Deciding to transition gender is likely to be the biggest decision you will ever make in your life. It will change your life irrevocably - and based on research, it will most likely change it for the better. Nevertheless, it is not an easy choice to make. When the author, Thomas Underwood, began to become outwardly the man he always was inside, he found it a very difficult and challenging journey, emotionally and physically. He sought advice from friends, counselors, support groups, websites, and books. Thomas spent fourteen years going through his transition from female to male, and learned a great deal from this experience. Having lived now as both a woman and a man, Thomas wants to share his journey, in the hope that it will help others on the same journey. When transitioning it is usual to need lots of help and advice - it's a normal and healthy part of your transition. This book will provide some of the guidance that the author wishes he had had on his journey. He shares how he experienced his transition, and also provides a wealth of information and resources.

Deciding to undergo sex change surgery is a life-altering decision that needs to be considered thoroughly. If you're at the point where being female is affecting your emotional and mental health, or where you simply hate yourself for being a female, then perhaps a female to male (FTM) sex change surgery is the best thing to do so that you can finally feel more authentic in your own body. Sex changes from female to male have been successfully done thousands of times all around the world. This success rate is excellent with more and more people opting to resolve their Gender Dysphoria through sex change in order to lead happier lives. Before moving forward though, there is a lot of important information that you should be aware of. But just as with any procedure, there are risks involved, and it's crucial that you are aware of them. Sex change can be a daunting process, especially if you don't know the specifics of and what to expect from the procedure. Knowing and understanding the process will make for a smoother transition to your new gender and social environment after the surgery. The process of changing gender is not as simple or straightforward as you may think. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (or WPATH) has certain standards that must be met before you will be allowed to undergo surgery. Also, it's important to fully prepare yourself for the permanent, irreversible transformation that gender reassignment surgery will have on your entire persona. This book was written to provide you with various things you should consider as you make this critical life-changing decision. I'm going to help you understand the process of gender reassignment surgery, and also explain what the actual steps are that you can follow. Included too are estimated expenses, as well as other advice and tips to help guide you along this life transformation.

Can a boy be “trapped” in a girl’s body? Can modern medicine “reassign” sex? Is our sex “assigned” to us in the first place? What is the most loving response to a person experiencing a conflicted sense of gender? What should our law say on matters of “gender identity”? When Harry Became Sally provides thoughtful answers to questions arising from our transgender moment. Drawing on the best insights from biology, psychology, and philosophy, Ryan Anderson offers a nuanced view of human embodiment, a balanced approach to public policy on gender identity, and a sober assessment of the human costs of getting human nature wrong. This book exposes the contrast between the media’s sunny depiction of gender fluidity and the often sad reality of living with gender dysphoria. It gives a voice to people who tried to “transition” by changing their bodies, and found themselves no better off. Especially troubling are the stories told by adults who were encouraged to transition as children but later regretted subjecting themselves to those drastic procedures. As Anderson shows, the most beneficial therapies focus on helping people accept themselves and live in harmony with their bodies. This understanding is vital for parents with children in schools where counselors may steer a child toward transitioning behind their backs. Everyone has something at stake in the controversies over transgender ideology, when misguided “antidiscrimination” policies allow biological men into women’s restrooms and penalize Americans who hold to the truth about human nature. Anderson offers a strategy for pushing back with principle and prudence, compassion and grace.

"International sex researcher, neuroscientist, and frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Debra Soh [discusses what she sees as] gender myths in this ... examination of the many facets of gender identity"--

How Sex Changed is a fascinating social, cultural, and medical history of transsexuality in the United States. Joanne Meyerowitz tells a powerful human story about people who had a deep and unshakable desire to transform their bodily sex. In the last century when many challenged the social categories and hierarchies of race, class, and gender, transsexuals questioned biological sex itself, the category that seemed most fundamental and fixed of all. From early twentieth-century sex experiments in Europe, to the saga of Christine Jorgensen, whose sex-change surgery made headlines in 1952, to today’s growing transgender movement, Meyerowitz gives us the first serious history of transsexuality. She focuses on the stories of transsexual men and women themselves, as well as a large supporting cast of doctors, scientists, journalists, lawyers, judges, feminists, and gay liberationists, as they debated the big questions of medical ethics, nature versus nurture, self and society, and the scope of human rights. In this story of transsexuality, Meyerowitz shows how new definitions of sex circulated in popular culture, science, medicine, and the law, and she elucidates the tidal shifts in our social, moral, and medical beliefs over the twentieth century, away from sex as an evident biological certainty and toward an understanding of sex as something malleable and complex. How Sex Changed is an intimate history that illuminates the very changes that shape our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality today.

Raising My Rainbow is Lori Duron’s frank, heartfelt, and brutally funny account of her and her family's adventures of distress and happiness raising a gender-creative son. Whereas her older son, Chase, is a Lego-loving, sports-playing boy's boy, Lori's younger son, C.J., would much rather twirl around in a pink sparkly tutu, with a Disney Princess in each hand while singing Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi." C.J. is gender variant or gender nonconforming, whichever you prefer. Whatever the term, Lori has a boy who likes girl stuff—really likes girl stuff. He floats on the gender-variation spectrum from super-macho-masculine on the left all the way to super-girly-feminine on the right. He's not all pink and not all blue. He's a muddled mess or a rainbow creation. Lori and her family choose to see the rainbow. Written in Lori's uniquely witty and warm voice and launched by her incredibly popular blog of the same name, Raising My Rainbow is the unforgettable story of her wonderful family as they navigate the often challenging but never dull privilege of raising a slightly effeminate, possibly gay, totally fabulous son. Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content

A leading scientist describes his life, his gender transition, his scientific work, and his advocacy for gender equality in science. Ben Barres was known for his groundbreaking scientific work and for his groundbreaking advocacy for gender equality in science. In this book, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in December 2017, Barres (born in 1954) describes a life full of remarkable accomplishments—from his childhood as a precocious math and science whiz to his experiences as a female student at MIT in the 1970s to his female-to-male transition in his forties, to his scientific work and role as teacher and mentor at Stanford. Barres recounts his early life—his interest in science, first manifested as a fascination with the mad scientist in Superman; his academic successes; and his gender confusion. Barres felt even as a very young child that he was assigned the wrong gender. After years of being acutely uncomfortable in his own skin, Barres transitioned from female to male. He reports he felt nothing but relief on becoming his true self. He was proud to be a role model for transgender scientists. As an undergraduate at MIT, Barres experienced discrimination, but it was after transitioning that he realized how differently male and female scientists are treated. He became an advocate for gender equality in science, and later in life responded pointedly to Larry Summers's speculation that women were innately unsuited to be scientists. Privileged white men, Barres writes, “miss the basic point that in the face of negative stereotyping, talented women will not be recognized.” At Stanford, Barres made important discoveries about glia, the most numerous cells in the brain, and he describes some of his work. “The most rewarding part of his job,” however, was mentoring young scientists. That, and his advocacy for women and transgender scientists, ensures his legacy.

What do you do when the other woman is your husband? A wife's memoir of her husband's sex change Christine Benvenuto had been married for more than twenty years—with three young children—when her husband turned to her one night in bed and said "I'm thinking constantly about my gender." He was unhappy in his body and wanted to become a woman. Part memoir, part voyeur's look into a marriage, Sex Changes is a journey through the end of a marriage and out the other side. We see a woman, desperate to save her family and shelter her children, discover a well of strength and resilience she never knew she had. We learn what to tell the neighbors when your husband starts wearing heels with his shirts and ties. We see a woman open herself to a group of friends who travel with her through her darkest times, provide light and levity throughout—and who offer the opportunity to learn how to give as well as receive the love and support of true friendship. When she lost her husband to skirts and hormones, life made Chris a better woman. Sex Changes is the story of what one woman discovered about herself in the midst of the conflagration of her family. Fiercely funny, self-lacerating, and not entirely politically correct, Sex Changes is a journey of love and anguish told with hilarity, heartbreak and a lot of soul searching. It is about the mysteries in every marriage, the secrets we chose to keep, and the freedom that the truth can bring.

Goes beyond the category of transgender to question the need for gender classification Beyond Trans pushes the conversation on gender identity to its limits: questioning the need for gender categories in the first place. Whether on birth certificates or college admissions applications or on bathroom doors, why do we need to mark people and places with sex categories? Do they serve a real purpose or are these places and forms just mechanisms of exclusion? Heath Fogg Davis offers an impassioned call to rethink the usefulness of dividing the world into not just Male and Female categories but even additional categories of Transgender and gender fluid. Davis, himself a transgender man, explores the underlying gender-enforcing policies and customs in American life that have led to transgender bathroom bills, college admissions controversies, and more, arguing that it is necessary for our society to take real steps to challenge the assumption that gender matters. He examines four areas where we need to re-think our sex-classification systems: sex-marked identity documents such as birth certificates, driver’s licenses and passports; sex-segregated public restrooms; single-sex colleges; and sex-segregated sports. Speaking from his own experience and drawing upon major cases of sex discrimination in the news and in the courts, Davis presents a persuasive case for challenging how individuals are classified according to sex and offers concrete recommendations for alleviating sex identity discrimination and sex-based disadvantage. For anyone in search of pragmatic ways to make our world more inclusive, Davis’ recommendations provide much-needed practical guidance about how to work through this complex issue. A provocative call to action, Beyond Trans pushes us to think how we can work to make America truly inclusive of all people.

A chronological account of transgender theory documents major movements, writings, and events, offering insight into the contributions of key historical figures while discussing treatments of transgenderism in pop culture. Original.