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Because transsexuals possess bodies that their minds cannot accept, they are trapped between society's demand to conform to the anatomical self thrust on them by birth and their own desire to conform to a different interior self, Although the transsexual dresses and behaves as a member of the morphologically opposite sex, this is neither a case of transvestism nor homosexualiy. Psyahologically. the transsexual is a female within a male body, or a male within a female body. In the past these distinctions were virtually ignored by the medical world. Recently, however, attempts have been made, particularly at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, to determine precisely what constitutes transsexualism and to treat surgically those suffering from it. As important as the need to identify and heat the problem itself is the need to combat the emotionalism and prejudice surrounding the subject, which hamper serious research [Green and Money, 1969: Inside cover notes].

The social worker can be of significant help in the treatment of the transsexual client through informed use of skills and creation of a network of resources

Cover -- FTM -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- New Foreword -- Original Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- New Introduction -- Original Introduction -- PART I: FIRST QUESTIONS -- 1 Have Female-to-Male Transsexuals Always Existed? -- 2 Theories about Transsexualism -- PART II: CHILDHOOD YEARS -- 3 Finding Out about Gender: Theories of Childhood Gender Acquisition -- 4 Family Scenes -- 5 Who Would Want to Be a Girl?: The Women (and Girls) in Participants' Families -- 6 Men Rule: The Men (and Boys) in Participants' Families

Holly Devor spent many years compiling indepth interviews and researching the lives of transsexual and transgendered people, many of whom became her friends. She traces the everyday and significant events that coalesce in transsexual identity, culminating in gender and sex transformation. After an introduction which grounds the discussion in historical and theoretical contexts, the author takes a life course approach to understanding female-to-male transsexualism. Using her subjects' own words as illustrations, Devor looks at how childhood, adolescent, and adult experiences with family members, peers, and lovers work to shape and clarify female-to-male transsexuals' images of themselves as people who should be men.