The Riddle of Gender

Front Cover
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Jul 29, 2009 - Social Science - 400 pages
When Deborah Rudacille learned that a close friend had decided to transition from female to male, she felt compelled to understand why.

Coming at the controversial subject of transsexualism from several angles–historical, sociological, psychological, medical–Rudacille discovered that gender variance is anything but new, that changing one’s gender has been met with both acceptance and hostility through the years, and that gender identity, like sexual orientation, appears to be inborn, not learned, though in some people the sex of the body does not match the sex of the brain.

Informed not only by meticulous research, but also by the author’s interviews with prominent members of the transgender community, The Riddle of Gender is a sympathetic and wise look at a sexual revolution that calls into question many of our most deeply held assumptions about what it means to be a man, a woman, and a human being.
 

Contents

The Hands of God
3
Conversation with Ben Barres M D Ph D
21
Through Science to Justice
30
Conversation with Susan Stryker Ph D
52
Men and Women Boys and Girls
102
Conversation with Chelsea Goodwin and Rusty Mae Moore Ph D
141
Afterword to the Anchor Books Edition
293
Acknowledgments
307
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2009)

Deborah Rudacille is a science writer at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of The Scalpel and the Butterfly: The Conflict Between Animal Research and Animal Protection. She lives in Baltimore.

Bibliographic information