Book Marks: The Stranger's Child, Trans/Love, Halsted Plays Himself, Out of Step
Monday, 28 November 2011 12:07 Written by Richard Labonte
http://www.southfloridagaynews.com/arts-and-entertainment/book-reviews/5064-book-marks-the-strangers-child-translove-halsted-plays-himself-out-of-step.htmlTrans/Love: Radical Sex, Love & Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary, edited by Morty Diamond. Manic D Press, 160 pages, $14.95 paper.
Editor Diamond introduces this tender, lustful, wrenching, revelatory and celebratory anthology as "a love letter to the trans community and beyond." It is just that. The 29 contributors range from accomplished authors (Julia Serano, Sassafras Lowrey, Max Wolf Valerio, Imani Henry, Diamond himself) to artists in other media (photographer Amos Mac, filmmakers Ashley Altadonna and Silas Howard, performers Glenn Marla, Cooper Lee Bombardier and Kai Kohlsdorf) to assorted scholars, activists and organizers – even a stay-at-home dad, Patch Avery, who rehearses poetry while vacuuming. The diverse roster of writers is united, engagingly, by both the uncommon quality of their prose and the unvarnished honesty of their mini-memoirs, sexual escapades, transformative journeys and intelligent observations. Their contributions take the catch-all term "transgender" and explode it, in a style that is passionate, poignant and intensely personal, into varied components: transsexual, two spirit, genderqueer, intersex. Best of all, Diamond succeeds in his goal of compiling an anthology that transcends transgender readers – this collection's universal appeal, queer and beyond, is delectable.
