![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque(Full book title doesn't fit in the subject; it is The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation from Female to Male.)
Note: Max Valerio is the same person as Anita Valerio, as published in This Bridge Called My Back, which I know has been reviewed here. It would be nice if we could easily find all his works together through the tagging system, but I can't think of a way to do that without misgendering him. Any thoughts?
Max Valerio is a trans man (like me) who spent many years living in San Francisco (where I'm from). You might think there'd be a lot in his memoir that I could relate to, but for the most part you'd be wrong.
Oh, there is some. His portrait of the life and atmosphere of San Francisco in the 90s is pitch-perfect and often quite funny. (He should write a novel about the lesbian punk scene then.) I was nodding along to his struggles with deciding to transition and sifting out the right from the wrong information about trans people, and his worries about whether he would lose all his gay and lesbian friends if he became "straight". (He lost some -- so did I.)
( What I did not nod along to (warning: discusses problematic views of rape) )
Anyway, goes without saying I can't recommend the book. I did enjoy the parts of the memoir that weren't bogged down in sexist and transphobic nonsense, but that's about all I can say. It's a damn shame.
a: Valerio Max Wolf, genre: memoir, subject: transgender, au ethnicity: Native American (Blackfoot), Latino
Note: Max Valerio is the same person as Anita Valerio, as published in This Bridge Called My Back, which I know has been reviewed here. It would be nice if we could easily find all his works together through the tagging system, but I can't think of a way to do that without misgendering him. Any thoughts?
Max Valerio is a trans man (like me) who spent many years living in San Francisco (where I'm from). You might think there'd be a lot in his memoir that I could relate to, but for the most part you'd be wrong.
Oh, there is some. His portrait of the life and atmosphere of San Francisco in the 90s is pitch-perfect and often quite funny. (He should write a novel about the lesbian punk scene then.) I was nodding along to his struggles with deciding to transition and sifting out the right from the wrong information about trans people, and his worries about whether he would lose all his gay and lesbian friends if he became "straight". (He lost some -- so did I.)
( What I did not nod along to (warning: discusses problematic views of rape) )
Anyway, goes without saying I can't recommend the book. I did enjoy the parts of the memoir that weren't bogged down in sexist and transphobic nonsense, but that's about all I can say. It's a damn shame.
a: Valerio Max Wolf, genre: memoir, subject: transgender, au ethnicity: Native American (Blackfoot), Latino
