Description
Book SynopsisEric Plemons explores the ways in which facial feminization surgery is changing the ways in which trans- women are not only perceived of as women, but in the ways it is altering the project of surgical sex reassignment and the understandings of what sex means.
Trade Review"This is a well-written and thought-provoking contribution not only to transgender studies but also to our debate about how we necessarily and constantly refashion ourselves." -- Sander L. Gilman * Critical Inquiry *
“An exceptionally well-written book, based on highly engaged fieldwork . . . and filled with elegant and innovative theoretical insights about the material (in)stability and social urgency of sex/gender.” -- Christine Labuski * American Anthropologist *
“A wonderfully terse and insightful first book. Eric Plemons’s work counts as the best of trans studies.” -- Cressida J. Heyes * American Journal of Bioethics *
“In
The Look of a Woman, Eric Plemons gives us a very thoughtful, well-researched, and important statement about the role of facial feminization surgery in trans-medicine.” -- Juliana Hansen * Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery *
“
The Look of a Woman is a new and important examination of the world of trans medicine, particularly the question of gendered identity, facial physiognomy, and most importantly the face-to-face determination of sex. An excellent and enriching engagement.” -- Bernadette Wegenstein * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
"In both style and content this book is eminently teachable: a great demonstration of how to build and hone an argument. It is an admirably slim volume, afforded its modest size by Plemons’ writerly technique. The prose is lucid and not unnecessarily adjectival. The more complex ideas benefit from a clarifying portrayal that will bring non-academic readers on side. . . . The book’s clarity lends it an effortless feel, which I suspect is actually an effect of labour at every scale: word, sentence, chapter, argument. This labour has certainly paid off:
The Look of a Woman is a lovely addition to anthropology’s bookshelves." -- Courtney Addison * The Australian Journal of Anthropology *
"This book brilliantly raises some fundamental and very broad questions about the link between medicine and social norms, sex and gender, the body and the self." -- Andrae Thomazo * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. On Origins 21
Interlude. The Procedures 39
2. Femininity in the Clinic 43
Interlude. Celebrate! 67
3. Cutting as Caring 71
4. Recognition and Refusal 89
Interlude. My Adam's Apple 109
5. The Operating Room 113
6. And After 135
Conclusion 151
Notes 157
References 169
Index 185
