In this dramatic and compelling narrative, anthropologist Don Kulick follows the lives of a group of transgendered prostitutes (called travestis in Portuguese) in the Brazilian city Salvador. Travestis are males who, often beginning at ages as young as ten, adopt female names, clothing styles, hairstyles, and linguistic pronouns. More dramatically, they ingest massive doses of female hormones and inject up to twenty liters of industrial silicone into their bodies to… More >>
Travesti: Sex, Gender, and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes
The editorial review says it all: “In fact, this may be the most readable and engaging study of transgenderism!” THIS BOOK IS NOT A STUDY OF TRANSGENDERISM. It is a study of TRANSGENDER PROSTITUTION. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
And anyway, haven’t we written enough about transsexual hookers? Possibly an interesting subject, but how about the TS lawyers, doctors and scientists? Give us a break! Make some effort, skip over the easy score! Please!
Rating: 1 / 5
If never visited Brazil, the book projects the culture as high on the bizarre-scale in general, as it delves laboriously into the lives and physical-augmentation practices of transgendered sex-workers. Although on the surface enlightening, it could have taken fewer trees to produce the same somewhat go-nowhere-conclusions, and I found myself more willing to seek out volumes and sources used by the author as references into the study of trans-persons of various stripes. It appeared that the author was too overly imbued with his own gay (and possibly trans-) proclivities for this to serve as an objective sociological study. Perhaps he should write a “sensational” script for the screen. It could be done with minor revisions of the text-format, although I did appreciate his manipulation of phaseology.
Rating: 2 / 5
the disparity between prof. kulick’s earnestness towards his subjects and their bleak, frightening world make for great, grand humor, however unintentional. though i have some reservations about kulick’s lack of scientific conclusions, i applaud his efforts. i found the descriptions (& gasp, photos!) of the travestis shooting industrial sillicon into their ahem, “pundas” memorable.
throughout the book i kept wondering what did the prostitutes think of Kulick? The author gives a few clues, but jezzus!
Rating: 5 / 5
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up Travesti. All I knew was that I would be in for a treat just by looking at the cover. Kulick who is an anthropologist who studied the lives transvestites in Brazil as he became friends with them he got all of the inside scoop and included it in his book. He talks about the travestis that come from Italy to do business in Brazil where these things are more acceptable. Some of the people he interviews talk about how they started in the business, they talk about the ups and downs of their jobs. I found some of the stories to be very graphic. The lives of these men are sometimes beyond their choice of living. Some of them believe they were born into it. The stories are very realistic and in some cases tragic. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone whose clsed minded. However if you find it initeresting to read about the harsh realities of the world then this is the book for you.
Rating: 4 / 5
Travesti is not a book for those looking for a cheap trill. Nor is it a book for the faint hearted. It is a study about a fringe element and that is rarely pretty. Violence, sex, robbery, death, drugs and unhappy relationships fill this book from front to back. The only reason I took away a point was the feeling that the author did get a tad too close to the subjects he was studying. I think he was trying too hard. Yet his results, the information and view points he was able to record, was amazing and really forced me to look at life and gender in a whole new fashion.
Rating: 4 / 5