This book was an excellent read. Not only did Phyllis Burke entertain, but she also informed me of something I had previously been unaware of: "Gender Identity Disorder"

The book gives great detail of the stereotypes and myths surrounding gender in the US and other countries. It offers a view on several case studies and individuals diagnosed as having GID.

For so many years,I was struggling with therapists who were terrified to find that I didn't fit the "typical" female mode of thinking,romantic,sexually passive,emotional,defused in thinking, the typical light headed female who couldn't do math or read maps.Also they were dismayed to learn that as a child I played sports with boys,climbed trees,bruzed my knee,got in fights, played with trucks,swords and toy gun and turned out to be a completely heterosexual woman,,,what do ya know!

This book blasts Mars and Venus out of the water and all gender bias books and exposes them for what they are...AN AGENDA!

This book helped us to celebrate our "gender independent" son (a term that Phyllis Burke coins, that I love). Before we read this book, we supported our son's differentness, but we never celebrated it. This book helped our family to truly appreciate what a gift we have in our child.

When I first read this book I was expecting a story about "a lesbian mother's fight for her son." In reality, very little of this book deals with the author's family situation and relationship with her son. Most of the book chroncicles the author's political activism and there is compartively little dealing with her partner or child. A profound disappointment

This book tells two parallel stories: the author's struggle to adopt and raise the son she had with her partner, and the story of Queer Nation - San Francisco from about 1990 to 1992. It's an excellent documentary of both her personal story and the historical events of those years: protests against the Gulf War, christian evangelists, and the film "Basic Instinct." I participated in the protests and am mentioned in the book, but that's not why I like it. It's funny, accurate, touching and dramatic.

Atomic Candy does a great job of placing the reader in the middle of many important cultural events in the post-WWII era but does nothing beyond that. The book disintegrates into a ho-hum story of a woman trying to find some purpose in life and concludes with a puzzling encounter with Richard Nixon. I finished reading this book on a trip and spent the entire ride back trying to figure out what exactly the point of the story was. I'm still scrathching my head.