Crossing

A Memoir

Deirdre N. McCloskey

Read an excerpt.

Deirdre N. McCloskey

Cloth $25.00 ISBN: 9780226556680 Published November 1999

Paper $20.00 ISBN: 9780226556697 Published September 2000

E-book $7.00 to $20.00 About E-books ISBN: 9780226556727 Published March 2010 Not for sale in the British Commonwealth

We have read the stories of those who have "crossed" lines of race and class and culture. But few have written of crossing—completely and entirely—the gender line. Crossing is the story of Deirdre McCloskey (formerly Donald), once a golden boy of conservative economics and a child of 1950s and 1960s privilege, and her dramatic and poignant journey to becoming a woman. McCloskey's account of her painstaking efforts to learn to "be a woman" unearth fundamental questions about gender and identity, and hatreds and anxieties, revealing surprising answers.

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"A testimony to her struggles and courage, Crossing invites the reader to enter Deirdre (formerly Donald) McCloskey's mind as she decides to become a woman after a lifetime as a man, husband, and father."

"When I received Crossing, I wondered why the editors had not designated it for review by someone gay, or someone involved in the transgendered community. Reading it, I realized that I--a lifelong heterosexual woman--need this book. All of us need to consider the way our culture shapes gender expectations and makes unspoken but profoundly rigid gender assignments based on physical appearance, apparel, gait, gestures, voice and so on. . . . This is a woman worth knowing. She has given us a highly readable, dramatic account of her crossing."

"[A] fascinating and poignant story. . . . [R]evealing, humorous, and provocative."

"That an affluent, upper-middle-class person should be so powerless against a mental-health bureaucracy still subscribing to its offical pronouncement that transsexualism is a 'gender identity disorder' makes for gripping reading."

"[McCloskey's] story does not read like the ravings of a crazy person, but rather the very courageous story of someone trying to live an honest life, whatever the consequences."

"A tautly crafted memoir of her transition from Don McCloskey, conservative Chicago school economist, to Deirdre McCloskey, power shopper, domestic superachiever, and campy doyenne of difference feminism."

Contents

Part 1: Doubt
1. Boy to Man
2. Marriage
3. Internet, 1995
4. Professor Dressed
5. Clubs
6. In the Ladies' Room
7. Boldness
8. Epiphany
9. Losing Family
10. Academic Drag
11. A Day You Feel Pretty
12. Premarin
13. Sweet October
Part 2: Struggle
14. Outed
15. "Welcome"
16. The Cuckoo's Nest
17.Hearing?
18. Then Why Are You Doing This?
19. Chicago
20. Changing
21. Sister's Last
22. Professional Girl Economist
23. Farewell Speech
24. Dutch Welcome
25. The Worst Days in February
26. Passing
27. Yes, Ma'am
Part 3: Across
28. Vriendinnetjes
29. Women's World
30. To Make Up for God's Neglect
31. Merry May
32. Starting
33. Finishing
34. A Post-Menopausal Woman on Hormone Therapy
35. Facelift
36. This Is How We Live
37. Dutch Winter, 1996
38. Going Home
39. Costs
40. Iowa Drag
41. Professora Traveling
42. Second Voice
43. Makeup
44. Getting There
45. Differences
46. Christ's Mass 1997

For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu

Biography and Letters

Economics and Business: Economics--Money and Banking

Gender and Sexuality

Psychology: General Psychology

Sociology: General Sociology

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