Transmen and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders and Sexualities [Paperback]

Cromwell provides an interesting ethnography of female men from a FTM perspective in a time when the transgender community is calling for scholarship about transpeople by transcholars. He gives an insider's perspective of a fairly homogenous type of group of transmen that capably provides a few new glimpses into female men's stories.

It's a much understudied population, no matter which discipline is framing the work. Also interesting to consider is how US anthropology is more well versed in gender studies of other cultures, so this ethnography provides stories from home that resist being ethnocentric. Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of the text is that it is not theoretically framed by the toxic God-like oppression of the psycho-medicalizing discourse that makes everyday transgender experiences fit into a disease model of gender identity disorder, body dysphoria, social deviancy, and personal deficiency.

I've cited this work in almost every paper I've written on gender and transgender topics; I finally just had to buy my own copy rather than constantly checking it out from the library and paying so much in late fees!

Jason Cromwell
Transmen and FTMs:
Identities, Bodies, Genders, and Sexualities

(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999) 201 pages
(ISBN: 0-252-02439-7; hardcover)
(ISBN: 0-252-06825-4; paperback)
(Library of Congress call number: HQ77.9.C76 1999)

This book describes the lives and problems
of women who have decided to live as men.
It is based on the author's own experience
and her extensive contacts with a few hundred
other FTM (female-to-male) transsexuals
--in FTM support groups beginning in 1983,
informal surveys, formal surveys, conferences for FTMs,
e-mail communications, phone conversations, etc.
The most concentrated work took place
in San Francisco in 1995-1998.

This book was originally a PhD thesis,
so it contains comprehensive research into the history
of women who decided to pass as men for at least parts of their lives.
However, most of these women would not be considered transsexuals
by any of our modern conceptions.

Cromwell strongly advocates the right to change sex
in whatever degree suits the individual.
And this book will be useful mainly to
other women who are thinking about living as men.
It is more advocacy and support than science.
In fact, Cromwell sees the clinicians who control the sex-change gate
mostly as opponents and oppressors of her subjects.
She affirms again and again that 'pathology', 'disease', & 'disorder'
are not the correct approach to transsexualism.
But she does not offer any alternative scientific explanations.

However, some scientific professionals are not hostile
toward people with variations of sex and/or gender.
It would be good if authors such as Cromwell
would make this distinction
--and tell us which scientific theories they like best,
rather than rejecting all scientific approaches
and affirming whatever mythologies the variant individuals
embrace at any given time and place.

Usually these born-females now living as men
made this decision long before they started
any exploration of the scientific literature.
Thus, they often had firmly-established mythologies
of their own making, which explained (to their own satisfaction)
why they needed to live as men.
And often they cling to their beliefs as if they were religious dogmas.

In contrast to earlier generations of transsexuals,
most of the subjects of this book did not want to fade into
the general population as ordinary, everyday, unremarkable men.
Most had only a few surgeries to become more like men,
such as having their breasts removed.
They often enjoyed their freedom to be either sex
as suited the situation or that particular phase of their lives.
For example, some were known as men on the job
but as butch lesbians in their social relationships.
Others wanted to be known in public as transsexuals
or some form of 'transgender' individuals.
And some even wished to be created intersexual individuals,
people who were born as normal biological females
but who later decided to modify their bodies
to some degree in the male direction.

Their self-concepts were largely shaped
within the FTM community of their time and place
--late 1990s San Francisco.
Ten or twenty years later,
they might have different explanations of who they are
and new names and labels for themselves.

Transmen and FTMs definitely arises from
the grass-roots experience of hundreds of born-women
who for a variety of reasons decided
somewhere along the line they wanted to live as men.
This book is recommended both for people struggling
with such questions of sexual identity
and for professionals who are called upon to help them.
This book does not settle any questions of transsexualism,
but it is definitely an important part
of the literature about born-women who want to live as men.

If you would like to discover other books on the same theme,
search the Internet for "BOOKS ON TRANSSEXUALISM".