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THE
PHALLUS PALACE FEMALE TO MALE TRANSSEXUALS BY
DEAN KOTULA |
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Los Angeles, CA-"They were all baby girls when they were born. They wore pink hospital bracelets with names like Tammy and Elizabeth and Kathryn…now they are sons, brothers, boyfriends, partners, husbands and dads." Even in a world of seemingly endless possibilities, this statement, written by Cherie Hiser and taken from the preface to Dean Kotula's astounding new book The Phallus Palace: Female to Male Transsexuals (Alyson Publications, July 2002) seems outlandish. Unless it's your reality. "Manhood for me is the stuff of dreams. I knew I was a boy-a male-from my first consciously aware moment," writes Michael, a transitioned FTM, one of 19 men whose first person accounts of their feelings, motivations, and transitions make up the center section of this book. It is these stories, and Kotula's remarkable black and white photos, which accompany them, that force the reader to confront their own perceptions of gender, and the limitations of society's current concepts of it. Their stories provide the human faces to the more intensely detailed, academic and medical essays and interviews, which lead up to them. Included in this first section are noted gender specialist Katherine Rachlin's essay, FTM 101: Dispelling Myths about the Invisible and Impossible, Diane Ellaborn's Seeking Manhood: An Introductory Guide to Assessment of the Female-to-Male Adolescent, and Kotula's own exceedingly in depth interview with Milton Diamond, Ph.D.. As revealing and moving as the stories are however, as fascinating and informative the essays and interviews, Kotula takes us one step closer to this subject than anyone ever has before. There is a harder reality to this story, one that does not reveal itself clearly in the amazing, "wow, can you believe it" before and after photographs. In
order for these men to leave behind the body they were trapped in, and
become the physical embodiment of their true selves, they must first go
through not just hormone therapy, but agonizingly invasive sex
reassignment surgeries. These are documented in The Phallus Palace through
interviews with two of the leading surgeons in this field: Toby R.
Meltzer and James J. Reardon, and through Kotula's intense and shocking,
photographs of these procedures. This
portion of the book is almost unbearable.
But in examining these procedures, reading about what they mean,
and seeing the reality of the procedure known as Radial Forearm
Phalloplasty, you realize something very clearly.
No one would go through this, unless their lives depended on it.
These are life saving procedures. As
Kotula writes in his introduction to this section, "The knowledge
and understanding that these surgeries were desperately needed and took
extraordinary means to obtain, helped to offset my response to the
invasive nature of the procedures.
When I joined these men in their recovery rooms, I could see the
relief and exhilaration in their eyes, even through the heavy sedation
and the aftermath of physical trauma." In
it's six concise sections, Perspectives and Viewpoints I, The Men,
Perspectives and Viewpoints II, The Surgeries, Gender Memories,
Perspectives and Viewpoints III, The Phallus Palace leads the
reader through the amazing journey transsexuals must take to reconcile
their inner selves with their physical bodies.
Open, informed, honest, shocking, even confrontational, but ultimately healing, The Phallus Palace is a bold exploration of the social, historical, medical, and psychological concerns of transsexuality. |
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CLICK HERE TO SEE SELECTED PHOTO'S FROM THE BOOK =>
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### The
Phallus Palace: Female to Male Transsexuals
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