On Becoming a Man

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For most of his life, P. Carl lived as a girl and a queer woman, building a career, a life, and a loving marriage, yet still waiting to realize himself in full.

After fifty years, P. Carl embarked on his gender transition amid the rise of the Trump administration and the #MeToo movement—a transition point in America’s own story, a time when transphobia and toxic masculinity are under increasing scrutiny even as they thrive in the highest halls of power. P. Carl’s quest to become himself and to reckon with his masculinity mirrors, in many ways, the challenge before the country as a whole, to imagine a society where every member can have a vibrant, livable life.

His latest book, Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition takes us inside the complex shifts and questions that arise throughout—the alternating moments of arrival and estrangement. In this intimate memoir, he shares the journey of his transition, which reconfigured both his own inner experience and his closest bonds—from his twenty-year relationship with his wife, Lynette, to his already tumultuous relationships with his parents, and seemingly solid friendships that were subtly altered, often painfully and wordlessly.

Join CIIS Professor and Chair of the Human Sexuality Program Michelle Marzullo for a conversation with P. Carl about his personal journey, as well as gender, power, and inequality in America.

Copies of P. Carl's book, Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition, will be available for sale at this event.

P. Carl is a Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Emerson College in Boston and was awarded a 2017 Art of Change Fellowship from the Ford Foundation, the Berlin Prize fellowship from the American Academy for the Fall of 2018, the Andrew W. Mellon Creative Research Residency at the University of Washington, and the Anschutz Fellowship at Princeton for spring of 2020. P. Carl made theater for twenty years and now writes, teaches, travels, mountain climbs, and swims. P. Carl resides in Boston and lives with his wife of twenty-two years, the writer Lynette D’Amico. Becoming a Man is P. Carl’s first book.

Michelle A. Marzullo, PhD currently serves as Chair and Professor of the Human Sexuality PhD Program at California Institute of Integral Studies, leading only the second such fully accredited PhD program in the US. Dr. Marzullo is a practicing anthropologist and academic. Her work engages issues of sexuality, marriage and economics in the United States, LGBTQIA+ access to higher education, ethics in online research methodology, and workplace diversity and inclusion issues. Dr. Marzullo has engaged a wide range of studies including policy, programmatic, public health, organizational effectiveness and marketing research with Fortune 100 companies. The notable organizations she has worked with include: Ernst & Young, the Point Foundation, International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, Center for Tobacco Products at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration through Rescue Social Change Group, Human Rights Campaign Foundation, Child Welfare League of America, California Department of Public Health’s Program Development and Evaluation Unit (CDPH) through the Sequoia Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through Partnership for Prevention, Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research, the California Gay Straight Alliance Policy Project, National Sexuality Resource Center, and Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality. Dr. Marzullo holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Sociology from Western Connecticut State University, a master’s degree in Human Sexuality Studies from San Francisco State University, and a PhD in Anthropology concentrating on Race, Gender and Social Justice from American University in Washington, DC. In her free time, she wanders wide open fields with her dogs Samson & Delilah.

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