Amateur: A Reckoning With Gender, Identity and Masculinity

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2018

Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2019

In this ground-breaking new book, Thomas Page McBee, a trans man, trains to fight in a charity match at Madison Square Garden while struggling to untangle the vexed relationship between masculinity and violence.

Through his experience of boxing - learning to get hit, and to hit back; wrestling with the camaraderie of the gym; confronting the betrayals and strength of his own body - McBee examines the weight of male violence, the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes and the limitations of conventional masculinity.

A wide-ranging exploration of gender in our society, Amateur is ultimately a story of hope, as McBee traces a way forward: a new masculinity, inside the ring and out of it. A graceful and uncompromising exploration of living, fighting and healing, in Amateur we gain insight into the stereotypes and shifting realities of masculinity today through the eyes of a new man.

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• ISBN: 9781786891006
• Number of pages: 224
• Weight: 154g
• Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 14 mm