Just Add Hormones: An Insider's Guide to the Transsexual Experience
Matt Kailey lived as a straight woman for the first forty-two years of his life. Though happy as a social worker and teacher, he knew something wasn't right. Then he made some changes. With the help of a good therapist, chest surgery, and some strong doses of testosterone, Kailey began his journey toward becoming a man.\ As his body morphed and his voice dropped, Kailey began noticing subtle shifts in the way he was treated. Men suddenly stopped offering to change flat tires for him but...
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Matt Kailey lived as a straight woman for the first forty-two years of his life, and then he changed. With the help of a good therapist, chest surgery, and some strong doses of testosterone, Kailey began living life as the man he’d always wanted to be. Now, in Just Add Hormones, Kailey uses humor and humility to explain his journey toward accepting himself as neither a woman nor someone born male.Kailey answers all the questions you’ve ever had about what it’s like to live as a transsexual. From the fear of public restrooms to deciding whether to “pack” his pants, he explains what the world looks like from his new male vantage point. More than a memoir, Just Add Hormones is full of advice for those who may be questioning their gender while also offering valuable insights to the family and friends of those who have started a transition. People frequently ask Kailey “Are you done?” In Just Add Hormones, Kailey reassures readers that being a transsexual is about more than some operation: it is a state of mind, a place between the two genders that can cause us all to consider—and even laugh at—our own notions of what being a man or a woman means. Kirkus Reviews Not only a navigational aid for any woman contemplating gender change by one who's been there, but a heartfelt plea for mainstream American society to understand, accept and support gender diversity. Kailey was born a girl, but after 42 years of feeling out of place in a female body underwent gender reassignment. In his case, this meant chest surgery and testosterone injections, but not genital surgery. He reveals very little of his first four decades but is astonishingly open about the transition period and his present life as a self-styled "gay transman." (The designation "gay" signifies that he is attracted to men since his sexual orientation remains the same as when he was a female, and the prefix "trans" indicates that he is not truly a man since he lacks male genitals.) Going bare-chested in public, having to change his car's tire without help for the first time, trying out a fake phallus, getting rebuffed in the Internet romance game, using a public men's room, going to a gynecologist for an annual Pap test, attending a conference with hundreds of other female-to-male transsexuals-Kailey describes all with frankness, and by engaging his reader with honesty and a touch of humor, he makes his life seem less alien than it might first appear to the straight world. In Kailey's ideal society, there's a place for every sexual persuasion-straight, gay, lesbian, transsexual and the intersexed-and the only way such a world can come about, he believes, is if people like himself speak up and show everyone who they are. If educating the public means sacrificing his privacy, Kailey seems willing to go far to get his message of tolerance out. An eye-opener, sometimes shocking but never smutty.
\ Kirkus ReviewsNot only a navigational aid for any woman contemplating gender change by one who's been there, but a heartfelt plea for mainstream American society to understand, accept and support gender diversity. Kailey was born a girl, but after 42 years of feeling out of place in a female body underwent gender reassignment. In his case, this meant chest surgery and testosterone injections, but not genital surgery. He reveals very little of his first four decades but is astonishingly open about the transition period and his present life as a self-styled "gay transman." (The designation "gay" signifies that he is attracted to men since his sexual orientation remains the same as when he was a female, and the prefix "trans" indicates that he is not truly a man since he lacks male genitals.) Going bare-chested in public, having to change his car's tire without help for the first time, trying out a fake phallus, getting rebuffed in the Internet romance game, using a public men's room, going to a gynecologist for an annual Pap test, attending a conference with hundreds of other female-to-male transsexuals-Kailey describes all with frankness, and by engaging his reader with honesty and a touch of humor, he makes his life seem less alien than it might first appear to the straight world. In Kailey's ideal society, there's a place for every sexual persuasion-straight, gay, lesbian, transsexual and the intersexed-and the only way such a world can come about, he believes, is if people like himself speak up and show everyone who they are. If educating the public means sacrificing his privacy, Kailey seems willing to go far to get his message of tolerance out. An eye-opener, sometimes shocking but never smutty.\ \
