Beyond "man" and "woman"

In addition, any potential parent would be well advised to read Bloom's essay on intersexed people. She cites "a conservative estimate" that five babies with ambiguous genitals are born every day in the United States. Bloom shares several case histories, like that of Hale Hawbecker, "a regular, middle-of-the-road, white-bread guy with a kind face and a quiet wardrobe," who has become an advocate and educator working with the ISNA. Hawbecker speaks publicly about his experience as a male born with "very, very small" genitals and he expresses thanks to his parents for resisting doctors' suggestions that "their son was deformed." If all parents entered the delivery room knowing that healthy children are sometimes born with functional genitals that don't match conventional expectations, perhaps we can halt, in Bloom's words, America's "disappearing act on hermaphrodites." Through early medical intervention, she writes, "we have turned a lot of baby boys into baby girls, and a lot of healthy baby girls into traumatized ones."

A preface and an afterword serve as bookends for the three essays. The preface explains Bloom's motivations for writing Normal, and the afterword, entitled "On Nature," gives Bloom a place to make connections between the essays. Clearly, she wants to educate her readers, members of a culture who "will not see, [who] will silence and mock" people who don't fit within "normal" categories, and her afterword drives home the argument for increased knowledge and understanding.

For readers who already have a Sensitivity to transgender issues, the afterword may feel a bit superfluous. The voices that emerge through her interviews stand well enough on their own, but I was won over by Bloom's friendliness and insight, as well as her willingness to confess to the gaps in her own knowledge. I'd have been left hanging if Bloom hadn't offered some parting thoughts on the hope that her readers might "see further and better" into these particular worlds and back out to the larger one we all share.

Amanda Laughtland lives in a suburb of Seattle and works in a neighborhood library. More of her writing is posted on her website at www.bookish.org.

COPYRIGHT 2002 The Progressive, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group