Book

Review

MAN INTO WOMAN, by Gilbert Oakley, D Psy ; Walton Press, 525/7, Liverpool Rd, London N 7; Hardcover, 248pp, price unknown, 1964.

This book is a must for all transexuals and for those pitiable TVs who are "selling" the TS idea to themselves. Other TVs will find it of great, but not vital, interest. Of all the books on this subject, (in- cluding the one of the same title published in the 20s but concerning a Danish artist who had an early and fatal operation) this one makes the best effort to place into perspective the TV and TS worlds. That there are some errors is understandable; the internal inconsis- tencies of the book are not so easily forgiven.

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From the beginning, the reader is left in doubt as to how closely "Julian/Juliet" represents a single real individual and how much a fictionalized synthesis of many cases. Certainly neither her having a brother who is a psychiatrist, nor her suicide at 29 due to operation-induced cancer is at all typical; yet such statements as that "she is the personification of many well known transvestites and transexualists" in the "Author's Note" lead one to feel that this non-typical case is a composite.

The Note above reflects one of the serious incon- sistencies. On many pages the TS is equated with the 65