live in the world as a different gender? All About Yves tells their moving journey of re-becoming, at the same time laying bare the messiness of bodies, gender and identity. It shares the challenges and joys of being transgender in Australia today, and reveals how trans experiences like Yves' can teach all of us about what it means to be human. 'A book of great heart and gentle intelligence, and one that will mean a great deal to many people.' Fiona Wright, author of The World Was Whole

This collection by trans and non-trans academics and artists from the United States, the UK, and continental Europe, examines how transgenderism can be conceptualized in a literary, biographical, and autobiographical framework, with emphasis on place, ethnicity and visibility. The volume covers the 1950s to the present day and examines autobiographical accounts and films featuring gender transition. Chapters focus on various stages of transitioning. Interviews with trans people are also provided.

A philosophical examination of gender through the scope of phenomenology. Just what is gender, and what can be expected of it when dealing with identity, justice, and equality? Ephraim Das Janssen uses a phenomenological approach to challenge and dismantle the way gender is currently understood. Janssen questions ideas that have formerly been taken for granted, as individuals did during the Civil Rights movement, the women’s movement, and the LGBT rights movement. In so doing he recasts the moral debate about gender and grounds his analysis in observable aspects such as clothing and social roles and how these can imply transgression and questioning. Janssen shakes the very core of gender through a deep engagement with Being and the structures that confine our contemporary notions. “Original in its reach and ambitious in scope, this book is poised to make an important contribution to Heidegger studies, to phenomenologies of the body, and to transgender studies.” —Gayle Salamon, author of Assuming a Body

This Briefs is the first national study on female-to-male (FtM) transgender people’s experiences in Australia. It describes an extensive study that fills the current gap in Australian research on the specific experiences and beliefs about transition for contemporary Australian FtM transgender people. Following an overview of current literature on the various aspects of and approaches to transgender issues, this briefs describes in detail the design, participants and findings of the study. The Briefs offers useful statistics and stories related to participants' identities, education, health, sexual and social lives. It ends with recommendations to all those working in the various offices and institutions that FtM transgender people encounter in their everyday life, and represents and invaluable resource for researchers, service providers and gender diverse communities alike.

At a time when lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals--often referred to under the umbrella acronym LGBT--are becoming more visible in society and more socially acknowledged, clinicians and researchers are faced with incomplete information about their health status. While LGBT populations often are combined as a single entity for research and advocacy purposes, each is a distinct population group with its own specific health needs. Furthermore, the experiences of LGBT individuals are not uniform and are shaped by factors of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, geographical location, and age, any of which can have an effect on health-related concerns and needs. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People assesses the state of science on the health status of LGBT populations, identifies research gaps and opportunities, and outlines a research agenda for the National Institute of Health. The report examines the health status of these populations in three life stages: childhood and adolescence, early/middle adulthood, and later adulthood. At each life stage, the committee studied mental health, physical health, risks and protective factors, health services, and contextual influences. To advance understanding of the health needs of all LGBT individuals, the report finds that researchers need more data about the demographics of these populations, improved methods for collecting and analyzing data, and an increased participation of sexual and gender minorities in research. The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People is a valuable resource for policymakers, federal agencies including the National Institute of Health (NIH), LGBT advocacy groups, clinicians, and service providers.

Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2017 For fans of Donna Tartt and Megan Abbott, a novel about a woman whose family and identity are threatened by the secrets of her past, from the New York Times bestselling author of She's Not There On a warm August night in 1980, six college students sneak into the dilapidated ruins of Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, looking for a thrill. With a pianist, a painter and a teacher among them, the friends are full of potential. But it’s not long before they realize they are locked in—and not alone. When the friends get lost and separated, the terrifying night ends in tragedy, and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences reverberate through the survivors’ lives. As they go their separate ways, trying to move on, it becomes clear that their dark night in the prison has changed them all. Decades later, new evidence is found, and the dogged detective investigating the cold case charges one of them—celebrity chef Jon Casey— with murder. Only Casey’s old friend Judith Carrigan can testify to his innocence. But Judith is protecting long-held secrets of her own – secrets that, if brought to light, could destroy her career as a travel writer and tear her away from her fireman husband and teenage son. If she chooses to help Casey, she risks losing the life she has fought to build and the woman she has struggled to become. In any life that contains a “before” and an “after,” how is it possible to live one life, not two? Weaving deftly between 1980 and the present day, and told in an unforgettable voice, Long Black Veil is an intensely atmospheric thriller that explores the meaning of identity, loyalty, and love. Readers will hail this as Boylan’s triumphant return to fiction.

Setting out advice, research and personal reflections to inform professionals' daily practice and overall understanding of the lives and experiences of autistic transgender and non-binary people, this edited volume is an invaluable resource for anyone who seeks to engage more with autistic transgender, non-binary or gender-variant people. Aiming to contextualise the overlap of autism and gender variance, this book features chapters by leading authorities such as Wenn Lawson, Damian Milton, Isabelle Hénault, Reubs Walsh, Lydia X. Z. Brown, and Shain Neumeier as well as other contributors from around the world. The collection is structured in three sections; the first provides interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches on autism and gender as well as the experiences of transgender and non-binary autistic people; the second features professionals discussing their work, the challenges they face and the solutions they find helpful; and the final section presents thoughts and perspectives from trans and non-binary autistic people on various aspects of their experiences, focusing on information that professionals will need to consider and discuss with the people they support. Combining rich and nuanced accounts of the lives of autistic trans people, practical guidance and information as well as the latest academic research about autistic transgender and non-binary individuals, this unique collection is essential reading for any professional wanting to develop their daily practice.