Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity Hardcover – Deckle Edge, June 5, 2018

tl;dr: This book is a dated analysis. Upon reading, I had to double-check check the publication to make sure this wasn't published in the 1960s (it was published in 2018). As another user mentioned, this book is “Great stories, terrible analysis.” I rated it lower than that user, because it is supposed to be an introduction to a wider audience without knowledge on trans people supposedly written by an expert on this topic (a sociologist of gender at Rutgers University is really as high as it gets when talking about gender). However, it reads like a novice who just started talking to trans people as she was writing the book (and I think this is the case) who is seemingly more fascinated with the narratives of trans exclusionary lesbian feminists (TERFs) ABOUT trans men rather than trans men themselves. The author is too caught up by her outdated assumptions about trans people, and it shows. My longer review is the following:As the aforementioned user mentioned, this book is a simplistic conflation of top surgery among trans men as reinforcing gendered norms and beauty standards. That is essentially the main argument of the book, and the aspect of the “remaking of identity” that is the subtitle of this work. This is likely due to the methodological issues I mention later in this review, but also an overgeneralization of (lesbian) feminism.She interprets feminism as counter to the experiences of trans men, since their “body modifications” reinforce gendered norms. It’s an overly simplistic narrative (that she sometimes openly criticizes before returning to this interpretation) that you would expect from a TERF article on medium, not a 300-page book written by a sociologist of gender. Stein later writes, “Feminism enabled me to cast off makeup, dresses, and deferential behavior, freeing me from the compulsion to perform extraordinary feats of femininity. Why, I wondered when I set off to write this book, couldn’t others make the same choices?” (p. 271). On the same page, she poses the hypothetical, “What gender would I choose, … And how does one make time for the mundane tasks of everyday life, like flossing one’s teeth or raising children?” These rhetorical questions illustrate the intense gulf that Stein has with her study participants because it seems to claim that trans people cannot do mundane tasks because we are internally wrestling with our gender identity. For most of us, it is not the case—both before and after coming out, the issue primarily lies with social stigma and external perceptions of our gender, i.e., how other people will treat us on the basis of our presumed gender. It’s a rather bombastic hypothetical question that assumes that trans people have a hard time flossing our teeth, and it’s a rhetoric of choice around gender that a gender sociologist should know better—one does not “choose” a gender, as she herself contradictorily claims but never really seems to fully articulate or believe throughout the book.The author also spends a significant amount of time interspersing the narratives from the trans men with 1960s LGBT history, juxtaposing (butch) lesbians with “transsexuals” and transsexual men and women. It is a simplistic dichotomy that does a good job of painting (butch) lesbians as trans exclusionary. While trans-exclusionary ideology is important to a few butch lesbians, many queer theorists and trans feminists cite a variety of lesbian feminists in their work (and many queer theorists are lesbian feminists)—Judith Butler, Judith Halberstam, Gayle Rubin, Leslie Feinberg, and so on. In fact, these are probably the LEADING lesbian feminists who also talk extensively about trans inclusion, so this is another argument I fail to grasp from Stein.Stein is overly sympathetic to trans exclusionary radical feminists, and it bleeds in throughout this work as she interlaces these narratives of actual trans men with BELIEFS about trans men from SOME lesbian feminists. This is somewhat surprising since Stein has also written a book on butch lesbians, so I question the validity of that book too. I wonder if Stein just places herself in this category and that’s why she has such ease making these broad generalizations.Similarly, pages 190-197 are specifically devoted to the transphobic lesbians that were in close proximity to Stein in the 1960s and 1970s. At the conclusion of this flashback is a quote from her “friend Kate,” who says, “If I were growing up now, I might consider myself trans too. … I’m glad I didn’t have that option.” No unpacking of that assumption or explanation, that’s it, before we return back to Nadia, an important person in this book but someone who is neither trans nor a man but is often grouped as such. This is because Nadia uses he/him pronouns, so Stein is presumably comfortable conflating him with the other trans men.Another revealing example of Stein’s preconceived and dated assumptions about trans people lies at the top of 150, which she writes, “Transgender women are more likely than trans men to become victims of violent attacks since their larger bodies mean they are less likely to pass as cisgender women.” It’s a rather bold and false claim in which Stein provides no citations, but illustrates her obsession with physical bodily characteristics rather than gender embodiment proper. This demonstrates the importance of having a clear theoretical framework rather than working from preconceived assumptions that accidentally slip out throughout the analysis. The concepts of transphobia and transmisogyny, the importance of normative heterosexuality among the male perpetrators who often kill trans women and trans women of color, but again, those concepts are totally missing from Stein’s analysis.The book is also methodologically flimsy that readers seem to be shocked upon reading. While Stein makes note of this in the rather short section on “Notes on Methods of Research” (pp. 293-295; which further illustrates the lack of methodological sophistication), Stein’s selection criteria give the impression that this is an important case study with rigorous sampling criteria. It is not. Her selection criteria were to sample a few trans men looking for top surgery at a particular clinic, and interviewed three. That’s right, there are only three trans men in this book: Ben, Parker, and Lucas. (As an aside: there are more men on the front dusk jacket, and more narratives from medical professions and various trans exclusionary radical feminists throughout.)The method makes this sampling rather demographically and ideologically homogenous. Because of her sampling criteria, these men are all relatively well-off economically, have significant gender dysphoria related to their breasts, and so prioritize top surgery as part of their transition. Thus, it wouldn’t be surprising that top surgery is important to them. The issue is that Stein generalizes this to the entire population, and so, the reader will find it difficult to conceptualize trans men as a population with something other than a hyper-fixation with their breasts and who prioritize top surgery. Trans men’s lives are certainly more complex, nuanced, and broad than this. There is also no attention paid to how one’s social categories may influence one another. How do things like income, race, sexuality affect their gender embodiment or trans identity? You will not find such answers in this book. While there has been increasingly greater attention to intersectionality in the context of transgender experiences and narratives, there is no reference to hooks, Crenshaw, or Collins anywhere in this text, no reference to intersectionality, and little to no attention paid to these intersections. Stein also writes that while she could’ve sampled more trans men with “greater racial/ethnic diversity,” she opted not to because “she decided in advance to focus on those having surgery the same day as Ben.” It’s a justification that I think most readers will find unacceptable, and Stein subsequently tries to justify this by including MORE medical gatekeepers and various transphobic parents throughout the text that continually refer to their trans male children as “her.” Weird.There are a variety of issues throughout the texts primarily related to Stein’s outdated terminology, and there are really two prominent examples of this. The first comes from p. 90, when Stein writes, “The belief that one begins a transition as one sex and ends up as an entirely different sex has fallen out of favor. Today we are more likely to think of transitioning as confirming a gender that is constant and unchanging, that aligns with that identity.” Yet later on the same page she writes, “There’s a recognized script for those wishing to transition from female to male.” The second comes from the glossary of terms for transitioning and trans men on p. 301. Stein writes, “Many transgender people (particularly female to male individuals) choose not to undergo genital surgery; some undergo no surgery at all.” On the same page, she writes, “In the past, there were often called FTMs, a term that assumes that individuals are undergoing transitions.” Thus, she is mentioning that “female to male” is outdated, then continues to use that terminology later even on the same page! It’s like some strange joke.There are more simple errors throughout the text related to Stein’s outdated terminology, and I will only name a few here. Younger people are not “more likely to see gender as a matter of choice” (p. 20) but as a performance rather than a fixed biological essence. Not “transmale” (p. 25) but “trans male”. Same for “transmale” on p. 33 (twice), “transmen” on p. 33, and “transmale “on p. 198. Not “male-to-female trans people” but trans women. Not “natal male” but “cis man” (p. 234). Not “MTF” (p. 283) but trans women. I have no doubt that the copyeditor caught most of Stein’s mistakes, but many others slipped by.There are a few things that Stein does writing this book, but none that justify purchasing this. There are so many other books written about trans people for cis audiences (or people otherwise unknowledgeable about trans and gender-related issues) that came out before and after this book. It is both sad and extremely frustrating that this book is seemingly written by an expert when it is so dissonant with trans people’s experiences as a whole and trans men’s experiences specifically.

Two stars for the stories. The author spent a lot of time with the subjects and their families, and gives a decent overview of the transmasculine experience.However, the analysis is facile to the point of being insulting to trans people. At one point, the author goes on an extended digression about cosmetic surgery and the desire to fit an unobtainable beauty standard. This would be fine if the book were about traditional cosmetic surgery. But top surgery is not about meeting beauty standards - it's a widely-accepted treatment for gender dysphoria. To conflate these two things, even indirectly, is lazy and reinforces some terrible, transphobic ideas that trans people who were assigned female at birth have to hear way too often.In another instance, the author talks about how older lesbians are often unhappy at the number of young "lesbians" transitioning to men. She quotes several of these older lesbians uncritically, as if this were just another valid perspective. But these young people are not lesbians - they are men. The opinions of a completely different group of people don't seem relevant and it's harmful to imply that they are.I appreciate that the author felt motivated to write about this topic, since there really is not a lot out there about transmasculine people. But I wish she had been able to step outside of her own assumptions more thoroughly and avoided reinforcing harmful ideas about trans people.

Enjoyable read, but I thought there would be more interviews. This is more of a case study with additional interviews. I wish there had been more discussion of the dynamic definitions of trans that are emerging and what they new definitions mean.

Arlene Stein deftly reports on a group of transgender men as they go through gender-affirming treatment and in the process offers a powerful and illuminating set of analyses on the shifting nature of gender identity in our time.

My spouse is FTM and is starting his journey this year. I gave him this book and he loved it.

Would especially recommend this book to transmen coping with the profound complexities of transition from a social perspective.

Good read

It’s aimed at people, I think, who are not familiar with gender diversity, and we follow the author as she herself seeks greater understanding. I loved it, it opened my eyes and mind.