What Becomes You

Being a man, like being a woman, is something you have to learn, Aaron Raz Link remarks. Few would know this better than the coauthor of What Becomes You, who began life as a girl named Sarah and twenty-nine years later began life anew as a gay man. Turning from female to male and from teaching scientist to theatre performer, Link documents the extraordinary medical, social, legal, and personal process involved in a complete identity change. Hilda Raz, a well-known feminist writer and teacher, observes the process as both an astonished parent and as a professor who has studied gender issues. All these perspectives come into play in this collaborative memoir, which travels between womens experience and mens lives, explores the art and science of changing sex, maps uncharted family values, and journeys through a world transformed by surgery, hormones, love, and ...clown school. Combining personal experience and critical analysis, the book is an unusual--and unusually fascinating--reflection on gender, sex, and the art of living.

About the Author :
Aaron Raz Link, a writer, performing artist, curator, and historian of science, is the director of the Museum of Nature in Portland, Oregon. Hilda Raz, a professor of English and women's and gender studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is the Glenna Luschei Endowed Editor of Prairie Schooner and author of the poetry collections, Trans and Divine Honors.

Review :
"Link tells the story with sharp emotion ... [and] often startles with his acute observations. Raz writes in a clearer narrative style and her careful introspection adds to this already nuanced story... [Link and Raz] continue to surprise and challenge us as they pull from their knowledge of biology and feminism, and fairy tales and psychiatry, to wrestle with understanding Link's transsexuality. The memoir welcomes readers into a study of the struggles and complexity of relationships in any family." The Bloomsbury Review "Scientist Link begins his fascinating account of gender reassignment by explaining scientific classification... Raz writes of her child with rare and moving candor... Mother and son's poignant account becomes one of steadfast maternal love in the midst of changes only partly physical. Both knowingly return, always, to the terrain of the heart." "A blend of essay, memoir and intergenerational dialogue, this title is stranger--and smarter--than the average transsexual memoir. Link narrates his transition from female to male over the first 200 pages... Link's mom, Raz, takes over for the next 100 pages, reflecting on her part in her daughter's transformation, her feelings and how they've changed, and her eventual acceptance of the son Link became ... oddly moving, more illuminating and memorable than a straightforward memoir could have been. (Apr.)