Trans: A Memoir

Memoir cover

Trans: A Memoir (Verso Books, 2015).
Based on my Transgender Journey series for The Guardian, which ran between 2010 and 2012, this memoir combines a personal story of transition with critiques of 1990s and 2000s trans theory, literature and film. It explores the uses of ‘life writing’, the relationship between trans people and feminism, and the tropes that have appeared in media coverage since the 1950s. It includes an Epilogue with Canadian writer Sheila Heti (author of Ticknor and How Should a Person Be?) where she and I discuss the implications of being a ‘transgender writer’, and how the media’s treatment of trans people has changed over the last few years.

It was named as runner-up in the Polari LGBT First Book Award for 2016.

Extracts from the book have been published in a number of places:

Broadly.
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA)
The Observer
Salon
Vice (interview with Sheila Heti)

I have also done a number of interviews:

The Anfield Wrap (with Neil Atkinson and Sam Brocklehurst – subscribers only)
BOMB magazine (with Rebekah Weikel)
LitHub (with Veronica Esposito)
The New Inquiry (with Hannah Gregory)
Open Democracy (with Dawn Foster)
Vice (with Tasbeeh Herwees)

Please see the Audio/Visual page for recorded interviews about the book, with Chloe Aridjis, James Butler and Ash Sarkar, Lauren Elkin and others.

And some reviews:

Flavorwire (by Amanda de Marco)
Full Stop (by Kari Larsen)
Guardian (by Stephen Burt)
Lambda Literary (by Cat Fitzpatrick)
Mask magazine (by Vanessa Willoughby)
New Humanist (by Ray Filar)
New Statesman (by Philip Hoare)
The New York Times (by Sarah Wildman)
rs21 (by Sølvi Qorda)
The Seattle Review of Books (by Martin McClennan)
Transgender Studies Quarterly (by Andrea Long Chu)

I wrote about the process of writing the book for the Guardian‘s ‘Paperback Writer‘ series. I also created an annotated playlist, featuring music from the book, for the Verso blog.

Finally, a long piece on trans narratives for the London Review of Books by Jacqueline Rose, responding in part to the book.

Cover art by Joanna Walsh.