Man-made Woman: The Dialectics of Cross-dressing
by Ciara Cremin
(Pluto Press, £16.99)

FIFTY years after the so-called sexual revolution, Ciara Cremin wants to know why “even a minor deviation from a masculine norm causes both fascination and revulsion.”

[[{"fid":"878","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"1"},"link_text":null}]]It’s a question that has a very personal origin for the author. Man-made Woman charts Cremin’s experience as a cross-dresser who likes to wear women’s and men’s clothing but, rather than being merely a memoir, it analyses gender politics in the context of feminism and sociology, the latter being the subject in which she lectures.

Yet the personal nature of the book means that it has a liberal Western bias and doesn’t consider wider historical or cultural aspects of cross-dressing. These sections are nonetheless some of the most acerbically funny and revealing, while also being fraught with contradiction. Her motivations veer from the personal to the political and she both welcomes and repels attention from others.