BOOKED Solid

The last book I reviewed was Dress Codes, a recent non-fiction book written by the daughter of a transgender (post-op male to female) woman. While I found that book enjoyable, She’s Not There brings an even more personal perspective to the topic of transgender. Mainstream America read about Boylan’s transformation in the pages of People magazine; my local library received enough requests for the book that they special ordered it to add to their collection.

It is interesting to look back at both the availability of books about transgender people as well as the genre of acceptable, successful books on the topic published by major publishing houses. Several years ago, I read and reviewed Trans-sister Radio (2001), a novel by Chris A. Bohjalian. The book was great, but the perspective was not first-person. The main character in the novel was not even the transgender person. Even Gore Vidal’s 1960s classic, Myra Breckinridge, cannot claim non-fiction status. It seemed like the public was ready to read a fictional story of someone’s physical transition in gender, but not yet willing to accept a real-life name and face. In the past few years, several books authored by children of gay, lesbian, or transgender people have been published by mainstream publishing houses, Dress Codes being one. Smaller publishing houses, especially gay and lesbian presses, have been more liberal and have released non-fiction accounts of transition, but none of those books have received the wide-spread public attention that Boylan’s book has. Boylan is the perfect combination of skill and plot. She’s smart, humorous, attractive, well-adjusted, and well-liked. She’s the transgender community’s girl next door, and she’s the perfect person to garner public attention with such an important topic.

While there’s a lot to be said for the radical queer activists, transgender people have struggled to find the spokesperson who blends in with mainstream America to provide balance. Once the transition is complete, I suppose there is little desire to draw attention to the original difference. It is these people however, who are best able to educate family and friends who might otherwise have ignored the more outspoken radicals. Boylan is fairly influential in her town. With a little time off for the actual surgery, Boylan is still a popular professor at the same college she worked at as a man. She was able to rally most of the college community around her, although not without effort and some heartache. This is powerful advocacy.

Boylan’s story in itself is interesting. As a man, she married a woman she loved very much and had children. The two are still legally married, even though Boylan is now legally a woman. While many lesbians long for such status, the union represents a difficult transition for these two women. Boylan’s wife is not a lesbian, and the physical intimacy between them has suffered. They do remain, however, an incredibly strong, loving, and intact family. Having gone from "Daddy" to "Maddy," Boylan’s role has otherwise remained very much the same.

As with Dress Codes and other books that examine gender with close scrutiny, Boylan finds her own ideas of what it means to be a woman challenged by real-life experience. Prior, more feminist ideals temporarily succumbed to artificial changes in personality, voice, and taste. After this brief period of second adolescence (which is described by almost every GLBTQ coming out book I’ve ever read), Boylan finds her niche, and herself, in the slightly average, forty-something woman she has become. She still notices a lingering difference in voice inflection, however. As a man, it was a pet peeve of hers to listen to women seemingly question their own spoken ideas. Now, she finds herself adopting this culturally female trait. When asked for her name, she automatically replies, "Jennifer? Jennifer Boylan?"

There’s not so much of a plot-driven story in this book. It’s more of an exploration of one woman’s ideas about many things, among them family, life, gender, love, acceptance, and friendship. Only a good writer can achieve non-fiction success with a more philosophical book. There’s no need for drama. This is simply life.

Rebecca James teaches eleventh and twelfth grade English in Allentown, PA.