20. Max Wolf Valerio - The Testosterone Files
(Full book title doesn't fit in the subject; it is The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male.)
Note: Max Valerio is the same person as Anita Valerio, as published in This Bridge Called My Back, which I know has been reviewed here. It would be nice if we could easily find all his works together through the tagging system, but I can't think of a way to do that without misgendering him. Any thoughts?
Max Valerio is a trans man (like me) who spent many years living in San Francisco (where I'm from). You might think there'd be a lot in his memoir that I could relate to, but for the most part you'd be wrong.
Oh, there is some. His portrait of the life and atmosphere of San Francisco in the 90s is pitch-perfect and often quite funny. (He should write a novel about the lesbian punk scene then.) I was nodding along to his struggles with deciding to transition and sifting out the right from the wrong information about trans people, and his worries about whether he would lose all his gay and lesbian friends if he became "straight". (He lost some -- so did I.)
What I did *not* nod along to was the bulk of the book, which has to do with his views on the relationships and differences between men and women. He puts a huge amount of weight on the fact that testosterone makes you horny, which is of course true to an extent, but his view of men as satyrs who can barely control their urge to fuck (and indeed, to rape -- more on that in a second) depicts no reality I am even remotely familiar with.
Unfortunately, it seems Valerio has fallen into the tired, privilege-denying trap of believing that women control men with sex, and that men are helpless victims to it. Over half the book is essentially about this, so I can't even mention everything, but here's one telling detail: There is a point where he talks about how sex workers approach him, and he describes men as the "prey", yes, the PREY, of the sex workers. I am serious. I had to put the book down and chill for a second when I read that.
He also thinks that men rape women because the men are horny. He tries to soften this outrageously offensive sentiment by adding that rape is "of course" wrong, and that rape is about power (so why are you denying that?), and that he'd like to think (!) that if he had a penis he wouldn't rape. There are so many things wrong with this, not least of all the assumption that only people with a penis can rape, that I'm just speechless.
There are other problems with the book, though they pale in comparison to the highly sexist and twisted ways of thinking mentioned above. Before I even knew about the sexist fail, I had some major WTF with the prologue, which is a rambling, pseudo-mystical reflection on how trans people are so "magical", "unthinkable", "subversive", "radical", "unknowable", and a lot of other adjectives that he just throws at the reader without making a point. Some may disagree, but I really do not appreciate this exoticizing of trans people, even when it comes from within our own community. It also seems bizarrely at odds with his more matter-of-fact style in the rest of the book, as though his editor wanted it there, though of course I have no way to know whether that is true.
Oh, and, the same prologue takes a nasty, whiplash-inducing turn at the end, deciding for some reason to attack genderqueer people, who are not present in the body of the book at all. I'm just going to quote some of this:
There are infinite permutations of identity, now identified as "transgender," currently in vogue in queer communities: "FTM dyke butch," "dyke boychix who cross-dress," "genderqueer tranny fag boi", and "biofemme transgender lesbian." Let there be no mistake: Everyone has a right to be who they are or think they are at any moment, to shock, to piss off, to repossess, to realign their scrotum, tits, attitude, skin color, hair color, outfit, and cheekbones! Everyone has a right to be admitted to that exclusive, sexy party. And it's beginning to look as though everyone wants to be. That said, I am skeptical and ultimately wary of enthusiasm for these new "queer" self-congratulatory and self-conscious "transgressive transgendered identities." [...] A contrived identity hyphenated and situated beyond certainty or doubt. I prefer simplicity[...]
He goes on for a full page like that. I don't identify as genderqueer, but it really makes me mad to see anyone, but especially a trans person, slamming and shaming the identities of others this way. How hypocritical can you get? We're constantly bombarded with people who want us to keep it "simple" and "stay as we are", even if we merely wish to travel from one socially acceptable gender norm to the other. How do you justify turning around and throwing that in the face of people who have the audacity to be less "simple" than you? Dismissing it as contrived and nothing more important than the color of your hair? I think it's awful.
Anyway, goes without saying I can't recommend the book. I did enjoy the parts of the memoir that weren't bogged down in sexist and transphobic nonsense, but that's about all I can say. It's a damn shame.
a: Valerio Max Wolf, genre: memoir, subject: transgender, au ethnicity: Native American (Blackfoot), Latino
Note: Max Valerio is the same person as Anita Valerio, as published in This Bridge Called My Back, which I know has been reviewed here. It would be nice if we could easily find all his works together through the tagging system, but I can't think of a way to do that without misgendering him. Any thoughts?
Max Valerio is a trans man (like me) who spent many years living in San Francisco (where I'm from). You might think there'd be a lot in his memoir that I could relate to, but for the most part you'd be wrong.
Oh, there is some. His portrait of the life and atmosphere of San Francisco in the 90s is pitch-perfect and often quite funny. (He should write a novel about the lesbian punk scene then.) I was nodding along to his struggles with deciding to transition and sifting out the right from the wrong information about trans people, and his worries about whether he would lose all his gay and lesbian friends if he became "straight". (He lost some -- so did I.)
What I did *not* nod along to was the bulk of the book, which has to do with his views on the relationships and differences between men and women. He puts a huge amount of weight on the fact that testosterone makes you horny, which is of course true to an extent, but his view of men as satyrs who can barely control their urge to fuck (and indeed, to rape -- more on that in a second) depicts no reality I am even remotely familiar with.
Unfortunately, it seems Valerio has fallen into the tired, privilege-denying trap of believing that women control men with sex, and that men are helpless victims to it. Over half the book is essentially about this, so I can't even mention everything, but here's one telling detail: There is a point where he talks about how sex workers approach him, and he describes men as the "prey", yes, the PREY, of the sex workers. I am serious. I had to put the book down and chill for a second when I read that.
He also thinks that men rape women because the men are horny. He tries to soften this outrageously offensive sentiment by adding that rape is "of course" wrong, and that rape is about power (so why are you denying that?), and that he'd like to think (!) that if he had a penis he wouldn't rape. There are so many things wrong with this, not least of all the assumption that only people with a penis can rape, that I'm just speechless.
There are other problems with the book, though they pale in comparison to the highly sexist and twisted ways of thinking mentioned above. Before I even knew about the sexist fail, I had some major WTF with the prologue, which is a rambling, pseudo-mystical reflection on how trans people are so "magical", "unthinkable", "subversive", "radical", "unknowable", and a lot of other adjectives that he just throws at the reader without making a point. Some may disagree, but I really do not appreciate this exoticizing of trans people, even when it comes from within our own community. It also seems bizarrely at odds with his more matter-of-fact style in the rest of the book, as though his editor wanted it there, though of course I have no way to know whether that is true.
Oh, and, the same prologue takes a nasty, whiplash-inducing turn at the end, deciding for some reason to attack genderqueer people, who are not present in the body of the book at all. I'm just going to quote some of this:
There are infinite permutations of identity, now identified as "transgender," currently in vogue in queer communities: "FTM dyke butch," "dyke boychix who cross-dress," "genderqueer tranny fag boi", and "biofemme transgender lesbian." Let there be no mistake: Everyone has a right to be who they are or think they are at any moment, to shock, to piss off, to repossess, to realign their scrotum, tits, attitude, skin color, hair color, outfit, and cheekbones! Everyone has a right to be admitted to that exclusive, sexy party. And it's beginning to look as though everyone wants to be. That said, I am skeptical and ultimately wary of enthusiasm for these new "queer" self-congratulatory and self-conscious "transgressive transgendered identities." [...] A contrived identity hyphenated and situated beyond certainty or doubt. I prefer simplicity[...]
He goes on for a full page like that. I don't identify as genderqueer, but it really makes me mad to see anyone, but especially a trans person, slamming and shaming the identities of others this way. How hypocritical can you get? We're constantly bombarded with people who want us to keep it "simple" and "stay as we are", even if we merely wish to travel from one socially acceptable gender norm to the other. How do you justify turning around and throwing that in the face of people who have the audacity to be less "simple" than you? Dismissing it as contrived and nothing more important than the color of your hair? I think it's awful.
Anyway, goes without saying I can't recommend the book. I did enjoy the parts of the memoir that weren't bogged down in sexist and transphobic nonsense, but that's about all I can say. It's a damn shame.
a: Valerio Max Wolf, genre: memoir, subject: transgender, au ethnicity: Native American (Blackfoot), Latino