What you take away from this book depends on what your motive is for picking it up. It’s a goldmine of information if you want to learn more about what it means to be F to M trans. It must be a feast of recognition if you are trans. For me, it was dropped in my lap at a perfect moment in my life. This is currently  a ‘hot topic’ in my immediate environment, resulting in endless discussions that are a peculiar mixture of excitement, concerns, humor, anxiety, crude jokes and desperation.

This book saw the light because the authors realized that there were many pieces of information lacking in available narratives about how others experience transition in different aspects of their daily life, beyond the most-often discussed medical transition. Finding Masculinity attempts to find the answers to questions like ‘how does transitioning to a masculine-identified person affect how we approach the world?, ‘how does this process impact our relationships’, ‘and what about our careers and our families’?

I’m amazed by and thankful for the willingness of transgender people to put themselves out there on the internet via YouTube, FB groups, and in this book. They share their struggles and successes with a mostly ignorant world. But above else with others that have not/only just yet embarked on their personal journey after having walked around with a sense of unease, a feeling of not belonging in the body that’s assigned to them. This book makes crystal clear that for many trans folks the road to becoming the gender they were all along is not without fear and concerns about how coming out as trans will affect their family, friends, health and career.