I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book was incredibly well-researched and information. It provided some interesting insight into the for-profit healthcare industry today.

An insightful look into why trans health care is the way it is (that being… not great, to put it mildly). I’m glad there is an accessible book that I can now recommend to people on the topic, because discussions around this are often hateful and uninformed.

I am old enough to remember when Christine Jorgensen returned to the US from Europe to become the first known American to have a Male-to-Female "sex reassignment surgery." She and then later, Renee Richardson were the only recipients of a "sex change" that I knew of for the longest time. When I read Dr. Richardson's autobiography Second Serve, I learned more about how she felt than anything else. It was the first time I thought about gender identity, but of course, I did not have the language to fully articulate those thoughts. Trans Medicine helped give me the verbiage that I still lacked.

This book could be easily read by those who have a basic understanding of gender -- no need for a medical degree. It is informative and surprisingly entertaining. The interviewees were varied and each added their own stories to help understand the topics. I recommend reading this book to anyone who wants to learn more about this timely and important subject.

I had the pleasure of hearing stef present some of this work a few years back, and I jumped at the chance to get my hands on this book, even though I tend to struggle with non-fiction reads. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it felt to read this book!

As a grad student, I'm used to slogging through academic texts and cross-referencing dictionaries, google, and other books to figure out what an academic is actually talking about. It was such a relief to NOT have to do this for TRANS MEDICINE. shuster does an excellent job of breaking down complicated ideas around the production of knowledge and expertise to contextualize the history and present of trans medicine– their use of jargon is intentional and explained in a way that I think non-sociologists and non-academics would find more approachable than they'd expect.

Although I was expecting something more in depth chronologically, one of the biggest strengths of this book for me was how it is positioned in the context of wider medical and sociological practices. shuster has a keen eye for the ways in which evidence based medicine impacts the experience of people of color and disabled people negotiating their way through the medical field.

I was a little disappointed not to have read conversations or interviews with trans and nonbinary medical/therapy providers, but I think shuster does a good job explaining why they interviewed who they did, and the lack of such perspectives is likely more reflective of the current state of trans medicine and how the medical field understands expertise.

Honestly, I would recommend this book widely beyond the medical field! I think this is an excellent example of an strong citational practice, and offers a plethora of delight for readers who think about evidence and how we understand the experiences of gender and sexual minorities within normative systems. For data nerds like me, I would also strongly recommend giving the appendices a thorough read to think about how researchers position themselves within social and institutional groups.

Trans Medicine is a sociological book analysing the medical field(s) that work with trans people, namely the professionals involved - following trans medicine since it's conception in the 1950s up until contemporary times.
As a sociological work, this feels academic, but the writing is very accessible to non-academics; however, this book is not a "one-sitting" type of book, nor do I think it should be.
Throughout, shuster (non-binary trans person) lays out the assumptions and bias of medical professionals in the 1950s, contextualizing them in post-WWII medicine, and shows how that starting point is still affecting trans medicine today. For this, I think this book is an invaluable resource to any health professionals (or training to be), both physicians and in mental health. I also think it is appropriate for a non-medical audience, as it will clarify the way medicine operates, not only regarding trans patients but other demographics.
There are some things described in this book that can be very disconcerting, mostly the older records, but also some of the discourse of newer physicians (especially because you're given the historical context beforehand and you can see the root of it) regarding who should have access to trans medical care, and how - gatekeeping for "non-worthy patients" in the 50s and, currently, for some outside of the binary. So I advise care for anyone not in a good place with their gender identity, if they suspect they won't be able to digest some of the content.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

This was a great book to wrap up pride month with! Trans Medicine offers a well articulated and well researched look at the history of how transgender people have been treated in the healthcare system. This book continually shocked me by showing how little I actually know on this subject and how much more educated I should be in order to truly be an ally. For anyone starting a journey to learn more and be better towards the LGBTQIA+ community this book is truly a great starting point; it is easy to read and easy to understand as it forgoes any complicated lingo and instead focusses on driving home the hard hitting fact that access to trans medicine has always been and continues to be incredibly hard. The only downside I was faced with while reading this is that I found that Shuster often continually repeats their argument within each section which is definitely beneficial to understanding the point of a paragraph but gets quite tiresome after reaching the same conclusion over and over again. Similarly, whenever Shuster incorporates a quote into a section they explain each quote in a lot of detail allowing little to no room for interpretation by the reader. This means that instead of being able to reach any of our own conclusions we are just reading the author's perspective entirely. Overall, despite these 2 issues I really felt I learnt a lot from this and now have a greater appreciation for the hardships faced by the transgender community as well as their strength!

This is a really interesting, academic look at the history of trans medicine beginning in the 1950s. It continues to present day to show the ways in which a historical lack of information and data continues to affect the medical care of trans people today.

shuster's exploration of the ways in which health practitioners -- both mental health workers and physicians -- manage their anxieties around providing care to trans people, and in particular providing medical interventions related to gender, is a fascinating blend of history and sociology. The author draws upon archival resources from the Kinsey Institute, interviews with present-day practitioners, professional documents that outline best practices, and observational notes from trans health conferences to consider what has and has not changed since the 1950s when it comes to treating gender in the heathcare community. This focus on practitioners (all of those discussed in the book seem to be cis) rather than trans people offers a unique window into the challenges that the medicalization of transness during the twentieth century have created for both care providers and the trans patients seeking medical interventions to shape their experience of embodied gender. Both mental health practitioners and medical doctors historically expressed, and continue to express, a high degree of anxiety regarding how to diagnose and treat transness as a health problem. shuster describes how medical and mental health professionals struggled to determine whether transness was best treated as a condition of the mind, or the body, or both (they don't seem to have considered the possibility it is neither). Sometimes at odds, sometimes in collaboration, health practitioners in both areas have historically acted, and continue to act, as gatekeepers to care for trans patients -- with the authority for that gatekeeping role grounded in very little medical/scientific evidence. Rather, health practitioners continue to draw on understandings of transness developed in the mid 20th century that depend heavily on a binary and fixed understanding of gender -- one that does not fit particularly well with most trans peoples' lived experience or needs. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history or present-day practice of treating gender.

I am a trans person who is medically transitioning, and have read many books about trans medicine, but this is the first I have found by a trans person. There is a huge issue with trans issues and stories being told by cis people, so I loved this book! It provided incredibly valuable insight as someone who does not work in the medical field but is greatly affected by it. It opened my eyes to alot of issues and changed some of my opinions on trans medicine I held before reading. Before reading I just kinda assumed the rules put in place on trans medicine was for the patients benefit, but this book opened my eyes to just how much of a power imbalance their is between trans patients and their providers, as well has just how many expectations and requirements are put onto trans patients that are unneeded.
I wish dates were provided with each bit of medicine because this is a quickly evolving field and there were a few bits that seemed a bit outdated already. Also, I wish this book acknowledged detransitioning, because while rare does greatly impact how the medical field treats trans patients. And as a trans person I feel like theres a stigma around talking about detransitioning when it comes to medicine as if it discredits trans people, but I find it an important topic to discuss in these conversations.
This is a book I recommend for both medical providers and trans people looking to transition. I already recommended this to a friend in medical school and my therapist!

A well-researched look at gender-affirming medical care, including therapy, in the United States. The author, who is themself a non-binary trans person, puts a focus on the lived experiences of current medical providers of gender affirming care. To illuminate present day practices, Shuster traces the history of medical care in this area starting in the mid-20th century. While I was familiar with the broad outlines of the care (and barriers to care) to my generational trans pioneers, the detailed research of medical and psychiatric notes, particularly the correspondence between the few medical professionals at that time who worked with trans patients, was illuminating in ways both good and sad.

This book does not discuss specific treatments or procedures or make any recommendations of that nature, nor does it look at the evolution of medical interventions, except as such related to the decision-making process. The purpose of this book was to look at the professional lives of the medical practitioners and how they understand their trans patients, their role in providing care, their obligations to their professional standards, oaths, and statutory laws, and how they coalesce all this into arriving at a specific decision or a road map for care of a trans patient/client.

Shuster is an academic but the writing was very accessible for a layperson such as myself, infused with just enough academic-style to make me feel smart. I first accessed gender-related medical care in the late 1990s. Being in an urban area, I was able to find a general practitioner who, while she was not terribly experienced with trans patients (who was?), she was willing to learn. She taught me the value of engaging in frank conversations with one’s doctor and I was lucky that she initiated the approach that we were learning on this journey together, sharing knowledge and resources. This was an excellent life skill to have developed and I have used it in the 20+ years since when accessing medical care for any reason, not just gender-related care. Articulating questions, engaging with your doctor on your own healthcare plan, drawing on their knowledge for your own good, is excellent self-care. Most doctors have been receptive, some taken aback, but I happily have not had an outright negative experience.

Reading this book gave me a larger appreciation of the professional position and the professional world of medical care providers. I truly had not given active consideration to their obligations beyond the care plan that is devised for me; in addition to my care, they need to think about their medical license, FDA recommended vs. off-label use of drugs, how comfortable they are working outside their expertise, especially when gold-level studies and research are few to none. All this is in their minds as they consider me and my needs as a patient.

This book also crystallized for me something I already somewhat grasped. My lack of an “outright negative experience” has a lot to do with my race and class and my clear understanding of my gender and ability to communicate it in a way that a doctor in the U.S. can get comfortable with. My gender identity (and frankly my desired lifestyle) falls into society’s normative experience of a (gay) male. I’m lucky that my desired life and self-expression met “acceptable” expectations as the barriers to care for those outside the “acceptable” continue, often for the same reasons barriers to care existed some 50-60 years ago.

Recommended reading for medical professionals and for trans patients seeking care…especially for trans persons (including non-binary persons), as it can help in our own advocacy to appreciate and understand the medical field. It was particularly interesting to see how in some ways the changes in approach to trans medical care, and the role of doctors, is a microcosm of changes in the medical profession altogether. Also interesting was learning of the uneasy relationship between medical doctors and psychiatrists and between psychiatrists and therapists. I have to say that reading the excerpts and quotes of some of the correspondence, particularly in the earlier years, is disconcerting. I have such a clear and untroubled sense of myself and identity and even now, after so many years, it’s hard to see how murky and troubling I am, my being-ness is, to others. A well-done with kudos to Stef Shuster and a thank you to #netgalley and New York University Press for the advance reader copy.

Wonderful book covering the evolution of trans medicine and the current practice. Very well structured and nicely documented. I was expecting a much more academical read, but I am positively surprised about how accessible is.

Very often we take science and the medical discourse as unquestionable. But science is indeed about questioning, and that is exactly what this book does: opening up the debate on how the pathologization of trans identities was built through the 20th century to our days.

Some of the most interesting points that I recall are:
• The chronological analysis, showing the construction of a narrative not only to control trans bodies and lives through medicine, but also building some of the prejudices trans people face still nowadays, at least in Spain.
• The ‘legitimacy wars’ between physicians and therapists, as well as the clashes they had on the definitions and treatment for trans people at the time.
• The random construction of protocols based on providers’ personal criteria that have survived over time, impacting in trans lives today. An example of this is providers’ expectation for trans people to align with their gender roles and gender norms’ ideas, which still happens currently – despite the lack of science backing these prejudices.
• The “real life test” (asking trans patients to live their life as if they had already physically transition, but without the aid of hormones or surgery) is another unscientific approach taken by providers that we can still see nowadays in many countries, where trans people are expected to wait for a given amount of time before they are provided with hormones or access to surgical interventions.
• How regret is weaponized by “pro-life” activists against abortion, using potential regret of the person who has an abortion to fight against abortion itself. It seems providers are also concerned by trans people regretting their transitions, which is also weaponized by transphobes very often to fight against trans access to hormones or surgery.

The only aspect I missed a little bit the book to cover were interviews with trans people. What are their views on the current way medicine treats them? How the different approaches taken by providers (flexible interpreters and close followers, as the author names them) impacts on them? I would have loved having their voices included here.

This is a sociological study of the ways medical providers (doctors and therapists) approach medical care for trans people. (The description made me think I'd learn more about the actual medical options, which I did not.) A lot of it is horrifying, such viewing non-binary people as not having a stable identity and therefore not good candidates for any physical changes. There is so much paternalism and judgment from the doctors, and these are the ones who want to help! I was unsure who the audience was for this book. I don't know that it would be useful for a trans person to read, any more than a black person would want to read a book of white people saying racist things. But I do think it's good that it exists, that it is making medical discourse and mindsets visible to people who aren't in that field. It was interesting reading the quotes from the supportive doctors who genuinely didn't know what to do, because prescribing hormones to help someone transition is considered "off-label" and is not well studied. I wish there had been more to this book, both more data and more theory.

I loved learning so much about trans medicine in this book! I expected it to be dense throughout, but it felt accessible to non-academics seeking to learn more. A must-read for anyone who knows and loves someone trans.