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What It's Like to Be Trapped in the Wrong Body
A book about the only people it's still OK to mock
For a printable version of this release, please click here.
April 1998 - CONFESSIONS OF A GENDER DEFENDER is the story of a psychologist -- a woman whose personal and professional lives are transformed when she takes on an unusual clinical specialty. Working with patients who have what is referred to as gender identity disorder (transsexualism) leads Dr. Randi Ettner down a path where there are few professional allies, pervasive ignorance and prejudice, and voyeuristic media lurking everywhere. Her story, interwoven with the patients' stories, is told with humor and compassion. The author, one of the world's leading authorities on gender conditions, takes readers behind the scenes for a first-hand look at this fascinating and controversial phenomenon. Few topics arouse such controversy as transsexualism; men who want to be women, and women who want to be men. This misunderstood and complex area of behavior is becoming more visible -- on TV, in movies, and in everyday life. San Francisco is debating whether city workers' health insurance should pay for sex-change operations. The patients that Dr. Ettner introduces us to are a cross-section of social and geographic America. They all fight quiet battles -- at home and in the workplace -- with what has been called "the uninvited dilemma" of being born into the wrong body. Dr. Ettner's patients include an 84-year-old biological man -- who seeks her out to plead for sex reassignment surgery, so he can live out his final days as the woman he feels he really is -- and a couple so devoted to each other that they remain married, even after the husband has had a sex change. Medical and mental health professionals, corporate managers, and anyone whose life has been touched by a "transgendered" person will particularly appreciate Dr. Ettner's clinical explanations and observations of the whole gamut of gender conditions. But the book's intimate and engaging style does appeal to a general audience as well. One reviewer called it "required reading for everyone who seeks a Ph.D. in understanding life."
About Randi Ettner, Ph.D.
A clinical psychologist in Chicago, Dr. Ettner received her Ph.D. in psychology from Northwestern University. She is president of the non- profit New Health Foundation, an organization founded to assist the transgendered. She is a member of the University of Chicago Gender Board and the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association, the American College of Forensic Psychologists, Phi Beta Kappa, and other professional organizations. Dr. Ettner has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," CNBC's "Real Personal," "The Sally Jesse Raphael Show," and other television and radio programs in the U. S. and Canada. She's written extensively on human behavior, mental health, and gender topics.
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CONFESSIONS OF A GENDER DEFENDER:
A Psychologist's Reflections on Life Among the Transgendered
by Randi Ettner, Ph.D.
Chicago Spectrum Press, 4848 Brownsboro Center Arcade, Louisville, KY 40207
Phone: 502.899.1919; E-mail: Ettner@aol.com
Price: $14.95, trade paperback
ISBN 1-886094-51-9
Phone orders (toll-free): 1.888.BOOKS.80
Florence Janovic
Sensible Solutions, Inc.
212.687.1761
sensibly@happilypublishe
http://happilypublished.com
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