 Trans Forming Families: Real Stories About Transgendered Loved Ones
Author: Mary Boenke
Publisher: Oak Knoll Press
ISBN: 0615123074
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: 1 February 2003
This is a family oriented book published especially for families, friends, and others interested in understanding and learning about transgendered persons. The first edition sold out; this is the expanded second edition, published in 2003. It deals with all ages and types of transgender -  FTM, MTF, Intersex, crossdressing, and androgeny. It is an ideal first book for families who want to understand.
There are seven sections. Section one is comprised of stories written by parents of very young gender variant children, i.e pre-schoolers and school age children who insisted they were not the gender their parents thought they were. Section two is by parents of adult transgenders, each describing their child's coming out process and the journey this revelation started for both the adult child AND the whole family. Section three includes stories by spouses and partners who have weathered the trauma of living through a gender change with their most significant other. Section four is by strategic others - grandparents, siblings, friends, children of trangenders.
In Section five, transgender folks tell about coming out to their children, with both positive and some painful results. Section Six includes short autobiographies by transgender persons, who are FTM, MTF, Intersex, crossdresser, and androgenous. In Section Seven several psychotherapists talk about common issues transgenders raise in therapy.
The back matter includes:
Glosary of Transgender Terms
National Transgender Organizations
Transgender Family Reading List
...How to Contact Authors
Also included are short quotations, quips, poems and items that are both profound and humorous. A quick, fun read.
About the Author
Mary Boenke is the mother of an FTM adult son, a long-time activist who turned to transgender education, support and advocacy when her adult child, then a 38 year old lesbian, came out a second time as a transsexual. She is a retired psychotherapist and organizer, and has been long active with Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays as a Regional Director, "mid-wife" to 8-10 chapters, and national board member. She heped found PFLAG's Transgender Network, now with Transgender Coordinators in about 250 chapters across the country.
From the Back Cover
Trans Forming Families is one of THE, yes, THE most pro-family books I've ever read. If you know of any grandparent, parent, sibling, spouse or child who is having difficulty dealing with a transendered family member or spouse, you would show them a great act of love by getting this book into their hands. - Phyllis Frye, founder and past ED of the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy.
No concerned parent, family member or friend of a transgendered or transsexual person can fail to be moved by these stories; a long overdue resource, a book of love. - Jamison Green, writer, gender diversity consultant, president of FTM International, Inc.
"Must read" is hardly adequate -- it is a must-feel, must-understand kind of book...plunges the reader into the kaleidoscopic diversity and courageous decisons of transgendered experience. - Patricia Nell Waren, author of The Front Runner.
Having a transgendered child, parent, or lover can be a disorienting and lonely experience. Trans Forming Families is a bright beacon for families experiencing this type of stress, a long needed resource. - Dallas Denny, founder and past ED, American Educational Gender Information Services, Inc.
Trans Forming Families is eye-opening, educational, informative, inspiring and, ultimately, a must-read book for anyone interested in learning more about an important, often-overlooked and much-misunderstood segment of the human community. - Dan Woog, author of School's Out: The Impact of Gay and Lesbian Issues on America's Schools.
The variety of people - deaf, Iranian, gay, straight, young, old, single, large families, Christian, feminist -- present an extremely diversifies and rich range of experiences. - Gary Bowen, author, activist, Coordinator-in-Chief, American Boyz.
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