Good Books about Middle-Aged Transgender Self-Discovery

August 31, 2021 9:45 AM

Someone I know announced they are transitioning. There are lots of YA novels about young transgender folx, but what are some good books (novel or non-fiction) about what it's like to realize in middle age that you are not the gender you were assigned at birth?
posted by musofire to Human Relations (9 answers total)

I learned a lot from She's Not There, Jennifer Finney Boylan, terrific writer.
posted by theora55 at 9:52 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

Not quite middle-aged, but Daniel Lavery's Something That May Shock and Discredit You is about him realizing that he's trans at age 30. It's a wonderfully funny blend of memoir and the kind of surreal classics-major-with-an-iphone riffing he used to do for The Toast.
posted by theodolite at 10:05 AM on August 31, 2021 [8 favorites]

Ditto "She's Not There", and in addition Laura Jane Grace wrote a book "Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout".
posted by molasses at 10:08 AM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

“Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist” by Ben Barres (a trans man).
posted by mekily at 10:25 AM on August 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

Thirding the recommendation of Finney Boylan, who also has had thoughtful things to say when interviewed on the subject.

Last year she published her fourth memoir, Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs, and was interviewed on Fresh Air. Here is a transcript of the highlights of her April 21, 2020, interview, touching on such topics as the reasons she didn't come out until her 40s; the process of coming out to her wife (the two are still married), and what she considers to be the biggest differences between her life before her transition and now.

Here's the full transcript of Finney Boylan's interview with Terry Gross (starting at 32:44).
posted by virago at 11:32 AM on August 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

As someone who did just this, the things that helped me were podcasts like Gender Reveal and Queersplaining. Also, Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano if they're transitioning feminine.
posted by kokaku at 2:29 PM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

I haven’t read it yet myself though it’s been on my list for a number of years, but Kate Bornstein’s A Queer and Pleasant Danger? From the timelines I’ve seen thrown around I think they were middle age at the time of realizing.
posted by brook horse at 4:25 PM on August 31, 2021

Sort of peripheral, but Molly Haskell's My Brother, My Sister is about a middle-aged cishet woman coming to terms with a sibling's transition. She mentions a bunch of first-person narratives along the way.
posted by goatdog at 5:22 PM on August 31, 2021

Thomas Page McBee's book Man Alive is about transitioning as an adult, though not middle age (he was 30.)
posted by needs more cowbell at 6:40 PM on August 31, 2021