Tommas Page McGree is an author, journalist and television writer who explores the hidden

biases and assumptions that drive our cultural narratives about gender and masculinity.

His first memoir, Man Alive, explored really sort of what it kind of quote means to be

a man.

As he was moving through his own personal gender transition, it was named a best book

in 2014 by NPR and a bunch of other places.

Tommas' latest book, Amateur, takes you inside his quest to learn how to box in order

to understand masculinity's tie to violence, along with his personal journey to become

the first transgender man to ever box in Madison Square Garden, which was an experience that

was incited in no small part by emotions that were stirred up by the loss of his mother,

how he struggled to deal with them, and how he also realized others were treating him

and reacting to him in that season of his life.

In today's conversation, we explore how a series of really pivotal moments and awakenings

and experiences, including an attempted mugging at gunpoint, as well as the loss of his

mom, how these shaped his lens on his own gender and identity, his decision to transition,

what it was like to go through the experience of becoming socialized as a man in his early

30s, while also working to understand how to really redefine the way he wanted to be

in and live in the world, so excited to share this conversation with you.

I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

So fascinating, by so many, surely your journey, somebody places along the road with your

journey, and I want to talk about your most recent book and also the one before that,

and a lot of what led up to it, just take a big step at the time.

...