Beyond Masculinity

For the longest time, I primarily taught Women’s Studies courses. When I started teaching in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies, I used very few texts written by men, or about gay men. Mostly, I hadn’t found any feminist queer texts authored by men that I thought did more than required texts I already assigned. And, since I was more interested in talking about those groups of people marginalized within queer communities—-women, people of color,etc.—-I concentrated on readings focused on those populations.

Over the years, I’ve found more, and incorporated more such feminist queer texts authored by men into my syllabus. This semester, I am very happily including essays from Beyond Masculinity: Essays by Queer Men on Gender and Politics, edited by Trevor Hoppe.

Not only is Beyond Masculinity available in-full on-line at no charge, but podcasts of many of the essays are also available for download for those who’d rather listen to the authors read their respective essays. These two things make the anthology stand out, especially in this day and age when costs for books and for copyright to reprint articles are increasing, and more and more college courses are being offered solely as on-line courses. Coupled with the content of the anthology, Beyond Masculinity is certainly an exciting text.

True, some essays were more of a hit than others; but, I like the collection as a whole too much to call-out those that fell short for me. Besides, you never know—one man’s trash is another man’s treasure!

I do want to mention a few texts, though:

Joshua Bastian Cole’s essay, “Tarheels and Transfags,” helps broaden the understanding of the spectrum of transpeople’s experiences through the telling of his own story of having been on testosterone for six years, passing as male in everyday life, and not identifying as male.

And, Michael Faris’s “On Being a Queer Man: Radical Feminism and the Need to be an Ally” and Elliot Long’s “Elusive Intersection” should be incorporated into introduction to Women’s Studies courses everywhere.

Thanks to Trevor Hoppe and all the other authors!

If you haven’t seen Hoppe’s own personal website/blog, you are missing out—-http://trevorhoppe.com I definitely look up to how he’s getting research for his PhD done, contributing to published scholarship, and still leading a (seemingly) fun life. You go, boy!