Whenever I read work about trans people published by a cis scholar, I return to Jacob Hale's (1997) “Suggested Rules for Non-transsexuals Writing about Transsexuals, Transsexuality, Transsexualism, or Trans _____.” Although Hale's suggestions were first published in 1997, they remain salient even within the rapidly changing field of trans studies. Among the suggestions are for non-trans authors to interrogate their own subject positions and privileges in relation to trans subjects, to avoid speaking of trans as a monolithic trope, and perhaps most important, to be aware of the multiple conversations in which trans people participate, including their places within communities and power structures. Hale's “suggested rules” form the criteria with which I evaluate sociologist Arlene Stein's Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity.
Unbound follows three trans masculine subjects and one cis woman through the journey that brought them to and through “top surgery.” Much of...
