hannazoeo 's review for:

Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee

4.25

---

Powerful and inquisitive trans memoir. A memoir that centers around an event: McBee participating in a charity boxing match. I love how McBee explores the difference between the effect his male body has on women, and the effect it had as a woman’s body before transitioning. 

“As the testosterone took hold and reshaped my body, its impact as an object in space grew increasingly bewildering: the expectation that I not be afraid juxtaposed against the fear I inspired in a woman, alone on a dark street; the silencing effect of my voice in a meeting; the unearned presumption of my competence; my power; my potential.”