pleasing style, 27 Jul 2004
This book mixes the facts with selected quotations from the research which make it informative and pleasurable to read. This is a style that all too often, fails to reach the right balance. Not the case on this occasion

pleasing style, 27 Jul 2004
This book mixes the facts with selected quotations from the research which make it informative and pleasurable to read. This is a style that all too often, fails to reach the right balance. Not the case on this occasion

Feminism is a complex fascinating theory, 17 Dec 2000
Feminist Thought offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of feminist theory through the 20th century. The book is an up to date text on all strands of mainstream feminism, right up to the modern post feminist school of feminism that grew during the 1990's. Written by a professor of philosophy Tong offers an in-depth discussion and overview of feminist thought and explores its complexities and contradictions. The book also looks at feminism and its claim to empower all types of women, regardless of class sexuality or race. The book opens with a chapter on each type of mainstream feminist theory, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Radical feminism and mothering, Radical feminism on gender and sexuality. Then Tong moves on to discuss psychoanalytic feminism and socialist feminism and then a chapter on post-feminism, the book finishes with a discussion on standpoints. An essential text for students of feminism, and for any women who wants to have a better understanding of their own life.

pleasing style, 27 Jul 2004
This book mixes the facts with selected quotations from the research which make it informative and pleasurable to read. This is a style that all too often, fails to reach the right balance. Not the case on this occasion

Feminism is a complex fascinating theory, 17 Dec 2000
Feminist Thought offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of feminist theory through the 20th century. The book is an up to date text on all strands of mainstream feminism, right up to the modern post feminist school of feminism that grew during the 1990's. Written by a professor of philosophy Tong offers an in-depth discussion and overview of feminist thought and explores its complexities and contradictions. The book also looks at feminism and its claim to empower all types of women, regardless of class sexuality or race. The book opens with a chapter on each type of mainstream feminist theory, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Radical feminism and mothering, Radical feminism on gender and sexuality. Then Tong moves on to discuss psychoanalytic feminism and socialist feminism and then a chapter on post-feminism, the book finishes with a discussion on standpoints. An essential text for students of feminism, and for any women who wants to have a better understanding of their own life.

Polemics ýrý us, 10 Jan 2005
OK so it's a polemic but it's funny, well researched, intelligent and frankly disturbing.

Fasto Sterling shows how scientists have constructed false gender dichotomies out of insufficient data and deletion of anything that didn't fit (the Damned data of Charles Fort's Book of the Damned if you like) and that scientific 'truth' is no more than a collection of unchallenged assumptions and predeceases.

This is not the first book to discuss these topics but that it does so with a political agenda makes it invigorating. Her claim that science and surgeons are trying to remove gender variant bodies from existence is a wake up call.

Highly recommended.

An informative and revealing read, 29 Aug 2003
An accessible book that lays out the historical assumptions about sex and gender and subjects them to insightful critique. "Sexing the Body" reveals the important role science has played in reinforcing social consensus on the nature of sexuality and effectively erasing sexually ambiguous bodies from society.

Fausto-Sterling's arguments are so decisive that it is impossible to close the book without a serious re-examination of one's own attitudes to sex and gender, and a sense of shock at the physical, sexual and psychological obstacles intersexuals - those with physical elements of both male and female - face in a world which acknowledges only two sexes.

Informative, challenging and much recommended.

pleasing style, 27 Jul 2004
This book mixes the facts with selected quotations from the research which make it informative and pleasurable to read. This is a style that all too often, fails to reach the right balance. Not the case on this occasion

Feminism is a complex fascinating theory, 17 Dec 2000
Feminist Thought offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of feminist theory through the 20th century. The book is an up to date text on all strands of mainstream feminism, right up to the modern post feminist school of feminism that grew during the 1990's. Written by a professor of philosophy Tong offers an in-depth discussion and overview of feminist thought and explores its complexities and contradictions. The book also looks at feminism and its claim to empower all types of women, regardless of class sexuality or race. The book opens with a chapter on each type of mainstream feminist theory, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Radical feminism and mothering, Radical feminism on gender and sexuality. Then Tong moves on to discuss psychoanalytic feminism and socialist feminism and then a chapter on post-feminism, the book finishes with a discussion on standpoints. An essential text for students of feminism, and for any women who wants to have a better understanding of their own life.

Polemics ýrý us, 10 Jan 2005
OK so it's a polemic but it's funny, well researched, intelligent and frankly disturbing.

Fasto Sterling shows how scientists have constructed false gender dichotomies out of insufficient data and deletion of anything that didn't fit (the Damned data of Charles Fort's Book of the Damned if you like) and that scientific 'truth' is no more than a collection of unchallenged assumptions and predeceases.

This is not the first book to discuss these topics but that it does so with a political agenda makes it invigorating. Her claim that science and surgeons are trying to remove gender variant bodies from existence is a wake up call.

Highly recommended.

An informative and revealing read, 29 Aug 2003
An accessible book that lays out the historical assumptions about sex and gender and subjects them to insightful critique. "Sexing the Body" reveals the important role science has played in reinforcing social consensus on the nature of sexuality and effectively erasing sexually ambiguous bodies from society.

Fausto-Sterling's arguments are so decisive that it is impossible to close the book without a serious re-examination of one's own attitudes to sex and gender, and a sense of shock at the physical, sexual and psychological obstacles intersexuals - those with physical elements of both male and female - face in a world which acknowledges only two sexes.

Informative, challenging and much recommended.

conceptual building blocks for a better world, 20 Aug 1997
Iris Young makes us think about justice not as a set of debts we owe other individuals but as a set of relations between social groups. In a just society, no group is oppressed. Her chapter "Five Faces of Oppression" is a classic. She brings new insights to debates about welfare, affirmative action, and disability. This book also offers a thought-provoking discussion of community. Young argues that we have based our idea of community on the rural life of an earlier age and that city life is where we should look for ideas about how community thrives in diversity.

Young tries to write for a general audience as well as for scholars. Sometimes, she succeeds, although the parts of the book that address particular groups and their predicaments or particular social policies are more accessible than the parts in which she critiques other theories. I would recommend this book for second-year students in college and up. It marks a turning point in social and political thought.

pleasing style, 27 Jul 2004
This book mixes the facts with selected quotations from the research which make it informative and pleasurable to read. This is a style that all too often, fails to reach the right balance. Not the case on this occasion

Feminism is a complex fascinating theory, 17 Dec 2000
Feminist Thought offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of feminist theory through the 20th century. The book is an up to date text on all strands of mainstream feminism, right up to the modern post feminist school of feminism that grew during the 1990's. Written by a professor of philosophy Tong offers an in-depth discussion and overview of feminist thought and explores its complexities and contradictions. The book also looks at feminism and its claim to empower all types of women, regardless of class sexuality or race. The book opens with a chapter on each type of mainstream feminist theory, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Radical feminism and mothering, Radical feminism on gender and sexuality. Then Tong moves on to discuss psychoanalytic feminism and socialist feminism and then a chapter on post-feminism, the book finishes with a discussion on standpoints. An essential text for students of feminism, and for any women who wants to have a better understanding of their own life.

Polemics ýrý us, 10 Jan 2005
OK so it's a polemic but it's funny, well researched, intelligent and frankly disturbing.

Fasto Sterling shows how scientists have constructed false gender dichotomies out of insufficient data and deletion of anything that didn't fit (the Damned data of Charles Fort's Book of the Damned if you like) and that scientific 'truth' is no more than a collection of unchallenged assumptions and predeceases.

This is not the first book to discuss these topics but that it does so with a political agenda makes it invigorating. Her claim that science and surgeons are trying to remove gender variant bodies from existence is a wake up call.

Highly recommended.

An informative and revealing read, 29 Aug 2003
An accessible book that lays out the historical assumptions about sex and gender and subjects them to insightful critique. "Sexing the Body" reveals the important role science has played in reinforcing social consensus on the nature of sexuality and effectively erasing sexually ambiguous bodies from society.

Fausto-Sterling's arguments are so decisive that it is impossible to close the book without a serious re-examination of one's own attitudes to sex and gender, and a sense of shock at the physical, sexual and psychological obstacles intersexuals - those with physical elements of both male and female - face in a world which acknowledges only two sexes.

Informative, challenging and much recommended.

conceptual building blocks for a better world, 20 Aug 1997
Iris Young makes us think about justice not as a set of debts we owe other individuals but as a set of relations between social groups. In a just society, no group is oppressed. Her chapter "Five Faces of Oppression" is a classic. She brings new insights to debates about welfare, affirmative action, and disability. This book also offers a thought-provoking discussion of community. Young argues that we have based our idea of community on the rural life of an earlier age and that city life is where we should look for ideas about how community thrives in diversity.

Young tries to write for a general audience as well as for scholars. Sometimes, she succeeds, although the parts of the book that address particular groups and their predicaments or particular social policies are more accessible than the parts in which she critiques other theories. I would recommend this book for second-year students in college and up. It marks a turning point in social and political thought.

dilettantism at its worst, 26 Jul 1999
The results of Butler's attempt to tackle the very serious issue of speech rights are disappointing in the extreme. With no legal background whatsoever and a myopic philosophical vision which seems ingorant of the liberal tradition upon which the right of free speech is grounded, Butler provides an obfuscted discussion (and that's all it is, a discussion) of the issue that is at the best of times, irrelevant, and at the worst of times, offensively misleading. The book is worthwhile only as an example of what happens when a postmodern thinker in the French tradition tries to tackle a subject outside the race/power/gender/subjectivity canon outlined by the philosophers of the 1960s. If you have an appetite for reading philosophical trainwrecks, then by all means read it. If you want something serious on the issue of free speech, look elsewhere.

When words injure, what do we do?, 12 Jul 1997
An insightful and thoroughly researched study of the social, political, and legal ramification of not only hate speech but discourse concerning the lingusitics of hate. Butler questions the contemporary practices of the adjudication of speech which seeks to define what is correct speech and what is proscribable under law. If words are legally indistinguishable from conduct, then, Butler asks, is law not complicit in the wounds that words cause? Challenging reading.

pleasing style, 27 Jul 2004
This book mixes the facts with selected quotations from the research which make it informative and pleasurable to read. This is a style that all too often, fails to reach the right balance. Not the case on this occasion

Feminism is a complex fascinating theory, 17 Dec 2000
Feminist Thought offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of feminist theory through the 20th century. The book is an up to date text on all strands of mainstream feminism, right up to the modern post feminist school of feminism that grew during the 1990's. Written by a professor of philosophy Tong offers an in-depth discussion and overview of feminist thought and explores its complexities and contradictions. The book also looks at feminism and its claim to empower all types of women, regardless of class sexuality or race. The book opens with a chapter on each type of mainstream feminist theory, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Radical feminism and mothering, Radical feminism on gender and sexuality. Then Tong moves on to discuss psychoanalytic feminism and socialist feminism and then a chapter on post-feminism, the book finishes with a discussion on standpoints. An essential text for students of feminism, and for any women who wants to have a better understanding of their own life.

Polemics ýrý us, 10 Jan 2005
OK so it's a polemic but it's funny, well researched, intelligent and frankly disturbing.

Fasto Sterling shows how scientists have constructed false gender dichotomies out of insufficient data and deletion of anything that didn't fit (the Damned data of Charles Fort's Book of the Damned if you like) and that scientific 'truth' is no more than a collection of unchallenged assumptions and predeceases.

This is not the first book to discuss these topics but that it does so with a political agenda makes it invigorating. Her claim that science and surgeons are trying to remove gender variant bodies from existence is a wake up call.

Highly recommended.

An informative and revealing read, 29 Aug 2003
An accessible book that lays out the historical assumptions about sex and gender and subjects them to insightful critique. "Sexing the Body" reveals the important role science has played in reinforcing social consensus on the nature of sexuality and effectively erasing sexually ambiguous bodies from society.

Fausto-Sterling's arguments are so decisive that it is impossible to close the book without a serious re-examination of one's own attitudes to sex and gender, and a sense of shock at the physical, sexual and psychological obstacles intersexuals - those with physical elements of both male and female - face in a world which acknowledges only two sexes.

Informative, challenging and much recommended.

conceptual building blocks for a better world, 20 Aug 1997
Iris Young makes us think about justice not as a set of debts we owe other individuals but as a set of relations between social groups. In a just society, no group is oppressed. Her chapter "Five Faces of Oppression" is a classic. She brings new insights to debates about welfare, affirmative action, and disability. This book also offers a thought-provoking discussion of community. Young argues that we have based our idea of community on the rural life of an earlier age and that city life is where we should look for ideas about how community thrives in diversity.

Young tries to write for a general audience as well as for scholars. Sometimes, she succeeds, although the parts of the book that address particular groups and their predicaments or particular social policies are more accessible than the parts in which she critiques other theories. I would recommend this book for second-year students in college and up. It marks a turning point in social and political thought.

dilettantism at its worst, 26 Jul 1999
The results of Butler's attempt to tackle the very serious issue of speech rights are disappointing in the extreme. With no legal background whatsoever and a myopic philosophical vision which seems ingorant of the liberal tradition upon which the right of free speech is grounded, Butler provides an obfuscted discussion (and that's all it is, a discussion) of the issue that is at the best of times, irrelevant, and at the worst of times, offensively misleading. The book is worthwhile only as an example of what happens when a postmodern thinker in the French tradition tries to tackle a subject outside the race/power/gender/subjectivity canon outlined by the philosophers of the 1960s. If you have an appetite for reading philosophical trainwrecks, then by all means read it. If you want something serious on the issue of free speech, look elsewhere.

When words injure, what do we do?, 12 Jul 1997
An insightful and thoroughly researched study of the social, political, and legal ramification of not only hate speech but discourse concerning the lingusitics of hate. Butler questions the contemporary practices of the adjudication of speech which seeks to define what is correct speech and what is proscribable under law. If words are legally indistinguishable from conduct, then, Butler asks, is law not complicit in the wounds that words cause? Challenging reading.

Oh dear, here we go again..., 02 Sep 2008
Once again we are presented with a book which purports to be from a Chrsitian author but which simply ignores or explains away the clear teaching of Scripture. Jeffrey John, cashing in on his notoriety, has produce a volume of little interest to any genuine follower of Jesus Christ and what he actually taught, or to anyone who seeks to base their lives on Scripture and the commands of God found therein.

The one use it has, I guess, is to demonstrate how far away from the truth someone can go and still, in this politically correct madness of a world, be regarded as an expert in their field!

Don't buy it - save your money for things of God and save your time for repentance and prayer.

Inspiring, balanced and reasonable, 30 Mar 2004
This is one of the best books I have read on the question of gay and a Christian. It is a concise examination of the moral theology involved, but, more than that, it's an invitation to grow in holiness precisely through faithful, loving, sacramental partnerships.

pleasing style, 27 Jul 2004
This book mixes the facts with selected quotations from the research which make it informative and pleasurable to read. This is a style that all too often, fails to reach the right balance. Not the case on this occasion

Feminism is a complex fascinating theory, 17 Dec 2000
Feminist Thought offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of feminist theory through the 20th century. The book is an up to date text on all strands of mainstream feminism, right up to the modern post feminist school of feminism that grew during the 1990's. Written by a professor of philosophy Tong offers an in-depth discussion and overview of feminist thought and explores its complexities and contradictions. The book also looks at feminism and its claim to empower all types of women, regardless of class sexuality or race. The book opens with a chapter on each type of mainstream feminist theory, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Radical feminism and mothering, Radical feminism on gender and sexuality. Then Tong moves on to discuss psychoanalytic feminism and socialist feminism and then a chapter on post-feminism, the book finishes with a discussion on standpoints. An essential text for students of feminism, and for any women who wants to have a better understanding of their own life.

Polemics ýrý us, 10 Jan 2005
OK so it's a polemic but it's funny, well researched, intelligent and frankly disturbing.

Fasto Sterling shows how scientists have constructed false gender dichotomies out of insufficient data and deletion of anything that didn't fit (the Damned data of Charles Fort's Book of the Damned if you like) and that scientific 'truth' is no more than a collection of unchallenged assumptions and predeceases.

This is not the first book to discuss these topics but that it does so with a political agenda makes it invigorating. Her claim that science and surgeons are trying to remove gender variant bodies from existence is a wake up call.

Highly recommended.

An informative and revealing read, 29 Aug 2003
An accessible book that lays out the historical assumptions about sex and gender and subjects them to insightful critique. "Sexing the Body" reveals the important role science has played in reinforcing social consensus on the nature of sexuality and effectively erasing sexually ambiguous bodies from society.

Fausto-Sterling's arguments are so decisive that it is impossible to close the book without a serious re-examination of one's own attitudes to sex and gender, and a sense of shock at the physical, sexual and psychological obstacles intersexuals - those with physical elements of both male and female - face in a world which acknowledges only two sexes.

Informative, challenging and much recommended.

conceptual building blocks for a better world, 20 Aug 1997
Iris Young makes us think about justice not as a set of debts we owe other individuals but as a set of relations between social groups. In a just society, no group is oppressed. Her chapter "Five Faces of Oppression" is a classic. She brings new insights to debates about welfare, affirmative action, and disability. This book also offers a thought-provoking discussion of community. Young argues that we have based our idea of community on the rural life of an earlier age and that city life is where we should look for ideas about how community thrives in diversity.

Young tries to write for a general audience as well as for scholars. Sometimes, she succeeds, although the parts of the book that address particular groups and their predicaments or particular social policies are more accessible than the parts in which she critiques other theories. I would recommend this book for second-year students in college and up. It marks a turning point in social and political thought.

dilettantism at its worst, 26 Jul 1999
The results of Butler's attempt to tackle the very serious issue of speech rights are disappointing in the extreme. With no legal background whatsoever and a myopic philosophical vision which seems ingorant of the liberal tradition upon which the right of free speech is grounded, Butler provides an obfuscted discussion (and that's all it is, a discussion) of the issue that is at the best of times, irrelevant, and at the worst of times, offensively misleading. The book is worthwhile only as an example of what happens when a postmodern thinker in the French tradition tries to tackle a subject outside the race/power/gender/subjectivity canon outlined by the philosophers of the 1960s. If you have an appetite for reading philosophical trainwrecks, then by all means read it. If you want something serious on the issue of free speech, look elsewhere.

When words injure, what do we do?, 12 Jul 1997
An insightful and thoroughly researched study of the social, political, and legal ramification of not only hate speech but discourse concerning the lingusitics of hate. Butler questions the contemporary practices of the adjudication of speech which seeks to define what is correct speech and what is proscribable under law. If words are legally indistinguishable from conduct, then, Butler asks, is law not complicit in the wounds that words cause? Challenging reading.

Oh dear, here we go again..., 02 Sep 2008
Once again we are presented with a book which purports to be from a Chrsitian author but which simply ignores or explains away the clear teaching of Scripture. Jeffrey John, cashing in on his notoriety, has produce a volume of little interest to any genuine follower of Jesus Christ and what he actually taught, or to anyone who seeks to base their lives on Scripture and the commands of God found therein.

The one use it has, I guess, is to demonstrate how far away from the truth someone can go and still, in this politically correct madness of a world, be regarded as an expert in their field!

Don't buy it - save your money for things of God and save your time for repentance and prayer.

Inspiring, balanced and reasonable, 30 Mar 2004
This is one of the best books I have read on the question of gay and a Christian. It is a concise examination of the moral theology involved, but, more than that, it's an invitation to grow in holiness precisely through faithful, loving, sacramental partnerships.

Spot-on book about how the world interacts with Transsexuals, 21 Nov 2007
I bought this book, with a view to a quick read , then selling on.
Not possible now as my copy is covered with underlines & notes I made in the margins!
Julia puts into words & a framework structure, many thoughts & half observations I've made about my interactions with the world, & how oppressive, restrictive & judgmental, non-trans people & society at large is.
I'm going to loan it to my parents, & hope the book together with my notes in it, give them more understanding about me.

A great book.

pleasing style, 27 Jul 2004
This book mixes the facts with selected quotations from the research which make it informative and pleasurable to read. This is a style that all too often, fails to reach the right balance. Not the case on this occasion

Feminism is a complex fascinating theory, 17 Dec 2000
Feminist Thought offers the reader a comprehensive understanding of feminist theory through the 20th century. The book is an up to date text on all strands of mainstream feminism, right up to the modern post feminist school of feminism that grew during the 1990's. Written by a professor of philosophy Tong offers an in-depth discussion and overview of feminist thought and explores its complexities and contradictions. The book also looks at feminism and its claim to empower all types of women, regardless of class sexuality or race. The book opens with a chapter on each type of mainstream feminist theory, Liberal feminism, Marxist feminism, Radical feminism and mothering, Radical feminism on gender and sexuality. Then Tong moves on to discuss psychoanalytic feminism and socialist feminism and then a chapter on post-feminism, the book finishes with a discussion on standpoints. An essential text for students of feminism, and for any women who wants to have a better understanding of their own life.

Polemics ýrý us, 10 Jan 2005
OK so it's a polemic but it's funny, well researched, intelligent and frankly disturbing.

Fasto Sterling shows how scientists have constructed false gender dichotomies out of insufficient data and deletion of anything that didn't fit (the Damned data of Charles Fort's Book of the Damned if you like) and that scientific 'truth' is no more than a collection of unchallenged assumptions and predeceases.

This is not the first book to discuss these topics but that it does so with a political agenda makes it invigorating. Her claim that science and surgeons are trying to remove gender variant bodies from existence is a wake up call.

Highly recommended.

An informative and revealing read, 29 Aug 2003
An accessible book that lays out the historical assumptions about sex and gender and subjects them to insightful critique. "Sexing the Body" reveals the important role science has played in reinforcing social consensus on the nature of sexuality and effectively erasing sexually ambiguous bodies from society.

Fausto-Sterling's arguments are so decisive that it is impossible to close the book without a serious re-examination of one's own attitudes to sex and gender, and a sense of shock at the physical, sexual and psychological obstacles intersexuals - those with physical elements of both male and female - face in a world which acknowledges only two sexes.

Informative, challenging and much recommended.

conceptual building blocks for a better world, 20 Aug 1997
Iris Young makes us think about justice not as a set of debts we owe other individuals but as a set of relations between social groups. In a just society, no group is oppressed. Her chapter "Five Faces of Oppression" is a classic. She brings new insights to debates about welfare, affirmative action, and disability. This book also offers a thought-provoking discussion of community. Young argues that we have based our idea of community on the rural life of an earlier age and that city life is where we should look for ideas about how community thrives in diversity.

Young tries to write for a general audience as well as for scholars. Sometimes, she succeeds, although the parts of the book that address particular groups and their predicaments or particular social policies are more accessible than the parts in which she critiques other theories. I would recommend this book for second-year students in college and up. It marks a turning point in social and political thought.

dilettantism at its worst, 26 Jul 1999
The results of Butler's attempt to tackle the very serious issue of speech rights are disappointing in the extreme. With no legal background whatsoever and a myopic philosophical vision which seems ingorant of the liberal tradition upon which the right of free speech is grounded, Butler provides an obfuscted discussion (and that's all it is, a discussion) of the issue that is at the best of times, irrelevant, and at the worst of times, offensively misleading. The book is worthwhile only as an example of what happens when a postmodern thinker in the French tradition tries to tackle a subject outside the race/power/gender/subjectivity canon outlined by the philosophers of the 1960s. If you have an appetite for reading philosophical trainwrecks, then by all means read it. If you want something serious on the issue of free speech, look elsewhere.

When words injure, what do we do?, 12 Jul 1997
An insightful and thoroughly researched study of the social, political, and legal ramification of not only hate speech but discourse concerning the lingusitics of hate. Butler questions the contemporary practices of the adjudication of speech which seeks to define what is correct speech and what is proscribable under law. If words are legally indistinguishable from conduct, then, Butler asks, is law not complicit in the wounds that words cause? Challenging reading.

Oh dear, here we go again..., 02 Sep 2008
Once again we are presented with a book which purports to be from a Chrsitian author but which simply ignores or explains away the clear teaching of Scripture. Jeffrey John, cashing in on his notoriety, has produce a volume of little interest to any genuine follower of Jesus Christ and what he actually taught, or to anyone who seeks to base their lives on Scripture and the commands of God found therein.

The one use it has, I guess, is to demonstrate how far away from the truth someone can go and still, in this politically correct madness of a world, be regarded as an expert in their field!

Don't buy it - save your money for things of God and save your time for repentance and prayer.

Inspiring, balanced and reasonable, 30 Mar 2004
This is one of the best books I have read on the question of gay and a Christian. It is a concise examination of the moral theology involved, but, more than that, it's an invitation to grow in holiness precisely through faithful, loving, sacramental partnerships.

Spot-on book about how the world interacts with Transsexuals, 21 Nov 2007
I bought this book, with a view to a quick read , then selling on.
Not possible now as my copy is covered with underlines & notes I made in the margins!
Julia puts into words & a framework structure, many thoughts & half observations I've made about my interactions with the world, & how oppressive, restrictive & judgmental, non-trans people & society at large is.
I'm going to loan it to my parents, & hope the book together with my notes in it, give them more understanding about me.

A great book.


A mixed bag, 08 Oct 2007
I was quite prepared not to like this book at all since it commences with a number of swaggering lesbians "butching it up" and behaving like the worst kind of sexist men, objectifying "femmes" in a bar. Perhaps I've led a very sheltered life, or perhaps it really is different over there in the USA, but I really haven't ever met any women like this and I do find it both frustrating and depressing when writers employ these stereotypes. It does get better though - the narrative is quite brisk if rather episodic, and the dialogue is credible and convincing. Relies on a bit of a fantasy - injured but brave 'butch' being fondly nursed by delicate, arty, blonde femme and what transpires isn't totally unbelievable. What, for me, lets this book down is the ending. Don't want to be a spoiler here but this probably won't lift your spirits and I can't honestly see what the author hoped to achieve with such a conclusion.

Synopsis, 26 Jul 2007
Taylor Fleming is a thirty-six year old Texas rancher who covets her independence enough to keep her life simple, no strings attached...
As partner to her father's vast cattle ranch, she has enough to keep her busy without taking on a serious relationship with any of the women who clamour for her attention. When a neighbouring aging rancher fills the Fleming's life with aggravation and vandalism, Taylor is forced to confront the old man's estranged daughter, Jen Holland, and convince her to intervene, a task Jen seems to have little interest in undertaking. After a traumatic accident leaves Taylor with imposed bed rest, not only is her cowgirl independence tested to the limit, it also offers Jen an ultimatum she thought she'd never have to make. To keep her father's property from being sold on the courthouse steps, Jen must dust off her nursing skills and take the job as care giver to the stubborn Taylor Fleming. Sparks will fly and who knows where they will land.