It was an immense privilege to read Ezra’s writing and the concept was amazing. I do wish, however, that the interviews had dove deeper. I am not the biggest nonfiction reader but this was an enrapturing read

4 out of 5 stars.

Ace. I really enjoyed this, it flowed well and had plenty of information and humor to make me smile,

Being a trans man myself, I know how to be me, but I couldn't resist picking this up.

I did, however, find it a little boring in some spots, but it would often pick right back up again. That could have just been my ADHD or autism. I ended up reading this a while back before I started landing myself in hospital.

I would love to reread this to get a refresher, but that will have to wait. Good for trans people, lgbtqia folk who want to read a book with a great sense of humor. Probably for young adults up, though.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me access to this arc

This was really insightful and I feel privileged that Ezra shared his story with the world and I was able to read it. This book was very moving and powerful

Really interesting and important book with the author sharing their experiences of being a trans man, followed by interviews with other trans men and non binary people on their experiences and identities. A good reminder, if one were needed, that there are many, many ways to be trans. I really liked the focus on Trans euphoria rather than dysphoria. One complaint which could just be in the review ARC, it wasn't always clear when the author was responding to an interviewee as he wasn't labelled.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

It’s important to me to read books by and about people with very different experiences than I have, so I was super excited to pick this one up. The author, a trans man himself, interviews a diverse group of trans men and transmasculine people and has great discussions with them about their identities and projects.

The concept is five stars, but I’d give the execution three stars: many of the interviews stayed more surface level than I would have liked, and it was hard to read in large chunks. In fairness to the author, I recently read Sister Outsider which also contains interviews about identity, and anyone’s going to be found lacking when compared to Audre Lorde.

I received this book from Jessica Kingsley Publishers and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The chance to hear different people talking about their experiences of identity and transition was interesting, and I can see this book being a useful read both to those in the early stages of figuring out their own identity, and also to those wanting to understand transmasculine experiences more.

However, I found the interview style, where the interviews seemed to be directly transcribed from spoken text, a little off-putting. Spoken language doesn't always work quite as well once it's pinned down onto the page, and a greater level of editing or tidying of these conversations might have made it feel stronger. Actually, I'd probably have liked it most if they were just presented as a series of personal essays, allowing the contributors to go into more depth with their answers and develop on some of their ideas more. It might have made for more variety -- there were a number of common threads between the interviews, and while it was great to see that certain ideas and experiences were universal, seeing those expressed only on a surface level multiple times was less rewarding than seeing them discussed at length, when the nuances and differences of experience would have contributed more.

I was glad that there were some older trans people in the book, since at first, the vibe of "oh wow these are young people who have grown up in a totally different world to the one I experienced" was a little overwhelming. (When one of them said they watched trans YouTubers as a kid, I momentarily felt ancient, because this was an alien concept to me in my youth.) I think the oldest was still only in their 30s, though, and I would have liked to see an older perspective, because older trans people DO exist, whatever the media says about us. Plus, nearly all of the contributors (though not all) were social media influencers or similar -- cool young people, not just... regular guys. I'd have liked to see a more 'average' person.

There was also a slightly odd approach to defining terms. Acronyms like ADHD were expanded, even though I would say most people are probably familiar with that, but other activist terminology and trans-specific language, like 'transmedicalist', weren't defined -- which would probably be alienating for cis people hoping to learn something from this book, as they might not be familiar with the concept. In general, there seemed to be little effort to edit the conversations for an audience, so while there were nuggets of interesting content, it did feel a little bit like listening in on somebody else chatting, rather than being included in the dialogue.

Finally, for a book about trans men, it seemed the majority of contributors were actually nonbinary. That's totally fine (I am myself a transmasculine nonbinary person, and liked seeing other angles on that identity) and I appreciated the inclusivity of the approach to encompass broader definitions of what it means to be a man, but it felt a little misleading, as I thought I might get to hear from more binary trans men.

This is definitely a valuable book, but it did fall flat for me. I'm a trans man. This is an interview format getting to know 8 different transmasculine people. I don't know if it's because I got this from netgalley or not but I couldn't always tell who was speaking because only one of them was labeled.

They are all influencers of some kind or really privileged. I would have liked to hear from some more average transmasc people.

It felt like there was something missing from one interview to the next. Like something to bridge them, some insight, talk of common themes..

These interviews are valuable though and we can see there is no one right way to be a trans man. Just like there is no one way to be a cis man. Each person has their own relationship with masculinity, and I am glad this book exists.

This is a 3.5 star read for me. I'll start with the things I liked about it.

It was really good reading about life from the perspective of trans men. As a trans man, I think the way that we interact with both masculinity and femininity, the different ways we experience the world, whether it's experiencing misogyny, passing as men, experiencing male privilege, or not depending on how we are read, it's incredibly complex. I think it hasn't been explored enough, and so many people simplify our experiences, or erase parts of them, because we don't fit into easily categorised boxes. And this comes both from cis people and from within the LGBTQ+ community. The interviews were very interesting, and I definitely saw parts of my own story in them. I think that whilst cis people could benefit from reading this book, it really feels like it's aimed at other trans men and transmasculine people, and that's something you don't see all that often.

I wasn't so keen on how the book was written. The introduction was the part I liked the best, because it was written essay style. The rest of the book was interview transcripts. I found this a little exhausting to read, and would have preferred essay style, or at least perhaps mini essays in between the interviews. This really affected my enjoyment of the book, sadly.

I also feel like there was a lot more focus on activism than there was on just existing as trans men. Everyone interviewed had 'done' things, and almost everyone was a particular kind of trans person who exists in quite a public way. I would have liked more everyday people discussing their experiences.

On the whole, though, this was a good book, and I'm glad I got to read it.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC for an honest and fair review.

4/5

To Be a Trans Man is an enlightening and thought-provoking exploration of the complex and nuanced concept of trans masculinity. Rather than focusing solely on the experiences of trans men, the book highlights the diverse range of identities that fall under the umbrella of trans masculinity and challenges the societal expectation that gender exists as a binary. As someone who identifies as a masculine person but has struggled with fitting into traditional gender roles, I found this book to be incredibly helpful in better understanding my own identity and the ways in which I can exist within the gender nonconforming community while still embracing many aspects of my masculinity.

In addition to delving into the experiences and identities of those within the trans masculine community, the book also touches on issues of activism and advocacy. While I found these discussions to be less personally engaging, they still offered valuable insights and perspectives.

However, I did have some criticisms of the book's structure. The book is composed of interviews with members of the trans masculine community rather than a series of essays, which I found to be somewhat ineffective in terms of conveying a cohesive message. It would have been stronger as either a series of essays by the individual interviewees or as a series of essays by the author summarizing the topics discussed in the interviews. Despite this structural flaw, the content of the book resonated with me on a deeper level and has had a lasting impact on my understanding of trans masculinity.

Note: this review was written by me but modified by the openAI chatbot to improve it.

This had amazing content but unfortunately poor execution. The content of the interviews themselves were insightful and interesting--but I just wanted something more. I think perhaps having a bit more narrative, rather than simply Q&A formats for every person would have helped, or maybe including photos or visual aids. Again, 5 stars for quality of content, I just wish it could have been tied together a bit more.

Ezra Woodger's To Be A Trans Man is a short collection of interviews with trans men and non-binary transmasculine people; while some of his interviewees are people of colour and/or disabled people, almost all of them identify as artists, social media influencers and/or activists, and most of them are relatively young. This uniformity, coupled with a lack of editorial control by Woodger, makes this a much less interesting book than it should have been. As Woodger makes clear, trans men's experiences are still rarely talked about, and myths about trans men abound; it's so important that we understand the particular kinds of oppression that trans men and transmasculine people face.

And To Be A Trans Man is not devoid of interesting insights (honestly, I think you'd struggle to get nothing interesting out of long interviews with literally anybody, and Woodger's interviewees obviously have very different life experiences from most). Casper, one of the few older interviewees, also unusual in coming from the rural north of England, has the most to say about how being trans has affected his sense of secure adulthood, which I found fascinating. 'I'm ten years behind in other developmental, social ways... It's something I'm working on now - just feeling that I am an adult... because I didn't go through real, proper puberty until the age of 26 [when he transitioned].'

One recurring theme is the idea of 'male femininity'; a number of Woodger's interviewees push back against the idea that being a trans man means conforming to stereotypical masculine norms, and yet they insightfully discuss how they often tried to fit into male stereotypes earlier in their transitions, believing this was the only way to be seen as a 'real man'. Kasper (a different one!) sums this up as the idea that if 'you're a trans man... you have to give up every single feminine thing about yourself' but emphasises the joy he feels when wearing elaborate makeup, arguing that his masculinity has always been flamboyant and camp. He also criticises 'passing tips': 'they were all things like "don't smile and don't move out of the way of people in the street". Be really mean to everybody and then everyone will think you're a man'. Ironically, he suggests, it can be harder for trans men to play with masculinity, because they still feel they have to prove themselves. Having said this, I would have loved to see this theme explored more deeply, as the same point is repeated throughout a number of the interviews without Woodger delving any further. (I'm thinking of texts such as Jack Halberstam's Female Masculinity and Finn Mackay's work on butch/queer masculinities - I'd love to see similar work on 'male femininity'.)

Unsurprisingly, the interviewees often have much to say about how gender expectations pigeonhole everyone, even people who are not trans. Leo, a disabled trans man, reflects that when they use their wheelchair, they are read as more gender ambiguous: 'The fact that I'm in a more passive physical pose is enough for them to add up what they're seeing to way over on the side of "probably a woman"'. Charlie reflects on the benefits and harms of being 'invisible' as a trans man: 'I am still very well aware of the fact that women get hassled on the street. When I have women friends talk to me about the kind of stuff that they have to put up with on a daily basis and it's like, well, I just exist. I walk outside my house and I exist outside my house, and that's the way it is.' Woodger comments: ''The invisibility that we experience has led to a significant disregard for our rights and the issues we face but is also a privilege in its own way.' This recognition, however, linked to one of my frustrations with the book; that it pushes the idea of a cis/trans dichotomy, rather than recognising how everyone struggles with performing gender and living up to gender expectations. This is not to say that trans men's particular experiences aren't valuable here, but that the book as a whole risked setting up a new binary while claiming to break down barriers.

A lot of the problems I had with this book, therefore, were with the way it was edited and compiled rather than the individual contributors themselves. The interviews are very repetitive, and this is often due to the questions Woodger asked and what/who he has chosen to include. This makes the book as a whole feel shallow. I also wondered who this book was aimed at. People who are more familiar with trans activism and trans writing probably won't need to be told a lot of this, but the book assumes a close familiarity with a lot of activist terms, so it isn't really accessible for people coming to this topic for the first time. I wanted the depth of experience I've found in memoirs like Thomas Page McBee's Amateur, and that wasn't present here. So while I appreciated the insights noted above, these were scattered through an unsatisfying text. 2.5 stars.

This was a great and informative book discussing what it means to be a man and how trans men fit into this. The book is presented as a series of interviews and made for very interesting reading, particularly for this going through this experience or for those wanting to be a better ally to the trans community.

This was a wonderful novel full of experiences of vast trans men. There was a wide variety of life experiences and experiences of the trans journey, linear and non. Great LGBT read.

To Be a Trans Man is a collection of interviews conducted by the author with a series of trans men and transmasculine people about the topic of masculinity. Described as containing "contributions from trans men from across the UK and US", I went in to this book expecting more of an essay format than an interview format. While the topics covered in this book are important and I deeply enjoyed hearing from people with radically different experiences discuss masculinity, the casual interview format didn't quite work for me. It felt like reading a very long podcast transcript, rather than a book. As a result, I'm giving To Be a Trans Man a 3 star rating. It deserves 4 or 5 stars for content and 2 stars for format, so I'm landing in the middle.

** Thanks so much to NetGalley, Ezra Woodger, and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for this ARC! To Be a Trans Man is out now! **

While the interviews are fascinating and obviously well moderated, I needed more from this book. It felt disjointed because there was no transition or pause for emphasis or analysis between each section, and therefore it became really easy to lose interest. I think this book is perfect for someone who wants a good primary source for a paper they’re writing tho!

The Los Gatos Library received a copy of this book from NetGalley for free in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to our friends at NetGalley!

An insightful look at masculinity in today's society. I really enjoyed the perspective and honesty of all the people who were interviewed. This is a topic where not a lot of voices are shown in mainstream media and I felt like the author did a great job of addressing the different identities within this text. I do wish that some standard interview questions were asked throughout all the chapters, I think it would feel like a more cohesive work and better educate the reader in this case. I also found that a lot of the voices were from non-binary individuals which made me reconsider the title and my perceptions of the binary when using words like "man". I went into this book expecting mostly male voices and of course, that is not how gender works.

I think Woodger did a fantastic job of reminding me that there really are no binary terms to encapture the human experience.

The topic of the book is very interesting. It just isn't fully developed. The book is not so much stories as it is interviews. Each is very important, but the interviews aren't edited very well. There's a flow that is missing. The interviews then feel a bit choppy; I appreciated each one, nonetheless. The introduction is wonderful and it would have been great if the rest of the book was similar. The book just isn't what I expected.

4 stars

**HUGE thank you to Jessica Kingsley Publishers for granting me an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!**

Ezra Woodger, a trans man, interviews other transmasculine people about their experiences, hopes, and ideas. Topics include representation in the media, unnecessarily gendered items, cis/heteronormativity, toxic masculinity, allyship, expression through makeup/hair/clothes, recovery from addiction, exploring sexuality, importance of community, privilege, acceptance, joy, disability, masculine femininity, feminism, intersectionality with race, fitness, financial insecurity in the LGBTQIA+ community, body positivity, burnout, dealing with transphobia, role models, theatre as a means for gender exploration, what it means to "pass," anger, mental health, tokenism, and prevalence of queer stories that only center suffering.

Rep: Edited by a queer trans man. Interviewees include trans men and transmasculine non-binary people. One interviewee is Asian and neurodivergent, one is Black, one self-identifies as a white-passing person of color, one self-identifies as Brown, and another uses a wheelchair.

Content warnings: Dysphoria, transphobia (including internalized), cyber bullying, toxic masculinity, addiction, divorce, childhood trauma, COVID-19 pandemic, racism, poverty/homelessness, surgery, depression and anxiety, brief references to hate crimes and violence against trans people

I loved this little anthology of trans joy! So many nonfiction works about being trans are written by cis people and/or created with a cis audience in mind. Instead, this one is entirely trans created and reads as a love letter to the trans community at large. But that's not to say that cisgender readers would feel alienated; in fact, I think everyone who identifies as cis needs to read this. It's both educational and fun. I'm glad that resources and footnotes are listed at the back!
Woodger interviews a makeup artist, musician/actor, writer/scientific researcher, poet/artist, personal trainer/nonprofit owner, artist/author/filmmaker, composer/theatre director, and activist. They were all so thoughtful, funny, and intelligent! I would have liked to read about a few more people who aren't in some form of the spotlight, but other than that, I don't have any critiques.

Never before have I read a collection quite like this, full of stories and anecdotes from transmasculine nonbinary people and men. All of the entries and interviews were heartfelt and relatable, and the writing was approachable and engaging. This is an incredibly important collection for all ages teen and up.

This book felt really honest and vulnerable in a way that I've not seen before. It was nice to hear from so many transmasculine voices and the tone of the book was really authentic.