Womb Man Reviews

“What I love about Kris Smith's writing is that she is powerful and funny without being mean; compassionate and courageous without asking for a scrap of pity. WOMB-MAN is a fresh, fast read, full of information and rousing emotion.

“This is the transgender life story you want to give your teen and pre-teen, your grandmother, pastor, congressman, barista and school counselor.

“Kris is walking proof that humor and a focus on what we love saves lives.” - Joy Shayne Laughter, Author, Speaker

Kris Smith is a great writer! .... But I already knew that [See her wonderful book about her friend DeForest Kelley - Dr. Leonard McCoy of the Starship Enterprise..... or "Let No Day Dawn That Animals Cannot Share"]. Her new book - "Womb Man - How I Survived Growing Up In A Booby-Trapped World" - however, exceeds those accomplishments by far. With great courage Kris takes us inside the heart and soul of a child trying to grow up in and make sense of a world where she [he] knows he somehow doesn't fit within society's accepted norms. In my over four decades as a social worker/teacher, working with adolescents I've done my very best to help my young clients/students who are gay/lesbian/transgender. Once they have come to believe that I really am accepting of them as valued individuals, the question invariably comes up asking me if I am gay too[How heartbreaking it is to realize that they can't believe that someone who isn't ''one of them'' could care about what happens to them]. I always tell them that, no, I'm straight.... but that my gay friends don't hold it against me. I will never forget the look of fear in the eyes of an old and much loved friend when he [she] worked up the courage to tell me that after half a century of hiding her true identity she was going to live the rest of her life as the female she'd always known she was..... and her relief and surprise that it didn't make any difference in our friendship [I was afraid she was about to tell me she was dying of some terrible incurable disease]. I wish I'd had Kris' book back then. My friend and I both could have read it, and then had a conversation about something that no one talked about when we were growing up. I recommend "Womb Man" to every teacher, counselor, adolescent, friend and family member who loves someone who does not fit into the assigned gender that our society had tagged them with [and every Anthropologist who, like myself, studied gender assignment in many cultures, but little about our own society]. Walk a mile in Kris' shoes. ***Disclosure: When Kris and I became long-distance friends over a decade ago -- and finally met [at a Star Trek Convention in Vegas, where else?] -- it was like we'd known each other forever. It never crossed my mind, I'm sad to say, that she [he] was trying to balance gender identity to fit into our society..... Any more that it had occurred to me that my friend back home was trying not to be discovered re: who s/he really was. I believe that the Vulcans have it right - ''IDIC'' [Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations]..... and that the "whosoever" in my KJV Bible means ALL of us [John 3:16].                             -- B.R. Walker