Sun. August 1, 2004
By Jill Craig
Amy Bloom, author of Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude, tries to tell it like it is. In this three-part exploration of the totally marginalized and ignored members of communities often labeled as freaks and deviants, she combines facts and statistics with stories, and tops the whole thing off with a running commentary of her time spent exploring the subjects of this book.
Normal is very readable nonfiction. In addition to discovering the secret lives of hetero crossdressers, I learned about other marginalized groups in “The Body Lies: Female-to-Male Transsexuals” and “Hermaphrodites With Attitude: The Intersexed.” Bloom fails to identify herself in relation to the queer community though, and the lack of perspective is a bit irritating. In the introduction Bloom mentions that she chose this topic from a list of her own unexplored curiosities, which made me wonder if perhaps she once viewed these people as freaks and deviants herself. If you can overcome wondering about Blooms own perspective, reading this book will help you develop your own point of view about different, lesser-known populations and finally answer all of your questions about prenatal hormone distribution. I know you’ve been losing sleep over it.
Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites With Attitude was published in 2002 by Random House.
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