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A review by laura_sackton
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein
LOVE.
I love the updated intro so much, the idea of gender as a shifting language, and also the idea that a book should be updated and also left alone. It made think so much about the culture Bornstein was writing from 25 years ago, a white U.S. culture of the 50s. They talk about how gender is so much more expansive today than it has been in the past, which is true and also not true. Cultures all over the world have had expansive understandings of gender for centuries; one of the aims of colonialism has been destroying this. I super appreciate the intro, Bornstein saying that we have so much more nuance around gender than when they were growing up in the 50s. I also like that it positions their own lack of knowledge, or at least what they’re not looking at. It makes the book feel like this living document, with Bornstein a part of that, imperfect, still learning and trying, knowing lots they didn’t know before but also holding on to things they learned.
I love the updated intro so much, the idea of gender as a shifting language, and also the idea that a book should be updated and also left alone. It made think so much about the culture Bornstein was writing from 25 years ago, a white U.S. culture of the 50s. They talk about how gender is so much more expansive today than it has been in the past, which is true and also not true. Cultures all over the world have had expansive understandings of gender for centuries; one of the aims of colonialism has been destroying this. I super appreciate the intro, Bornstein saying that we have so much more nuance around gender than when they were growing up in the 50s. I also like that it positions their own lack of knowledge, or at least what they’re not looking at. It makes the book feel like this living document, with Bornstein a part of that, imperfect, still learning and trying, knowing lots they didn’t know before but also holding on to things they learned.
She writes so openly and freely about her gender, about how she plays with gender. She is so committed to play. This book is so funny, it makes sense, she’s an actor, the narration is very theatrical, I was constantly laughing, and it’s really clear to me that she is not interested in being legible to anyone, not to queers or straight folks or even other trans people. She wants to have fun, she wants to play and experiment and try things, she does not want to be boxed in, and she approaches this in so many ways. If this book has a thesis it is that gender is play.
One thing I’m thinking about is earnestness and how humor is not really associated with earnestness, and I’m building this theory of earnestness in my head, queer earnestness, and I think this is part of it. Like, she makes tons of jokes, she’s irreverent, she makes light of things, it’s not earnest in the way Anne of Green Gables is. And yet she is so earnest, in the way she is committed to being her nonbinary self, to making her art and loving and living her life and naming herself as she chooses and talking about what she chooses and asking questions and throwing all the binary restrictions out the window. She doesn’t make any of it easier for anyone and I think that has to do with earnestness, too. This idea that being silly is powerful, that play is a form of queer liberation, that taking your life seriously can mean being loose and wild. I’m trying to think about how this relates to other kinds of earnestness, but I think part of earnestness is about being open to joy which means being open to great grief.
There is a lot of theorizing and great conversations about gender, loved the bits about theater, the parts about queer and trans communities needing to be expansive and not narrowing, but mostly this is a book about joyful queer and trans gender play, of making of your life a play and realizing that expression and delight and that can be the truest way to get free.