Article on Matt Kailey (gay FTM author of "Just Add Hormones")

[Marlena Dahlstrom]

Thought you guys might be interested in this article.

Kailey is better known as the author of 2005’s Just Add Hormones: An Insider’s Guide to the Transsexual Experience. The memoir, which will be released in paperback in June, follows Kailey’s transition from 40-something straight woman to the gay man he’d always known himself to be.

[CaptLex]

Thought you guys might be interested in this article.

Interesting article, Marlena. It gives me hope.

A couple of things struck me:

Kailey acknowledges that as a straight woman, he was fairly obtuse about feminist issues and women’s rights. “[Now] I think I am almost, in a way, looking in from the outside and seeing things I didn’t see when I was a female; and seeing some discrimination and things that I didn’t acknowledge or realize as a female.”

I can't understand how he could have been a woman and not have been keenly aware of the discrimination that goes with that. Was he living in a cave?

Also:

He also appreciates women more, Kailey says, now that he isn’t one. “I think maybe when I was one, my own discomfort with myself was projected onto all women. Now that that discomfort with my own self is gone there is no projection anymore and I’m able to see women in a different light, and not such a negative light. Because I think the negativity that I felt about myself was transferred out.”

I believe I can relate to this in some fashion. Relationships with women have always frustrated me, and I realize now it's probably because I felt that I should fit in with their way of seeing things, and I didn't. Now that I see myself somewhat separate from women, I can appreciate their good points.

Thanks again!