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Rating: 
Summary: GETTING REAL
Review: I was educated, inspired and deeply moved by this book, which is not only a remarkable chronicle of Jamison Green's life, but a compelling argument for individual human rights. The specific information about the process of transition from a female to a male body is fascinating, and bound to be helpful to anyone considering FTM surgery. But from my perspective ( 55-year-old married heterosexual female), the book speaks to a much wider audience. Too many people in today's world let fear make our decisions for us, and many opportunities for authenticity are missed as a result. This book is a clarion call for anyone who dreams of naming and claiming her true self. I recommend it without reservation.
Rating:
Summary: GETTING REAL
Review: I was educated, inspired and deeply moved by this book, which is not only a remarkable chronicle of Jamison Green's life, but a compelling argument for individual human rights. The specific information about the process of transition from a female to a male body is fascinating, and bound to be helpful to anyone considering FTM surgery. But from my perspective ( 55-year-old married heterosexual female), the book speaks to a much wider audience. Too many people in today's world let fear make our decisions for us, and many opportunities for authenticity are missed as a result. This book is a clarion call for anyone who dreams of naming and claiming her true self. I recommend it without reservation.
Rating:
Summary: Clinical Psychologist
Review: I will highly recommend this book to my female to male transgendered psychotherapy clients and to those interested in learning about this phenomenon. It is an excellent blend of autobiographical, social and political topics. Mr. Green does a great job of taking the reader through his personal struggles with gender, sexual and social identification in an empowering and positive manner, an approach which I have found lacking in many other autobiographies of transgendered individuals. He triumphs over his difficulties of loss of contact with one of his children, shunning by his mother and rapid changes in his body as he attempts to match the outside with the inside of his identity, but allows the reader to know that these victories were not easy. He also provides the female socialized person in a newly male body with an impressive role model for how to learn about male socialization, which I also have not encountered in most works on this subject. Mr. Green does not profess to be an academician, but he obviously has done background reading on this subject, spanning at least 25 years and attempts to use his life stories to support and negate a great deal of medical and mental health literature on the subject of transgenderism and transsexualism. As an individual who started out believing that the journey from female to male bodied would be solely his personal journey, he reminds us of how one person, who becomes inspired to help others, can make such a large difference, clearly beyond what he would have ever anticipated. Max E. Fuhrmann, Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist
Rating:
Summary: A comprehensive look at the matter...
Review: This is a wonderful book to read if you are interested in any dimension at all of the transgendered experience. It is, first, a well-written story of a life spent becoming what Jamison truly was, male. But it also is the story of all of that life, from childhood, through adolescence, adulthood, parenthood, and self-hood. But beside being a very readable memoir, it fully addresses all the other components of being transgendered. It is, secondly, a comprehensive review of all the physical dimensions of changing gender as well as addressing all the administrative complications. For example, changing your birth certificate, so you can change your drivers license, so if you get pulled over by the police, they don't read gender=female when you have a beard and moustache. All the complications you would never think about if you haven't been there. Then thirdly, there is the politics of transgender. As with any aspect of life, there's the battle for who represents you. Who speaks for you. And Jamison has done a wonderful job of speaking for FTM persons and for allowing the readers to understand the complexities of that arena. It is a well-designed book (Vanderbilt University Press), well-edited with an index and a comprehensive bibliography. I would recommend this book to anyone with any curiosity about life whatsoever.
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