Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity

(Hardback)

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A deep sociological portrait of a new generation of transgender men and of how they see themselves and the world, the dangers they continue to face, and the important ways in which they shape our culture. Ben, Parker, Lucas, Nadia are four patients of Florida's Dr. Charles Garramonepreparing to receive surgery to masculinize their chests on the same day. In the following years, they, along with more than a hundred others across the country, opened up to the award-winning professor of gender and sexuality Arlene Stein about how they conceive of their identities and sexuality, how they decided to transition, how they were received by their families and communities, and the joys and challenges they continue to face after transitioning. Weaving together the history of the transgender movement and the personal journeys of these transgender individuals, Stein sheds light on how transgender men tell their stories, make sense of their lives, and build communities in the face of skepticism, confusion, ignorance, and, often, violence. Because despite any progress we've made as a culture in accepting alternative identities, Ben and the others Stein meets continue to live in a world that is dangerous to them. In this moving, raw, intimate book about the lives of transgender men, Stein reveals how transgender men as a group, largely invisible in previous decades, today exert a significant impact on business, medicine, culture, and have drastically reshaped how we as a nation conceive of gender, sex, and identity. In so doing, Stein has also created an essential resource on female to male transitioning- for parents, educators, friends, and those who question their identities and seek further information.

Reviews

"Earnest, diligent and defiantly optimistic....What gives this book its real heat -- is more personal; it's the challenge posed to [Stein's] own cherished beliefs."
--Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

"A book written by a sociologist who writes like a novelist. It's a rare nonfiction page-turner and an important book."
--Rebecca Makkai, Conde Nast Traveler

"Sensitive....A much needed primer for those who are puzzled by contemporary discussions about gender."
--The New Yorker

"Moves beyond the popular fixation on bathroom politics to explore individual lives."
--The Washington Post

"Moving.... By allowing her subjects to speak for themselves as those selves are reinvented in various ways, Stein leaves room for productive conversations to appear."
--Harper's Magazine

"For readers bewildered by how to make sense of gender today.... Having received rave reviews, for those wanting to learn more about transgender people, especially as their issues continue to make news, Unbound serves as a useful primer."
--The Bay Area Reporter

"Stein tracks the rapid evolution of gender identity in this provocative group portrait of trans men....Her book succeeds in documenting what it means to be trans today."
--Publishers Weekly

"Arlene Stein brings insight, wit, and generosity to this perceptive analysis of the dazzling shifts in how we imagine, and live out, gender today. Unbound will surprise readers who thought they had this figured out decades ago."
--Janice Irvine, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts

"A new sociological study on transgender individuals and their experience transitioning. This significant book provides medical, sociological, and psychological information that can only serve to educate those lacking understanding and awareness of an entire community of individuals who deserve representation. A stellar exploration of the complexities and limitations of gender."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred)

"If you've been trying to make sense of how gender today seems to have slipped the chains that bind it to our bodies in familiar ways, Unbound is a book for you. It's a sympathetic account by non-transgender sociologist Arlene Stein, aimed at a primarily non-transgender audience, of four people assigned female at birth who surgically masculinize their chests. Stein helps her readers understand that they, too, no longer need be bound by conventional expectations of the meaning of our flesh."
--Susan Stryker, founding co-editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly

"In this gripping, illuminating and clear-eyed portrait of what it means to be transmasculine in today's America, Arlene Stein does justice to an oft-misrepresented topic. A vivid and fiercely empathetic narrative that juxtaposes nuanced portraits of these young people with a clearly articulated understanding of what it means to navigate a culture that treats gender minorities with contempt, ignorance, and violence. Unbound is a revelatory read that fills an important role in gender studies."
--Ryan Berg, author of No House to Call My Home

"Unbound is a timely and critical response to the loud silence permeating the current public discourse on gender and transgender experiences, especially the lived realities of transgender men within the US. A critical and stunning work that will shift the ways gender has been politicized and imagined. Should be required reading for all."
--Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America

Author Bio

ARLENE STEIN is a Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. The author of four books, she received the Simon and Gagnon Award for career contributions to the study of sexualities and the Ruth Benedict Prize. She also serves on the graduate faculty of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies. She has written for The Nation, Jacobin, The New Inquiry, Haaretz, Vice and elsewhere. She lives in New Jersey.