I've just started reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and he's already lost me to a degree. In the second chapter, in the voice of his character Mal'akh, who is tattooing himself, he writes this:
"The act of tattooing one's skin was a transformative declaration of power, an announcement to the world: I am in control of my own flesh. The intoxicating feeling of control derived from physical transformation had addicted millions to flesh-altering practices...cosmetic surgery, body piercing, bodybuilding, and steroids...even bulimia and transgendering (emphasis added)."
He equates, in the mind of one of his characters, the act of tattooing and other addictions to altering one's flesh with transgendering! Transgendered persons do not feel that they are in control of their own flesh but quite the opposite. They know themselves to be a stranger in their own flesh, outwardly presenting one gender but inwardly identifying with the other.
I just couldn't believe he wrote such an ill-informed concept. If he had just used "anorexia" instead, he would have been right on.
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