Self-Made Men: Identity and Embodiment among Transsexual Men
In Self-Made Men, Henry Rubin explores the production of male identities in the lives of twenty-two FTM transsexuals--people who have changed their sex from female to male. The author relates the compelling personal narratives of his subjects to the historical emergence of FTM as an identity category.
In the interviews that form the heart of the book, the FTMs speak about their struggles to define themselves and their diverse experiences, from the pressures of gender conformity in adolescence to being mistaken for "butch lesbians," from hormone treatments and surgeries to relationships with families, partners, and acquaintances.
Why do some people commit crimes, use the wrong fork, or speak out of turn? How does a society determine when a crime has been committed, which fork to use, and who should speak when? How have we tried to explain deviance and create categories of deviants? What has been the role of race and class in these definitions? How do deviants reconcile their behavior with society's norms? What have been the contributions of Freud, Durkheim, Lombroso, and modern literary criticism to our understanding of deviance and conformity? How is the practice of science itself an example of deviance and conformity?
