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Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality PDF

280 Pages·1998·6.284 MB·English
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Preview Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality

theb odyn arratives oft ranssexuality JAY PROSSER second skins Gender and Culture Series Edited by Carolyn G. Heilbrun and Nancy K. Miller second skins The Body Narratives of Transsexua/ity Jay Prosser Columbia University Press New York ColumbUinai verPsrietsys PublisShienrc1se8 93 NewY ork ChichesWteesrtS, u ssex Copyri©g h1t99C8o lumbUinai verPsrietsys Alrli ghrtess erved LibraorfCy o ngreCsast aloging-in-PDuabtlai cation ProssJeary,. Seconsdk i:nt shbeo dnya rtrviaeosf t ranssexIu Jaalyi ty Prosser. p. cm.- (Gendaenrd c ulture) Inclubdiebsl iograrpehfiecraelan ncdei sn dex. ISBN 978-0-231-10934-5 -ISBN 978-0-231-10935-2 (pbk.) 1. TranssexI.u TailtilIsIe.m S..e ries. HQ77.9.P17969 8 97-32529 306.77-dc21 Casebouenddi tioofCn osl umbUinai verPsrietsbyso okasr e printoenpd e rmaneanntdd urabalcei d-frpeaep er. Printed in the United States of America For my parents contents Acknowledgments IX Introduction: On Transitions-Changing Bodies, Changing Narratives Part 1: Bodies I. Judith Butler: Queer Feminism, Transgender, and the Transubstantiation of Sex 21 2. A Skin of One's Own: Toward a Theory of Transsexual Embodiment 61 Part 2: Narratives 3. Mirror Images: Transsexuality and Autobiography 99 4. "Some Primitive Thing Conceived in a Turbulent Age of Transition": The Invert, The Well of Loneliness, and the Narrative Origins of Transsexuality 135 5. No Place Like Home: Transgender and Trans-Genre in Leslie Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues 171 Epilogue: Transsexuality in Photography-Fielding the Referent 207 Notes 237 Index 261 ackno\vledgments This book took shape as a dissertation under the direction of Nancy K. Miller. Her unwavering support, her astute readings, and, of course, the example of her own work, have been indispensable to every step of my project's progress. I thank her here for her intellectual and professional guidance, for her personal generosity, and for providing me with a pro­ found, pleasurable, and ongoing learning experience. Others' interventions have been invaluable at various stages of the process. Joan Nestle was the first to read transsexual autobiographies with me as part of a field for my doctoral qualifying exams; her enthusi­ asm for their narratives and her question about home served as a crucial spur to the emergence of this project. Tom Hayes and Gerhard Joseph as members of my defense committee read the manuscript in dissertation form. I thank them for their incisive feedback on what was then very much a tome. My dissertation writing group helped me formulate ideas in the early stages; other readers to fine-tune those ideas in the all-impor­ tant final stages. Of particular help en route have been friends and col­ leagues, Deirdre Day McLeod, Clare Hemmings, Deborah Nelson, and Victoria P. Rosner; my readers at Columbia University Press; and my edi­ tor there, Susan Heath. I thank Professor Constance Jordan, the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, and the City University of New York Graduate School English Department for awarding me fellowships that allowed me to focus on the writing, and faculty and colleagues through­ out CUNY for their continued support of my work and welfare.

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