"In Sexual Metamorphosis, Ames presents the personal narratives of seventeen gender pioneers. Here is Christine Jorgensen, the first celebrity transsexual, greeting thousands of well-wishers from the stage of Madison Square Garden. Here is Caroline Cossey, former model and Bond (as in James) girl, being outed in the tabloid press.
Here is novelist and English professor Jennifer Finney Boylan discussing her impending transformation with her heartbroken spouse and supportive yet confused colleagues. The result is a fascinating and compulsively readable book, filled with anguish, introspection and courage."
"The book covers such surprising subjects as a Bond girl, a Gulf War vet turned beauty queen and an amateur tennis champion while offering such prurient details as the gory particulars of the operations themselves and the first post-op sexual encounters. But it's the excerpts' most human moments-attempts to explain the transformation to young (and even grown) children, reactions of family, friends and strangers-as well as otherwise mundane situations (i.e., getting fitted for one's first suit as a man) that truly make the book a worthwhile cover-to-cover read.
Being an anthology, the book is naturally uneven in sections, occasionally dull or repetitive but, in general, Ames makes great choices in his excerpts, and his introduction is good enough that one wishes he had inserted his own voice in the volume just a bit more."
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