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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
Despite being trans AND a trans therapist, I’d never read this book. Having become enamored with Jenny Boylan’s FB posts describing her daily adventures in NYC and, now that it’s again summer, Maine, I realized I could read more of her writing, and here we are. I appreciate the honesty and humor with which she tells her story. She tells it like it is. She captures both the wondrous and the lonely parts of being trans and of being alive. Thank you to her.
funny
reflective
Really interesting read!
Hearing from someone who went through their transition in the 90s was why I picked this up. What I didn't expect (having not read Jenny's other works) was how funny this was. Jenny keeps a light tone even when talking about heavier topics and makes the book highly addictive.
All the little observations and moments of dealing with people in public or loose acquaintances or people that had heard of her pre-transition self, was insightful and eye opening for me in particular since I'm trans but not binary trans.
I also appreciated getting to know way more than I would have expected about how she navigated transition while having a wife and kids. Jenny is very open about her how her life and her relationship with her wife changed.
Overall a great read!
Hearing from someone who went through their transition in the 90s was why I picked this up. What I didn't expect (having not read Jenny's other works) was how funny this was. Jenny keeps a light tone even when talking about heavier topics and makes the book highly addictive.
All the little observations and moments of dealing with people in public or loose acquaintances or people that had heard of her pre-transition self, was insightful and eye opening for me in particular since I'm trans but not binary trans.
I also appreciated getting to know way more than I would have expected about how she navigated transition while having a wife and kids. Jenny is very open about her how her life and her relationship with her wife changed.
Overall a great read!
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I am glad I read this book and I feel like I learned a little. I still cannot relate to feeling the spirit doesn't match the body, or feeling uncomfortable in my body.
I'm a little offended that James thought clothes make the woman. He felt less distracted when he dressed in a skirt? Really?
This is a very interesting book and I'm glad I'm reading it. I do still wonder about the disconnect between the spirit and body. I've never been so out of sync with myself that I had to take drastic measures. I also don't know what it "feels" like to be a woman, despite the fact that I am female and a woman. But I'll tell you one thing: I don't feel more like a woman in a skirt than I do in pants. I feel like ME.
Note: I'm only half way through, but I don't see much distinction between gender and sex. Gender and sex are different: gender is created by social norms (think all those pink baby clothes and make up toys for girls, blue baby clothes and toy trucks for boys), sex is biological--what's between your legs. I see a slight allusion to this when James lived as a woman for a year--that's gender--before the sex change.
I still feel completely confused about how transsexuals feel. The journey from James to Jennifer is a good start, but I don't understand. Is this one of those things that you never really understand until you go through it? No wonder it's seen so negatively.
I'm a little offended that James thought clothes make the woman. He felt less distracted when he dressed in a skirt? Really?
This is a very interesting book and I'm glad I'm reading it. I do still wonder about the disconnect between the spirit and body. I've never been so out of sync with myself that I had to take drastic measures. I also don't know what it "feels" like to be a woman, despite the fact that I am female and a woman. But I'll tell you one thing: I don't feel more like a woman in a skirt than I do in pants. I feel like ME.
Note: I'm only half way through, but I don't see much distinction between gender and sex. Gender and sex are different: gender is created by social norms (think all those pink baby clothes and make up toys for girls, blue baby clothes and toy trucks for boys), sex is biological--what's between your legs. I see a slight allusion to this when James lived as a woman for a year--that's gender--before the sex change.
I still feel completely confused about how transsexuals feel. The journey from James to Jennifer is a good start, but I don't understand. Is this one of those things that you never really understand until you go through it? No wonder it's seen so negatively.
More like a 3.5, but I just couldn't bring it up to a 4. I was interested in reading this book because I know some younger transgender persons. I wanted to understand what they were experiencing and felt like the first part of the book really did that. It felt honest and I was particularly intrigued by James/Jenny's descriptions of how her body, and even personality, changed with the start of hormone treatment. After about that point, I found the book a bit repetitive and not honest in a way that helped me to move sympathetically along the rest of the journey with the author. Why did the author have to do the transition at break neck speed while her wife begged her to slow down and give her time to adjust to the whole process? Was the author feeling suicidal? Was the author finally able to face who she was and couldn't hold back any more? Did the author need to finish this book with a deadline, since it was published shortly after the final surgery?
I felt increasingly sympathetic to Grace, the author's wife, who we are told is an amazingly loving person and who has continued to stay married to Jenny many years later. But the transition felt very lopsided, with no give or compromise on Jenny's part and all kinds of loss for Grace. She had no choice but to watch her husband transform into a sister. The self-centeredness of the author dominated the second half of the book and her happiness was all that seemed to matter. Some of the vignettes, especially at the end, didn't seem to fit the rest of the narrative and left you wondering, Why was that in there? One that comes to mind was the visit to the magic store. I also didn't feel connected to the author about what being a woman was like other than superficial things. Other than feeling right, or worrying about getting her behavior right so she would be believeable, I didn't find what made her life so much more satisfying after the surgery.
I'm glad there is more open conversation about transgender persons so they can try to live the gender they associate with before they become entangled in a family where the others are unsuspecting. Jenny may have been glad for the process she went through to become herself, but I wonder if Grace can say the same.
I felt increasingly sympathetic to Grace, the author's wife, who we are told is an amazingly loving person and who has continued to stay married to Jenny many years later. But the transition felt very lopsided, with no give or compromise on Jenny's part and all kinds of loss for Grace. She had no choice but to watch her husband transform into a sister. The self-centeredness of the author dominated the second half of the book and her happiness was all that seemed to matter. Some of the vignettes, especially at the end, didn't seem to fit the rest of the narrative and left you wondering, Why was that in there? One that comes to mind was the visit to the magic store. I also didn't feel connected to the author about what being a woman was like other than superficial things. Other than feeling right, or worrying about getting her behavior right so she would be believeable, I didn't find what made her life so much more satisfying after the surgery.
I'm glad there is more open conversation about transgender persons so they can try to live the gender they associate with before they become entangled in a family where the others are unsuspecting. Jenny may have been glad for the process she went through to become herself, but I wonder if Grace can say the same.
This is an autobiographical work tracing the narrator's path from boy to man to middle-aged woman. Boylan writes in a style that is sometimes disarmingly casual and overall quite cheerful, ending up a well-adjusted professional woman who is loved and supported by family, friends, and professional colleagues. This personal narrative is contrasted with the experiences of other transgendered characters s/he encounters: people who feel the burden of a non-integrated identity and run into all sorts of psychological problems and regrets. What was most interesting to me was the story and reaction of Boylan's best friend and long-suffering wife. The afterward written by this friend (Richard Russo) about Boylan resonated much more strongly with me than the main narrative and seemed to give more insight into Boylan's choices and personality than Boylan's first-person narrative.
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced