The good transsexual? The Buck Angel dilemmas

Abstract

The often-told Buck Angel bio is that of a female-to-male transsexual who became a ground-breaking and award-winning porn star, documentary producer, sex educator, commentator, dating site host, and entrepreneur. Such a bio is tantalizing and inevitably explains ongoing cultural fascination: Angel has a high public profile and strong following on social media. More interesting than the facts of his bio, however, are his contributions to understanding sexual cultures. Drawing on Angel’s own remarks as well as the many thousand words spilled analyzing them, I explore the relationship between Angel and trans discourse, as well as, more broadly, with contemporary gender and sexuality debates. I ..