Just Add Hormones: An Insider's Guide to the Transsexual Experience

I volunteered to review Just Add Hormones because I've made a surprising number of transgender friends over the years. On the one hand, I've never had major issues with someone's transition, but on the other hand, I've never really asked those nagging questions either. As a gay man who used to speak at colleges and high schools about being gay (an activity that seems so pass? in the new millennium), I perhaps became overly sensitive to getting asked the standard questions: "Why did you become this way?", "How did you know?", and of course, "Do you like taking it up the butt?" But in hindsight, the people who asked these questions outside of the classroom probably just wanted to understand me better, and if I had to be the token gay friend, so be it. Nowadays, practically everyone seems to have a token gay friend or ten, so the questions get spread around a bit more. However, with regard to the transgender community, most people are still in the early stages of enlightenment, if not still in denial about their existence.

If you're one of those people who, like me, doesn't want to bother your friends with probing personal questions that they've already dealt with a million times, or if you don't yet have a transgender friend, or even if you're just wondering about gender issues (for any reason), pick up Just Add Hormones: An Insider's Guide to the Transsexual Experience. In this slim volume, Matt Kailey answers a nearly exhaustive list of questions about his transition from a woman to a man. However, more significantly, he provides a unique point of view as a person who has lived in a world of both genders.

Kailey busts plenty of myths in this book, although not through academic rigor. "Just Add Hormones" is almost entirely tied to Kailey's own transition process, so your mileage on his experience may vary. However, he's an engaging storyteller and a clear thinker, so it's quite easy to get caught up in his point of view.

One of the more interesting observations that Kailey makes is about the myth of male privilege. A common assumption is that female-to-male transsexuals merely want the power of the (perceived) penis. However, Kailey discovers that even though he's sure he is more comfortable in a man's body than a woman's, he actually has just as much to learn in order to fit into male society as he had to learn in order to be a woman. Most of us don't notice this learning because it's part of our upbringing in our birth gender: we're "trained" to be what we are by the world around us.

If there's any weakness in Kailey's book, it's that he spends a bit too much time talking about the unique political position that transsexuals occupy in the world, while skipping over a few basic questions that I had, such as "How did you realize you would be more comfortable as a man in the first place?" On the other hand, maybe that's one of those unanswerable questions, like explaining to people how I knew I was attracted to men: I just was, and always have been. This isn't to say that Kailey's political message isn't appropriate; it is, in fact, an excellent call for unity between the gay and lesbian and transgender communities, and one that is badly needed. The section on gay marriage and how transsexuals can change politics is perhaps overly optimistic, but nonetheless insightful.

The most entertaining, informative, and insightful portion of the book are Kailey's stories about his gender transition experience. Like most people dealing with any sort of "coming out", he didn't start out as an expert on the issues, and he had to break through many of his own assumptions and prejudices. In the chapter "Dickless in Denver", Kailey talks about his struggle with desire for a male-male relationship with a "real" man (i.e. one with a penis) while experiencing rejection from men who want the same from him. Ultimately, he accepts his identity as a "trans man" and he begins to let go of his idealized relationship expectations.

As a former social worker, Kailey brings depth to his analysis of his personal experiences that will resonate with many readers. He's funny (especially when describing dealing with his family), insightful, and overall a pleasure to read. Nontrans folk will find the book quite useful for its explanation of gender terms, and its description of the transition process. Trans folk will, I suspect, also find the book useful as a source of political and personal inspiration. Kailey is so charming that by the end of his book, my only real nagging question was "Why doesn't this man have a boyfriend yet?"