You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
In April 1981, Landa Mabenge enters this world, trapped in a girl's body. From the start, Landa is aware that he does not relate to his female form, despite being socialised as a girl. At age 11 his world is shattered, when an angry woman and her zombie-like husband arrive in Umtata to force him to accompany them to Port Elizabeth. Life in PE with 'The Parents' soon morphs into a Dickensian nightmare. Landa is subjected to horrific abuse as he descends into a world of isolation and shame. At 18 Landa is finally able to escape PE to study at UCT, where he tries to embrace life as a butch lesbian, but he remains tortured by his female body. After a close-to-death break down, Landa finds strength to embark on an arduous four-year-long journey to physically and legally become "Him". In 2014, he makes history by becoming the first known transgender man in South Africa to successfully motivate a medical aid to pay for his surgeries. Both heartbreaking and uplifting, Becoming Him is a groundbreaking story of torture and triumph, bravely opening the lid on cultural shame and abuse against those who choose a path less travelled.
We each make sense of the world through our embodied, feeling lives. We do it through the social groupings, contexts and processes which history (rather than biology) presents and assigns to us. In this collection, we aim to illustrate how these embodied feelings and emotions underpin contemporary theorising by sharing reflective autobiographical writing by individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and contexts. This somewhat unruly collection unsettles conventional academic writing precisely because authors have grounded themselves in the tangible and the personal rather than in abstract theory. We hope that readers might see aspects of their own lives in some of these stories, develop better understandings of lives that are experienced very differently, and start (or continue) to theorise their own lives.
Sexual and Reproductive Justice: From the Margins to the Centre offers new insights and perspectives on sexual and reproductive justice. The thought-provoking and diverse contributions in this volume — which range from indigenous approaches to sexual violence to gender-affirming primary and mental healthcare — extend sexual and reproductive justice scholarship, and spark critical questions, novel thinking, and ongoing dialogue in this field.
This edited volume brings transnational feminisms in conversation with intersectional and decolonial approaches. The conversation is pluriversal; it voices and reflects upon a plurality of geo- and corpopolitical as well as epistemic locations in specific Global South/East/North/West contexts. The aim is to explore analytical modes that encourage transgressing methodological nationalisms which sustain unequal global power relations, and which are still ingrained in the disciplinary perspectives that define much social science and humanities research. A main focus of the volume is methodological. It asks how an engagement with transnational, intersectional and decolonial feminisms can stimula...
With over 200 entries ranging from Ancient Egypt to contemporary developments in law, media, and politics, the Transgender Encyclopedia shows how gender diversity spans the world and has done so for millennia. Read about how cultures have recognized and affirmed third and fourth genders. The history and development of trans activism is highlighted, making this an outstanding volume for those in the community who seek connection and inspiration, as well as for those who want to grow as an ally. With a chronology of important events in trans history, an introduction discussing conceptual issues, and an extensive bibliography, this work provides an essential starting point for those beginning r...
Smacked is the powerful, uncompromising story of one woman's downward spiral into addiction. Hooked on heroin and crack cocaine, Melinda Ferguson gave up everything she cared about - her children, her marriage, her career - in pursuit of the next fix, the next high. Bold, raw and unashamedly honest, Smacked is a tale of loss and rehabilitation that takes us to the darkest corners of an addict's psyche.
Through its memoir-esque style, 'We Are The Ones We Need' delves into the challenges faced by black professionals in South Africa's corporate environment. By sharing some of her own experiences from her years working within some of the country's top companies, Ms. Bolani focuses on themes that include structural racism in organisations and the role executives play in sustaining discriminatory practices; pay discrimination; the emotional and psychological trauma suffered by black professionals as a result of corporate abuse and the suppression of black talent, especially black women. From the beginning of the book, Ms. Bolani takes the reader on a journey that reveals her personal and professional background, her interactions with her colleagues and senior executives, as well as how her experiences impacted on her and her loved ones. She closes off the book by sharing some of her own suggestions on how we can begin to change corporate culture and its weaponisation against black professionals. -Publisher's description.
This essential introductory guide explores and aggressively expands the provocative new field of sexual identity studies. It explains the history of sexual identity categories, such as 'gay' and 'lesbian', covers the reclamation of 'queer' as a term of radical self-identification, and details recent challenges to sexual identity studies posed by transgender and bisexual theories. Donald E. Hall offers concrete applications of the abstract theories he explores, with imaginative new readings of such works as 'The Yellow Wallpaper', Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Orlando and The Color Purple. Throughout, Hall urges the reader to grapple with the changing nature of sexual identity in the twenty-first century and asks searching questions about how we might identify ourselves differently given new technologies and new possibilities for sexual experimentation. To students, theorists and activists alike, Queer Theories issues a challenge to continue to disrupt narrow, traditional notions of sexual 'normality' and to resist setting up new and confining categories of 'true' sexual identity.