I started reading Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality
I started reading Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality by Jay Prosser recently. Published in 1999, it is still startlingly pertinent to modern trans discourse, offering a welcome alternative to Butler's performativity thesis.1
I'm taking notes in the PDF using xournal++ on my Linux Mint Thinkpad L13 Yoga. It's been a really smooth experience so far; I was even able to edit the .ini file and change the highlighter color presets. All the custom toolbar items are conveniently saved as simple text as well, so it makes for super modular configurations.
I use xinput disable 16 to disable my keyboard (its ID number is 16), and xrandr -o right to set my display vertically. Then I put the laptop on my knees, fold my legs up, and get to reading. I also wear the wrist glove that came with my Huion Kamvas to protect the screen from the oils in my skin.
This isn't the comfiest way to sit for long periods of time, but I'm still trying to find a posture that works for me. Sitting at my desk just hurts my back. Once I move to my mom's, I'm gonna hopefully downsize the desk I have now and trade it out for a smaller desk I've been eying on Amazon. It's a standing/sitting hybrid desk, and one half of it can be angled at a slant. Here's to hoping it'll provide better ergonomics.
Anyway, I started reading. I'm trying to take my time, highlighting a lot and jotting notes to help keep track of things. I haven't read like this since I was in AP Language class printing off esoteric Queer Nation essays in my high school library.2 It's really fun and quite exhilarating to get back into it.
I'm only a few pages in. I thought it would be fun to show the annotations. I love marking stuff up. Being able to do this digitally is so great, I don't have to worry about paper or ink or anything. I hope to continue studying from digital PDFs whenever I can.
One excerpt in particular really stood out to me, and succinctly dictates my own frustrations with modern queer theory as it pertains to trans discourse: by replacing transsexualism with the trendier, more solvent, and far-reaching "transgender", the trans experience has been effectively de-sexed and disembodied; trans is now equal to nearly any form or function of non-normative gender expression, aggregating disparate identities into one ontological banner regardless of their material differences.
I am optimistic that further reading will enable me to better conceptualize my own beliefs so that I can write more lucidly and informatively about everything here on my blog. I'll be sure to keep giving updates. I know I want to come up with a format for reviewing/summarizing my studies as I go along, but I'm not yet sure what that will look like. In the meantime, this little update will suffice.
The excerpt in question
The pages it was lifted from
✘ Posted on — 06/19/25
✘ Last modified — 2 months ago
✘ Link — https://blog.xavierhm.com/i-started-reading-second-skins-the-body-narratives-of-transsexuality
Footnotes
Of which, I am not really a fan! Reading this book is part of an effort to find texts and materials that go against mainstream queer theory.↩
Somehow, I thought I was still doing a good job "staying in the closet", even though I wrote an entire essay on The Posttranssexual Manifesto for AP Language, and gave a 20 minute presentation on the history of LGBT rights in social studies. Oops?↩