A review by ketsu_onyo
Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition by P. Carl

5.0

We need more voices like P. Carl in the world. People who really understand, not from an armchair, but from harsh experience, the reality of how women's bodies are commodified, used, and abused from both the male and female perspective. This book opened my eyes to new jagged twists to the cruel existential crises faced by trans folk; their truly "doubled" lives and the mental pretzels they have to tie themselves into in their minds just to take another breath in our society. This book is not for TERFs. If they aren't convinced by now that being trans is real, this book will not change that. It will only solidify their cognitive dissonance by asserting that the male gender identity indeed does have more freedom, power, and respect in society. TERFs will read it as proof that female to male transition is a betrayal by women willing to "cheat the system" in order to get access to that power. But the empathic, scientific minded person will read this as more proof that life is far less organized and certain than that, with sex and gender identity both being on a spectrum while remaining separate, but intertwined, realities.