I finally got around to reading Whipping Girl (I'd been hoping to find it in one of the libraries around here -- but it isn't, or in a local bookstore -- there aren't any any more -- so I bit the bullet and paid off Jeff Bezos for a copy.) I was really impressed. Maybe it's because I've been thinking about a lot of the things she writes about, but most of what she says seems so obvious once I read it. It's either: why didn't I think of that? or: that's what I was trying to think, only she manages to make it make sense.
One thing that really touched me, though, was her take on why it's reasonable to say that trans women are women. Most of the time when people talk about it, it seems like they're arguing about definitions and which one is the One True Definition of Woman (tm). I think that's what she means by "reductionist." She keeps saying that being trans is not about definitions, it's about lived experience. For instance, that after living as a woman for a few years, "thinking of myself as a woman simply began to make sense; it resonated with my lived experiences."
This was really helpful to me, since I'm just on the threshold of transitioning, and I'm suddenly really realizing that I don't know what it's going to feel like and I am scared *-less. I'm afraid I'm going to feel like (and look like) even more of a freak than I've already been feeling like for the past ~50 years.
Some of the other stuff she says she thought and felt resonate with me to, like "I can honestly say I never 'felt like a woman' before my transition." And what she says about femininity.
There are some chapters I couldn't get through, though. Like the one about how the psychiatric establishment has abused trans people, or the one about the murdered trans girl. They were just too upsetting.
I'm at the point in my life where transition doesn't seem like a choice any more, it's an inevitability. So mostly I'm trying to figure out how to pick my way down the rocky trail without banging myself up too much and without panicking too much, either. And this book has definitely helped, at least with the second part.
Anyway, I can see why this is one of the must-read books about transgender-ness.
