Book 8: Normal
Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude
by Amy Bloom
I'm rather behind in posting books, and I'll start with this one because I'm ready to return it to the library.
Amy Bloom's editor asked her if there was anything she wondered about and never understood, then sent her off to write an essay on that topic. The book Normal is the eventual result - three long essays, one each on transsexuals, heterosexual crossdressers, and the intersexed. Each essay comes out of many in-person interviews and spending time with the folks she was writing about. The essays are well-written, accessible, and frank. As one who celebrates a mutliplicity or range of both sexuality and gender, as opposed strict dualities of either, I found the essays engaging and interesting.
I very much liked one of the paragraphs from the conclusion: "A great many people, sick of news from the margins,* worn out by the sand shifting beneath their assumptions, like to imagine Nature as a sweet, simple voice: tulips in spring, Vermont's leaves falling in autumn. There are, of course, occasional mistakes - a leaf that doesn't fall, a clubfoot; our mistake is in thinking that the wide range of humanity represents aberration when in fact it represents just what it is: range. Nature is not two little notes on a childs' flute; Nature is more like Aretha Franklin: vast, magnificent, capricious - occasionally hilarious - and infinitely varied. The platypus is not a mistake. The sex-changing animals, coral reef fish and Chinook salmon among them, are not mistakes. The cactus and the blue potato are not mistakes. These plants and animals may not be as reassuring a sign as tulips are, but that doesn't make them deformities" (132-133).
Bloom notes that "we seem to have gotten the difference between gender and sexuality reasonably clear: men are not defined primarily as creatures who only desire women, and sexual desire for men is not the thing that makes a person female" (133). She goes on to make the point that stereotypes of lesbians as butch and gay men as effeminate does not allow room for masculine straight women or feminine straight men in our culture - "we pretend that sexual orientation and personal style are one and the same and that those who suggest otherwise are trying to make fools of us or hide their shameful preference. Presented with nature's bouquet of possibilities, a wild assortment of gender and erotic preference and a vast array of personalities, we throw it to the ground" (134).
Thought-provoking and thoughtful, highly recommended.
* She notes earlier in the book that change, especially on gender issues and issues of civil rights, comes from the margins, not the center/establishment.
by Amy Bloom
I'm rather behind in posting books, and I'll start with this one because I'm ready to return it to the library.
Amy Bloom's editor asked her if there was anything she wondered about and never understood, then sent her off to write an essay on that topic. The book Normal is the eventual result - three long essays, one each on transsexuals, heterosexual crossdressers, and the intersexed. Each essay comes out of many in-person interviews and spending time with the folks she was writing about. The essays are well-written, accessible, and frank. As one who celebrates a mutliplicity or range of both sexuality and gender, as opposed strict dualities of either, I found the essays engaging and interesting.
I very much liked one of the paragraphs from the conclusion: "A great many people, sick of news from the margins,* worn out by the sand shifting beneath their assumptions, like to imagine Nature as a sweet, simple voice: tulips in spring, Vermont's leaves falling in autumn. There are, of course, occasional mistakes - a leaf that doesn't fall, a clubfoot; our mistake is in thinking that the wide range of humanity represents aberration when in fact it represents just what it is: range. Nature is not two little notes on a childs' flute; Nature is more like Aretha Franklin: vast, magnificent, capricious - occasionally hilarious - and infinitely varied. The platypus is not a mistake. The sex-changing animals, coral reef fish and Chinook salmon among them, are not mistakes. The cactus and the blue potato are not mistakes. These plants and animals may not be as reassuring a sign as tulips are, but that doesn't make them deformities" (132-133).
Bloom notes that "we seem to have gotten the difference between gender and sexuality reasonably clear: men are not defined primarily as creatures who only desire women, and sexual desire for men is not the thing that makes a person female" (133). She goes on to make the point that stereotypes of lesbians as butch and gay men as effeminate does not allow room for masculine straight women or feminine straight men in our culture - "we pretend that sexual orientation and personal style are one and the same and that those who suggest otherwise are trying to make fools of us or hide their shameful preference. Presented with nature's bouquet of possibilities, a wild assortment of gender and erotic preference and a vast array of personalities, we throw it to the ground" (134).
Thought-provoking and thoughtful, highly recommended.
* She notes earlier in the book that change, especially on gender issues and issues of civil rights, comes from the margins, not the center/establishment.