GenderQueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary

Nestle, Joan (editor), Riki Wilkins (editor), Clare Howard (editor). "GenderQueer: Voices from Beyond the Sexual Binary", Alyson, 2002. Not Here Nor There Amos Lassen "GenderQueer" is an anthology that looks at the gray area between genders. We learn here that gender is not a self-evident term and "genderqueers" are not always what they appear. The book is made up of 30 first person testimonies of those who are "genderqueer". The issue of gender identity has been a galvanizing force in the GLBT community of late and the questions go far beyond sexual identification as determined by biology. Three experts on gender, Nestle, Wilkins and Howard take us into that gray area and help us understand the possibilities of gender that have no limits. This is not a book to validate predetermined feelings about gender--it is an honest and deep look at gender with disturbing opinions and coarse language. The book goes beyond the usual discussion of the transgendered. The editors look at all kinds of people who are outside what is regarded as gender norms and show how complicated the issue is. Here is a deconstruction of gender and it gives a voice to those who live between male and female. The book looks at not only those who are transgendered nut also at the intersexed and transsexuals. All aspects of gender are touched upon and the book gives the GLBT community another dimension. The book is interesting--in fact, it is compelling and will probably change your mind about the way you look at gender. We are forced to muddle through our preconceived ideas about gender and sex and identity. It is a revelatory study that needs to be read.

Fascinating critters, slugs. "True" hermaphrodites, each possess female and male reproductive organs. Although slugs can, and will, fertilize themselves, they prefer mating. Both mates lay eggs. Often in the process, "apophallation" occurs - that is, in order to disengage their sperm-producing organs, both slugs must undergo "castration." Starting out hermaphroditic, slugs default "female." Since slugs mate only once, it's a tidy arrangement. Baby slugs hatch independently and fend for themselves. Communists. My daughter and I raised a clutch of eggs once. 55 of the little rice-sized goobers turned into slithering 6-inch mollusks. Big appetite for cucumbers and mushrooms. We took 'em to her kindergarten show 'n tell, put them all out on a big, wet plate, their eyeball stalks a-quivering. "EEEwwww!" groaned the gals. All the boys wigged, eyes-popping, challenged, upstaged. My little girl, ostensibly sugar and spice, was the class rebel hero. Now she's raising 9 rats. The neighborhood kids are impressed. With a high-testosterone mom and a superfem dad, her parents, a gender-variant unity of opposites, often joke that we live the Munsters' life, two outcasts who produced, magically, a beautiful and socially normative Marilyn. Time (and puberty) will tell, however. I like to think normative will be an option by then; goth, hippie, punk, queer - imagine there's no genders, it's easy if you try. Gender was bewildering to me "when I was a boy" - I thought I was in with the hopscotch girls 'til someone's older sister poured a cream soda on my head and told me to go - but soon I discovered Keith Richards' outfit on the cover of Satanic Majesties Request. It's no coincidence 1967 was the year of paisley, beads, long hair and flower power; what defied the draft better than fem? And, all these years later - consider the New York Dolls' reunion - rock and trans continue to crossfertilize, positively. "Are you a man or a woman?" "I'm Mick Jagger!" Back to the garden. After reading the dense, academic, postmodern Transgender Studies Reader (Stryker, Whittle), GenderQueer was a shock of pure pleasure! Interesting ideologies, told personably, credibly, even forcefully through street-smart prose. Most essays are very short, and assume the readership has been around the block. Mercifully free of superstar surgery stories, GenderQueer troubles all TG hierarchies and identity politics. Men-horny lesbians and T-girls refusing to pass, and plenty inexplicable more: "It's a whole different generation" ["Disorderly Fashion"]. Smash. A combination of fairytales ("Loving Outside Simple Lines"), tearjerkers ("Passing Realities," "Preadolescent Drag King"), horrorstories ("The A Train"), ravers ("World's Youngest"), mindbenders ("Wanting Men"), clarion calls ("Do It On The Dotted Line," "Transie," "Do I Dare?") and supertight essays by editor Riki Wilchins, GenderQueer is, to date, the latest word in the expanding, increasing visible TG universe. Absolutely

this book holds a great collection of people living outside the gender binary. few fall into the trap of political soapboxing and instead tell honest, beautiful stories. i'd recomend this over "from the inside out" by morty diamond if your looking for a well written and engaging book of writing by gender queers.

Saw it on the shelf at a local bookstore, started reading, and took it home. The individual pieces range from good, to stunning ("Packing a Rod" by Allen James and "The Gender Cops Work Overtime" by Gina Reiss are immediate standouts, both good enough to demand being read aloud). The authors address behavior, family relations, social relations, sex-reassignment surgery (whether or not to have it), the bi-gender system, and other topics."Genderqueer" is a "pull it off the shelf for guests" book - I don't know any other way of putting it. As a transgendered person, I have a number of books on the topic, including Riki Wilchins' excellent "Read My Lips." However this is the one that I find myself repeatedly grabbing for non-transgendered friends and family to highlight ideas and create awareness of the range of gender expression and identity issues. It is also a book that I have to work hard to keep it coming back to me - it has a tendency to go home with guests.Be forewarned, though - this is not a book for the easily offended, be you straight, gay, queer, trans- or not. If you need your own feelings and ideas confirmed and validated, better to read something else. A number of the authors are brutal in their honesty, coarse in their language, and express disturbing opinions. For me, though, "Genderqueer" was enlightening, stimulating, often hilarious, and occasionally infuriating.