Max Wolf Valerio
Introduction -Kaylan to add to this section
Early Life: Family Early Life: Before Transition -Kajal to expand this section specifically related to female of colour feminism
Gender Transition -Susana to add this section –
Touching on life before transitioning: The definition of gender transition refers to changing one's gender despite of their assigned biological sex. Max Valerio talks about his transition from male to female in his book "The Testosterone Files". He is very explicit when it comes to what steps he took to change his gender and the testosterone injections he had. His book is divided into three sections: Beginning, Before Testosterone and After Testosterone. The part where he speaks about "Before Testosterone" will be unraveled further here.
Max used to be part of a band which he made with his friends, and he used to have a girlfriend named Roxanne. From a young age, he describes, he never felt as if he was a woman. He used to play with boys and his parents used to comment things such as "Anita is a real a tomboy" [1].
Max describes himself when he was younger as not being a "typical girl" because then Anita used to be independent and her physical appearance was not that of the other girls as it was not as feminine. He states in his book that things which would not usually turn on other girls, did to then Anita such as condom ads in magazines. [2]
He then goes on to state that he is attracted to "femme" women and considers herself then a butch. Nonetheless, he sees himself as a man and feels like a man in every one of his fantasies. [3]
Experiences such as growing pubic hair and developing into a woman actually terrified him. He did not like that aspect of himself as he did not feel like a woman in the first place. The fact that his mother was very proud of that happening also scared him and made him want to not "develop" [4]
Max expresses the fact that he feels as an impostor in his own life and also states circumstances where if he focuses hard enough on himself or some of his features, he does see himself as a man. [5]. Max comes to the realization that he wants to become a man and states that he is willing to undergo the risks, injections, pain, and physical changes. [6]
Max Valerio describes in his book what he looks forward when it comes to transitioning and some of those things are: a deeper voice, facial structures becoming more pronounced and stronger, additional hair growing in places that it would not for a woman, personality and hormonal changes, and so on. [7]. The way that he went about deciding whether he wanted to go through with his transition or not, he explains, was to not talk to anyone about it but rather just think about the decision himself. He states in his book that having too many people cloud his head with ideas would confuse him and it was easier for him to keep to himself and later share his decision with his friends and family. [8]
When it came to deciding which name he was going to take on, his friend Alexander suggested the name Maximilian. He chose the middle name Wolf because of his aboriginal background and his name put together, Maximilian Wolf Valerio meant "the greatest wolf" or "the biggest wolf". [9]
Taking into account all the experiences that Max described in his book, it is clear to see that many things as well as people influenced him but at the end of the day, Max made the decision on his own. He did take into account what his FTM friends had to say as well as readings of books that he had purchased which helped his decision easier and more digestible.
FTM Support Groups
-Kaylan and Susana to add this section
I believe it is also important to include some additional sources (such as the ones we have included in our bibliography) due to the fact that the page on Max Valerio could use some different type of resources. Our extensive bibliography can add a lot to the existing stub since it adds information not just on Max Valerio's work but also work that he is mentioned in, involved with or possible.
In the section where we talk about works as well as our references, more support groups are provided in case there is someone with questions regarding Max's support groups or support for themselves.
Some websites available for supporting FTM are:
Laura's Playground: http://www.lauras-playground.com/support_meetings.htm
Support Group: http://www.supportgroupproject.org/
The Trans Partners: http://www.elspethbrown.org/page/transpartners-project
Activist Career -Kajal to add this section (related to top section “before Transition”)
The Testosterone Files
Max Valerio starts describing his life in regards to the changes he sees from taking testosterone injections once every two weeks. [10]. He compares the texture of his hands then, his voice, what he focuses on when it comes to other people, aspects of his face that he had never paid attention to, his legs, and just overall becomes more aware of his body.
In the second chapter of his book "The Testosterone Files", Max Valerio talks about his life after testosterone. He starts off by stating that a few months later he no longer gets his period since he has been on testosterone. [11] He is very explicit in describing the changes he started seeing not just physically but also emotionally and psychologically. Max describes the changes he sees with regards to hair growth, increased bone size in places like his knees, a reduction of fat in sections like his hips, more defined and masculine face factions, firmer muscles and bigger muscles. He describes himself as feeling stronger and also having a deeper voice. [12]
Throughout this part of his book and all of its chapters, Max Valerio starts describing every day acts and situations as he undergoes them with his male identity. He describes relationships that he has with old friends, circumstances where he tells his friends that he is now a FTM, new friendships and relationships that he forms with people that he has met, and so on.
As he continues to write, he comes to an important realization: from an encounter with a friend at a bar, he notices that he is taken more seriously than is his female friend. His conclusion for this is actually his confidence, even though at times he lacks it as he states. [13] Since experiencing everything as a FTM is still quite new to Max, he is unsure how to handle this new found "recognition" and at times feels uncomfortable, but nonetheless gets used to it and uses it to his advantage since he also feels other feminist women take his work more seriously. [14]
On the topic of recognition and being taken seriously, Max also unravels the experiences he has when walking the streets: He states that men do experience a different kind of freedom when it comes to walking streets at any time but he also adds that it is over emphasized and it is not all that it's cracked up to be. [15]
Max goes very in depth to talk about his intimate relationships with women now as a FTM and describes his feelings when it comes to telling them that he is a transgender male. He shares experiences, his thoughts, his partner's thoughts, and what he found to be different as to when he was a female. Max also talks about his thoughts on getting genital surgery including his two options (described further in the book) [16] and what he has talked to other FTMs about when it comes to those surgeries.
Towards the end of his book, Max talks about testosterone affecting his emotions in a drastic way and that is his main conclusion: he now feels more himself than he ever did and to this day the male features that appeared on his body (such as enlarged and pronouced veins, Adam's apple, and a manly voice) are what makes him feel excitement and manly. [17]
With all of the information that he has shared in his books and in other books he has written, it is evident that he lives his life as a much happier person and enjoys being a FTM as it is his true identity and what he feels most identified as. He chose that life for himself and is living it to the fullest while still taking into account that there is a past behind him which made him who he is now.
Works
-Kajal to expand this section with Max’s art work link
Filmography
-Kaylan to investigate and add to this section
Notes
-all to add to this section
References
-all to add to this section
Susana
1. Book: "This Bridge We Call Home: Radical Visions for Transformation" Gloria E. Anzaldúa and Ana Louise Keating have painstakingly assembled a new collection of over eighty original writings that offers a bold new vision of women-of-color consciousness
for the twenty-first century. Written by women and men--both "of color" and "white"--this bridge we call home will challenge readers to rethink existing categories and invent new individual and collective identities.Max Valerio is included in this book
2. Website: Trans Partners Project" http://www.elspethbrown.org/page/transpartners-project. Here, Professor Brown uses the page as a site to gather resources that might be of interest to partners of trans guys, since there is currently so little information available for partners.
3. Article: "Becoming a Trans Poet" T. Peterson. Here, he speaks about possible trans poetics or trans poetry aesthetic in the United States by examining poems by three of the earliest visible trans poets to publish books in this country: Samuel Ace, Max Wolf Valerio, and kari edwards. Close readings of their poems, supplemented with interviews in which the authors provide key contextual information, reveal an intriguing relationship between how these authors play with intelligibility through poetic form and how their work has mostly eluded literary history.
Kaylan:
1. Book: Leslie Lothstein, “Female to Male Transexualism”, Routledge and Paul, Boston, 1983
Summary: This book was the first book Max purchased to discover if he wa in fact a Transexual. It was to quote Max “damning”. This book gave Max doubts as to whether the transition to male would be the right path - later a friend explains that the book is a horrible representation of the transition from female to male.
2. Book: Janice Raymond, “The Transexual Empire: the Making of the She-Male”, Teachers College Press, NY, 1994 (originally printed in 1979)
Summary: This book was Max’s “other official point of reference” for transexuality. This book was just as damning as Lothstein’s book paint a picture of the patriarch duping lesbians into becoming transexuals to fit into the hetersexual norm. Thsi book did set the tone for transexual discourse in the feminist community for some time. These two books made Valerio search for the truth.
3. Website: http://www.lousullivansociety.org/about-lou-sullivan.html Lou Sullivan Society
Summary: Lou Sullivan was running the group FTM in the bay area. this group is an information and support group secifically for female to male transexuals. Lou helps Max through his transition and in some ways solidifies Max desire to become male.
Kajal
This document looks at transsexual boundaries between people, and how they have crossed those boundaries. Danielle Poe looks at the ethics based on sexual difference, and understands how there is a difference between nature, culture, and spiritual modes of thought and how that can interpret transsexual thought.
3) Nan Alamilla looks at the relationship between bodies and nations and more specifically transsexual bodies. It explores how concealed and unintelligent some bodies are, specifically referring to transgendered bodies.
“A New Connection, a new set of Recognitions.”
This article is about response by Anzaldúa to feeling like an outsider, as the token woman of color at a women's retreat just north of San Francisco. What began as a retreat conversation of encouragement between two individuals turned into group activism, bringing together the voices of women of color as a response to the Left's "shaky and shabby commitment to women" and white feminism's exclusion of issues of race and class.
Further Reading -all to add to this section
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 42.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, Ca: Seal Press. p. 46.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, Ca: Seal Press. p. 49.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, Ca: Seal Press. p. 53.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, Ca: Seal Press. p. 90.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, Ca: Seal Press. p. 107.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, Ca: Seal Press. p. 110.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, Ca: Seal Press. p. 117.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, Ca: Seal Press. p. 127.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 13.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 140.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 152.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 189.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 189.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 278.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 318.
- ^ Valerio, Max Wolf (2006). The Testosterone Files (First ed.). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press. p. 336.