Mobile subjects : transnational imaginaries of gender reassignment [Book review]

Aren Z. Aizura’s (2018) Mobile Subjects: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment is one of the best nonfiction books I have read recently. I was interested in Aizura’s work because of the several ways in which this book’s sub- jects resonated with my reflections on gender nonconforming subjects, gender reassignment, and the medical-industrial complex with a focus on interrogating the West/non-West binary. It focuses on trans and gender nonconforming people, issues of mobility, and access to various technologies for bodily modification. This book, divided in two parts, will be of interest to a variety of readers, especially scholars doing feminist studies, queer theory, feminist science and technology studies, and disability studies. In the first part of the book, Aizura discusses trans travel narratives, using transsexual autobiographies and documentaries on trans migration. The second part focuses on gender reassignment and somatechnologies for trans people discussing “entrepreneurialism” (24) of trans selves in accessing various medical technologies. Aizura discusses how access works differently for white and non-white trans subjects. Although this book focuses mostly on transwomen, the observations and learning could be applicable to other gender nonconforming, as well as transmasculine, people.