The analysis in this book elicits and "teases out"
contemporary logics of gender and sexuality from
modern psychiatric texts on transsexualism. There is
an explicit focus on found asymmetries of gender and
sexuality with regard to biological females vs.
males. Two amalgam psychiatric statements are
particularly investigated. Firstly, that of the
female-to male transsexual having an "easier"
transition to man, than the male-to female
transsexual to woman; and secondly, that of FTMs
being of homosexual orientation before
transition, whereas MTFs are seen as having
backgrounds with more sexual variety. These
depictions are analysed in connection with the
construction of the fe/male body, concluding an over-
all symbolic logic of "the male accommodates the
female, but the female does not accommodate the
male". It is further suggested that this reveals a
phallic core operating within still vivid
active/passive paradigms being used to construct
masculinity and femininity. This theoretical work
will be of interdisciplinary interest to scholars
and others working within feminist, women's, gender,
queer, transgender and masculinity studies.