GLBT-RT

Brill, Stephanie and Rachel Pepper. The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals. San Francisco, CA: Cleis Press, 2008. Soft cover. 252p. $16.95. ISBN: 978-1-57344-318-0.

Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper's guide for parents of transgender and gender-variant children seeks to fill a gap in both parenting and transgender literature. Building on existing research, as well as the authors' experiences working with families, the book provides an overview of issues ranging from medical care to negotiating what a child will wear to a formal family event. Brill and Pepper offer a mix of practical suggestions and philosophy to guide and reassure parents at all points in their understanding and acceptance of their child.

Starting with clear discussion of relevant terminology, the book speaks to a broad range of issues. The emphasis is always on love: parents must navigate a course that will allow them to support and unconditionally love their child. The book then offers concrete solutions to common problems (for example, recommending that parents role-play answering questions from strangers). To address specific challenges, the authors include sample letters for parents to revise, such as a physician’s recognition of the child's gender status, which the child can carry to show to authorities. Quotations from parents, children, and community members provide real-life perspectives.

Chapters on educational and medical issues also serve as a guide for professionals working with transgendered or gender-variant children. Rather than recommending a single path, the authors acknowledge the different challenges faced by transgender children and gender-variant children. The authors recognize that all families must start where they're at, but offer practical tools for advocating and parenting.

The Transgender Child is a must for all public libraries.

Reviewed by Kelly McElroy
School of Library Archival and Information Studies
University of British Columbia.

Queer Youth Cultures. Edited by Susan Driver. State University of New York Press, 2008. softcover. 307p. $28.00. ISBN:978-0-7914-7338-2.

Susan Driver's Queer Youth Cultures is a refreshing, analytical view of contemporary queer youth, seen not as victims or martyrs, but as cultural and political catalysts in the everyday world. Such diverse cultural practices as lesbian punk rock, zines, on-line dating (The Pink Sofa), drag performance, and sissy boys are examined by a variety of primarily academic researchers (including several based in Australia). Permeating throughout are the voices and views of queer youth.

The book is divided into three handy sections: 1. "Performative Queer Youth Cultures, Embodiments, and Communities"; 2. "Desiring Youth and Un/Popular Cultures"; and 3. "Transforming Political Action." A photo spread by Cass Bird is also included. And, just in case you are not up-to-date, "queer youth" encompasses GLBTTIQQ (gay-lesbian-bisexual-transsexual-transgender-intersex-queer-and/or questioning individuals).

Enough said, get this for your library. It fills an important role in any cultural/gay/women's studies collection, and could be a lifeline for the queer youth that grace your doorstep.

Reviewed by Morgan Gwenwald
SUNY New Paltz

Knoop, Savannah. Girl Boy Girl: How I became JT Leroy. New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, 2008. softcover. 223p. $17.95. ISBN: 978-1-58322-851-7

Imagine living a double life. That's not so really hard to envision. But think of doing it as an internationally recognized author who hangs with the likes of Debbie Harry and Winona Ryder. Suppose you stumbled into this because your sister-in-law was in a jam and needed the physical manifestation of her alter-ego, known as JT.

Girl Boy Girl reveals the details of Savannah Knoop's six year experience portraying JT Leroy in the international literary and party circuit, where she presents herself as a "gay-male-ex-truck-stop-prostitute-turned-literary-wunderkind." While this story has not gained the notoriety other recent literary frauds have been given, it has been covered in the national press.

This memoir is unexpected, and while the storyline is rather fascinating, it leaves the reader with more questions than answers. The author did not quite go deep enough to explain what may very well be too hard to explain without serious discomfort: questioning definitions of gender, sexuality, family, love, and loyalty. Knoop may need a little more time to experience life and, thus, gain enough perspective before she truly understands what happened during what was surely a chaotic time in her young adult years.

I recommend this book to any library seeking to offer the most current and hip books. It might interest those readers who dream about the international literary circuit.

Reviewed by Lisa Forslund
Librarian, North Hennepin Community College

Kissack, Terence. Free Comrades: Anarchism and Homosexuality in the United States, 1895 – 1917. Oakland, California: AK Press, 2008. 237p. $17.95. ISBN: 978-1904859116.

I'm always delighted when I read a book that, on first glance, I'd pass over, only to find myself challenged with new material and ideas. Originating from Terrence Kissack's dissertation, completed at the City University of New York, Free Comrades examines anarchism's concerns with the conflict between individual freedom and state power, a conflict with which members of the LGBT community will identify.

Kissack possesses a thorough knowledge of anarchist literature, by both American and European writers. He examines the extensive anarchist
writings on varied topics, including the trial of Oscar Wilde, the view that marriage as an institution was an attack on individual freedom, and the changing view of Walt Whitman's sexual orientation between 1895 and 1917.

Based on these and other examinations, Kissack describes the intellectual contributions that many anarchists made toward the changing view of homosexuality, and the subsequent groundwork this laid for the LGBT community. And he makes clear the irony of the anarchist attack on marriage, which—in part—prepared for the current legal efforts for marriage.

Free Comrades is a challenging book, but its importance makes it well worth the effort. It, to the best of my knowledge, breaks new ground in LGBT studies. The index must be used with care as personal names, while alphabetical by surname, are listed with the forename first.

This title is highly recommended for all academic and special libraries that collect for gender studies, US intellectual history, anarchism, and American literature.

Reviewed by Dave Combe