Normal by Amy Bloom

[Aoife]

Who else has read this book? I am surprised it hasn’t come up yet! It’s a three part non-fiction covering a trans man, intersexed people and you guessed it, mtf cross dressers! I read it my freshman year in college and mostly enjoyed it.

HOWEVER, its portrayal of cross dressers is pretty negative. It’s all very objective so I can’t fault the writer, but her subjects were what I think of as the worst examples of cross dressers. To be polite they were otherwise very « old-fashioned » American (obviously) men who were pretty belligerent and inconsiderate with their wives and families. Given the kind of men it was hard to feel all that sympathetic for these women too, but I was really bothered by the CDs selfishness. Ultimately it gave me a lot of shame for my own urges.

Early college would have been such an ideal time to experiment, especially at a supposedly queer-friendly school but that really put me back in the closet and made me think « that time in my life is long over. » I felt relief as I hadn’t felt THAT much need to dress in over half a decade, but 5 years later it was on my mind again and 7 years after that… here I am!

Anyone else have a similar response? Even if you haven’t read ‘Normal,’ I’m sure you’ve seen the kind of CD who both lives out all the negatives of masculinity yet dresses in a way that discomforts his supposed loved ones without any care.

[Aoife]

That’s a bit beside the point given the context. What’s shown in the book is pretty abusive. While crossdressing is as innocuous as it gets the dynamics around it in there are pretty toxic. Personally I think a lot of the blame is on the wives for not leaving, but there’s really little healthy about the attitudes in there.

[Author]

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