Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender

Rating:
Summary: HIstorically insightful: the invention of gender
Review: This historically insightful work should be read by those who are interested in a more historicized, grounded approach to transsexuality than currently circulates in many post-modern critical thinkers' works. Hausman demonstrates the medical construction of gender in the last half century. That this book is ultimately hateful towards transsexuals--despite the protested intentions of the author--should serve as a reminder for all non-transgendered authors writing about trans folk. However, the quality of the research in this book should not be ignored.

Rating:
Summary: No Book is Completely Useless but Some Come Close
Review: This is one of the first books I read on Transsexualism and, fortunately, I did find other books which were far more useful.

It does provide a good historical narrative and bibliography of what early TS story and theory were. But it's basically a treatise that fails in its goal, unless its goal is very anti-trans.

Rating:
Summary: A Failed Attempt to Explain Transsexualisum
Review: When I first picked up "Changing Sex" I was looking forward to scholarly read on the interaction between transsexualism and intersexuality. I was astounded that author decided that all history of these conditions before 20th Century was irrelevant and not reviewed. With no such history, she creates a beautifully crafted case that that condition transsexualism is a result of the 20th Century technology used to treat intersexed conditions. Her conclusion is people want sex change because they can get one. Therefor, she concludes that sex change surgery for transsexuals is inappropriate.

The history of transsexualism dates to antiquity and recurrences in written history in all cultures. It is not limited to the 20th Century. It is does not require the existence of an enabling technology. The desire to change sex exist even when there is no hope of a sex change procedure.

If you enjoy reading a well crafted book with closed, circular logic with a conclusion that leads nowhere, this is the book for you.