Dhillon
Khosla transitioned from female to male in the
late 90s and has written an intensely personal
account of what proved to be a difficult
journey, both spiritually and physically.
Both Sides Now would be better
subtitled a journey from womanhood, more so than
through it. In fact we learn very little about
his life prior to transition. The book begins
when he is first diagnosed as a transsexual, at
the age of 28.
He then takes his readers on a single-minded
month by month quest for physical manhood. He
details his fears about transitioning on the job
and the difficulties he faced being recognised
as male, especially in the early stages of his
hormone treatment (so eager was he for immediate
physical change that he had chest surgery prior
to beginning hormone treatment).
This book may not be particularly useful for
those in the early stages of transition, who are
perhaps seeking more general information on the
process.
Unlike Jamison Green’s autobiographical
Becoming a Visible Man, Both Sides
Now concentrates on the minutiae of the
author’s life during this period rather
than the broader aspects of the transsexual
experience.
He deals with his past life only in brief
flash-backs and concentrates on mission at hand.
The many surgeries he undertook, including
multiple procedures for lower surgery, are
detailed as are more light-hearted moments such
as his first visit to a ‘Gentleman’s
Club.’
Khosla is a lawyer by trade, and this book is
technically well written, although it is a
little clinical in places. While some of his
experiences had me nodding with recognition,
over all, I had a hard time empathising with
Khosla as a person. His abrasiveness, intensity
and criticism of others (including other
transmen), left me feeling annoyed and
dissatisfied.
However, regardless these criticisms, Both
Sides Now is a powerful book about one
man’s personal experiences and is certainly
worth reading on that level.
ISBN: 1-58542-472-2
Hardcover: 336 pages
http://www.dhillonkhosla.com/
Except
“A few months
earlier, an ex-girlfriend brought over a copy of
an article that had appeared in The New Yorker
in 1994. She had been given the article in a
psychology class, after a female-to-male
transsexual had appeared as a guest lecturer. In
the article, the author interviewed several men
who had gone through surgeries and hormone
treatments to transition from female to male.
And as I read the things these men had said, I
immediately saw why my ex had asked me to read
the piece. Flashes of recognition went off in my
mind, arranging themselves like pieces of a
puzzle.
I read as one man
described his fierce resistance to being treated
as girl and I thought of my own childhood when I
had insisted that I was a boy, adamantly
refusing dolls and dresses and hanging out only
with other boys during recess.
I read as another man
– who had made the transition from female
– said that he never fit in the lesbian
community because he was too male in some way
– not ‘butch’ just male, and I
remembered how lost I always felt at lesbian
gathering because there was no one with whom I
felt that “sameness.” I then thought
about the girlfriends in my life who had always
identified themselves as straight and wondered
why I was the one exception – the only
“woman” to whom they were
attracted.
And then, in the final
interview, I read as a man talked about all the
wasted time he had spent in places where he
didn’t fit. He ended by saying he
didn’t know why this condition chose him,
but he was finally the person he had always
dreams he would be.
The word
“dream” hit me the hardest of all. I
had spent so much of my childhood dreaming of
developing a firm, male chest. I remember
running around shirtless at my birthday parties
and fantasizing that I was a pop/rock star like
Billy Joel or Rod Stewart – always men. And
in the past few years, when those fantasies and
dreams had resurfaced, I couldn’t thin of
anything to do except pray that God would make
me a man in my next life.
Between the interviews,
my ex-girlfriend had highlighted statements from
doctors where they opinioned as to the cause of
transsexualism. One doctor pointed out that in
experiments with animals – from rats to
apes – they injected testosterone during a
critical time of brain development in a female
fetus. In every case, while the animal still
came out with a female body, it behaved exactly
the same as would have any male animal of its
species. In other words, contrary to its
physical body, it believed it was entirely
male.
But it wasn’t
until I gave the article to my current
girlfriend, Selena, that I really felt its full
impact. I remember her putting it down after she
had finished reading it and saying, “Baby,
this is you.”
Dhillon Khosla. (2006), Both Sides Now
– one man’s journey through
womanhood, Penguin:New York, p. 4-5. Excerpt
from http://www.amazon.com/
