Unbound

Book excerpt: Ben, Parker, Lucas, Nadia are four patients of Florida's Dr. Charles Garramonepreparing to receive surgery to masculinize their chests on the same day. In the following years, they, along with more than a hundred others across the country, opened up to the award-winning professor of gender and sexuality Arlene Stein about how they conceive of their identities and sexuality, how they decided to transition, how they were received by their families and communities, and the joys and challenges they continue to face after transitioning. Weaving together the history of the transgender movement and the personal journeys of these transgender individuals, Stein sheds light on how transgender men tell their stories, make sense of their lives, and build communities in the face of skepticism, confusion, ignorance, and, often, violence. Because despite any progress we've made as a culture in accepting alternative identities, Ben and the others Stein meets continue to live in a world that is dangerous to them. In this moving, raw, intimate book about the lives of transgender men, Stein reveals how transgender men as a group, largely invisible in previous decades, today exert a significant impact on business, medicine, culture, and have drastically reshaped how we as a nation conceive of gender, sex, and identity. In so doing, Stein has also created an essential resource on female to male transitioning- for parents, educators, friends, and those who question their identities and seek further information.