Normal: 4* for Amy Bloom's thankfully dated exploration

[Cheryl]

A short book, lots of information, lots to learn not just about the three "communities" investigated but also about people who consider those ppl unnatural or sick, but covered quickly, concisely. Bibliography.

Fortunately, progress has been made. We probably owe a lot of our more loving understandings to some of the people named here, for example Cheryl Chase. I'm queer myself, so nothing here really surprised me. But some things appalled me, for example the prevalence of the attitude among doctors that intersexed newborns need to be fixed immediately.

Chase is a strong woman. The wives of the male heterosexual cross-dressers are, in their way, strong women. Bloom herself is a strong woman, for admitting to her ignorance and prejudice, doing all this research, and readjusting her understandings.

[Anita]

Cheryl wrote: "A short book, lots of information, lots to learn not just about the three "communities" investigated but also about people who consider those ppl unnatural or sick, but covered quickly, concisely. ..."

Great title for your review . . .

So glad you see progress, Cheryl . . .that is heartening. I went to an all women's college in the eighties, so it seemed to me, at the time, that the world was more accepting than apparently it actually was. Have you ever read Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity? It touches on some of these same subjects in a way I thought was very eye opening.

[Cheryl]

That does look like an interesting book, ty.

[Cynda]

While I am a hetero woman, I have loved in various ways lbgtq men and women, yet it shames me that until shortly after 2000 I did not dream of equal civil rights for my intimate friends, aunts, cousins, lovers (including my son's father). Sometimes love needs to be educated.

What changed me was a small (blue?) book sitting on the New Shelf stacks the local library. In that book I read that in ten-ish years that gay rights would be the new civil rights. The idea astounded me. My reaction astounded me. I lived with being astounded until my visceral self matched up with my cerebral self.

Namaste.

[Cheryl]

Thank you, Cynda, what a lovely story.

[JoLene]

I didn't know that Bloom wrote a book about this subject. I live in the CA Bay area (near San Francisco) and so there is a lot of acceptance of different lifestyles -- so I'm in the same bubble as Anita.