True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Skidmore's (history, Texas Tech Univ.) exploration of persons assigned female at birth who chose to live as men around the turn of the 20th century (between 1876 and 1936) has two aims that differ from other books of its kind. First, Skidmore is interested in trans men who lived in rural as opposed to urban areas of the United States during this period. The author aptly points out that while much of the history of queerness focuses on queer individuals and cultures in metropolitan enclaves, plenty of queer people lived in small towns, including a number of "female-bodied men." Skidmore's second aim is to explore trans men who lived what we might consider "normative" lives: those who sought to work hard, marry and support wives, and become upstanding members of their communities. In these aims, she succeeds; showcasing the stories of more than a dozen men born into female bodies but who dressed, worked, married, and lived as male. One flaw in an otherwise engrossing history is that the book is sometimes repetitive.