AQ: Deedie, when you look at Jenny, do you ever see Jim?
DFB: [Pause] That’s a good question. We’ve just spent the last month going through the loss of Jenny’s mother. There are all the pictures, and all the albums, and the lifetime Jenny had before I came into her life. I don’t look at Jenny and see Jim. But we do have photos across both decades of our marriage. We were talking about this yesterday with friends of ours from Wesleyan who were looking at …
JFB: The wonderful photograph of one of our first dates that your sister took. And I was looking at that young Deedie, and I realized, you know, everybody goes through transition. The transition from young Deedie to … uh … less-young Deedie—
DFB: Fifty-one-year-old Deedie. From twenty-seven to fifty-one.
JFB: —is every bit as profound. You’re the same person, but, of course, you’re also not the same person. Can’t remember if I wrote about this, about the ship of Theseus, in She’s Not There. Theseus has a ship and he replaces the sails, he replaces all the planking on the decks, and after ten years, someone’s been saving all the pieces that were replaced and has built them into another ship. So now there’s two ships: one of which has all the original pieces, and one that Theseus now sails. So this is a Philosophy 101 question: Which is the true ship of Theseus? And it’s usually defined as the ship that Theseus sails. So if you had the twenty-five-year-old Anna Quindlen here, right now, I mean, I’d love to talk to her, but …
AQ: There’s so much she needs to know.
JFB: But I’d much rather talk to you. Because you’re the Anna Quindlen that I know. So I was looking at that photograph of two young lovers in their twenties, and we’re both looking off into the distance. I didn’t look at that photograph to think, Wow, I used to be a guy! Phew! How weird was that! I was looking at it thinking, Wow, she’s beautiful. And I’m still married to her. And the version of her that I’m married to I love even more than this beautiful young twenty-eight-year-old. There are a lot of long roads that we travel.
AQ: That all of us travel.
DFB: Right, that everyone travels.
AQ: I wanted to ask you a question about your sons. Over the years, I’ve had friends split up, and I watch them over and over again thinking, It’s because we got divorced. He won’t talk to us because we got divorced. He’s acting out because we got divorced. He doesn’t have a steady girlfriend because we got divorced. And I wonder if you had to stop yourself from thinking that everything was about Jenny’s transition.
DFB: I think it was harder for Jenny than it was for me.
JFB: Oh my God, yeah.
DFB: Sean went through a period in fourth grade when he didn’t want to get out of bed, and he didn’t want to go to school.…
JFB: And the relief we felt when we discovered it was because he really just didn’t like his math teacher, rather than something terrible I had done.
DFB: Or that he was afraid of what people were saying in school. Jenny worried a lot.
JFB: I still worry. I think I’ll always worry.
AQ: And what about the peer group? I mean, my kids have great friends, but from time to time, during their adolescence, I would think of them as the incubus in the house. Were there people who sowed discord?
DFB: You know, so far, that has not been true.
JFB: No, they think I’m cool. And not just me. In some ways, you’re cooler than I am, because you’re deranged enough to stay with me. They’d say, “Zach, you have the coolest parents.” And I think, Yeah, he does.
DFB: Who says that?
JFB: Bridget says that.
DFB: Oh, well, Bridget.
[AQ laughs.]
JFB: And Robbie says that. And Kit.
DFB: I’m not sure if that’s true. But I think that they have had good friends. There was one parent ever, one parent ever, who ran into Jenny at a birthday party and said, “You really look like Jim. Are you his sister?” And Jenny had to take her aside and say, “I’m not Jim anymore, I’m Jenny.” And the woman said, “My child will never come to your house, you’re not allowed to invite him over, and I will be civil to you in public but I completely disagree with this and will not have my child exposed to it.” One kid. Out of everyone we went to school with. It wasn’t someone we wanted to be friends with anyway, they just happened to be in the same class. Other kids and parents and families have been only curious and supportive and welcoming.
JFB: I think we’re protected—by “we” I mean not just the two of us but the whole family—because I’m so public and I’m so out. It’s not like the Boo Radley house, where people are afraid to knock on the door.
AQ: I love the idea that Zach might start his college essay with—
DFB: “Oprah asked me what my family was like.”
AQ: Exactly.
DFB: When Jenny told them that she was writing another memoir, Zach just said, “You know, Maddy, this time, could you use our real names?”
AQ: They still call you Maddy?
JFB: They do. Once in a while I’m introduced as the other mom. Rarely. I’m still Maddy, if only to differentiate me from Deedie. You know, I didn’t want to use Mom or Mommy early on, because I thought I was taking something away from Deedie. I’m not the one who was pregnant for nine months. I’m not the one who went through labor and had a cesarean.
DFB: Two.
JFB: And got mastitis. And had the epidural fall out. So, I felt like saying, “Oh yes, I’m a mother too, now!” was kind of cheeky. Maddy feels like that’s me.
AQ: Are there any of your friends who just couldn’t make it through the transition?
DFB: A couple.
JFB: There are some friends we have who I know liked it better when we were husband and wife and are still not thrilled about the whole transgender thing. It’s very common for me, if I’m at a Colby event with friends that I’ve had for more than a dozen years, for people to use the wrong pronoun. Which, I admit, still drives me crazy. I’d like to say I know they don’t mean any harm by this, but after a dozen years … Deedie is much more forgiving than I am about this.
DFB: Well, it’s not me.
AQ: Deedie, I want to ask you what I think is a pretty hard question. She’s Not There is filled with a sense of what you’ve lost. At some point, you say, “This isn’t what I signed up for.” So it’s all these years later—what have you gotten out of this? Instead of loss, what did you gain?
DFB: You know, I go back to what we were saying when we first started talking. I get to be married to the person that I love. I get to have a family and a life that I find rewarding and exciting and fun. It is now ten, eleven, twelve years later, and I’m still here. I don’t have to be here. I want to do it. What we have built together, as our life and our marriage and our family, is really rewarding.
JFB: But I will say—this is going to sound defensive; ready?—frequently people will say, in response to She’s Not There, “The person I really want to hear from is your wife. That’s the real story.” Or, “I get the sense in She’s Not There that we haven’t really heard the real story from Deedie.” Or, “Poor Deedie. She’s the real hero of the story.” And while I do think Deedie is a hero, there’s a way in which—this is the self-defensive part—I feel for Deedie to be defined as a hero implies that I must be—
DFB: The villain? [Laughs]
JFB: Well, yeah, and that anyone who would stay with me has to be seen as a martyr or an object of pity.
AQ: I actually think that it suggests that she had to settle for less, at some level. And what I think she’s just said pretty eloquently is, “I got what I wanted.”
JFB: She got what she didn’t know she wanted. Which is what happens to all of us.
AQ: Right.
JFB: But I guess I’ll put it differently. I will say, in spite of all the losses, in spite of being transgender, instead of all the other things I have to apologize for, on a good day, I’m a lot of fun.
[AQ cracks up.]
JFB: I’m a pleasant person to
be around. I make great pizza. I play the piano and I can sing. I think I’m a loving person, and that I bring that to people. And that our family is better for having me around, and Deedie’s life is better for having me in it. And with this narrative of, “Oh, the poor thing. I don’t envy her!”? I mean, jeez. What I want is for people to envy her. I want people to sob tears of misery that they’re not Deedie, that they can’t be married to me, because—
[Deedie gives Jenny a look of exasperation and love.]
JFB: Oh, look at that face! Oh my God! All right.
Maybe not sob, but do you know what I’m saying?
[Deedie gives Jenny another hard look.]
JFB: Should I shut up now?
[Deedie nods. The three women laugh.]
JFB: Okay. I’m all done.
A DONATION HAS been made in the name of the interview subjects of this book to the PEN American Center, the global literary community protecting free expression and celebrating literature. www.pen.org
OTHER ORGANIZATIONS AND NONPROFITS DEAR TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THIS PROJECT INCLUDE:
• Little People of America. LPA is a national nonprofit organization that provides support and information to people of short stature and their families. www.lpaonline.org
• Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. The institute provides leadership that improves adoption laws, policies, and practices through sound research, education, and advocacy. www.adoptioninstitute.org.
• ASAN (Autistic Self Advocacy Network). The Autistic Self Advocacy Network is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization run by and for autistic people. ASAN’s supporters include autistic adults and youth, cross-disability advocates, and nonautistic family members, professionals, educators, and friends. ASAN was created to provide support and services to individuals on the autism spectrum while working to educate communities and improve public perceptions of autism. autisticadvocacy.org
• National Center for Transgender Equality. Dedicated to advancing the equality of transgender people through advocacy, collaboration, and empowerment. www.transequality.org
• GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation). For twenty-five years, GLAAD has worked with news, entertainment, and social media to bring culture-changing stories of LGBT people into millions of homes and workplaces every day. www.glaad.org
• The Edward Albee Foundation. The Albee Foundation exists to serve writers, visual artists, and composers from all walks of life, by providing time and space in which to work without disturbance. www.albeefoundation.org
• The Papillon Center, run by Dr. Christine McGinn, provides transgender care in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. drchristinemcginn.com
FOR INDIVIDUALS SEEKING RESOURCES FOR TRANSGENDER PEOPLE AND THEIR FAMILIES:
• In addition to the NCTE, readers might investigate www.transparentday.org, a group advocating for the celebration of the lives of parents and children without the stereotypes of gender.
• The Sylvia Rivera Law Project works to guarantee that all people are free to self-determine gender identity and expression, regardless of income or race, and without facing harassment, discrimination, or violence. srlp.org
• Engender is the blog run by writer Helen Boyd, author of two smart memoirs about transgender marriage, My Husband Betty and She’s Not the Man I Married; her site also contains a thoughtful community message board. www.myhusbandbetty.com
BOOKS ABOUT TRANSGENDER EXPERIENCE:
Whipping Girl: A Transgender Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano. Seal Press. ISBN: 978–1580051545.
Transgender History by Susan Stryker. Seal Press. ISBN: 978–1580052245.
True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism—For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals by Mildred Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley. Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 978–0787902711.
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. Firebrand Books. ISBN: 978–1563410291.
Becoming a Visible Man by Jamison Green. Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN: 978–0826514578.
ORGANIZATIONS ADVOCATING FOR NONTRADITIONAL FAMILIES:
• PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) promotes the health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons, their families, and their friends through: support, to cope with an adverse society; education, to enlighten an ill-informed public; and advocacy, to end discrimination and to secure equal civil rights. community.pflag.org
• The Family Equality Council works at all levels of government to advance full social and legal equality on behalf of the approximately one million lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families raising two million children. www.familyequality.org
WEBSITES OF AUTHORS PARTICIPATING IN THIS PROJECT:
• Richard Russo: www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/russo/
• Ralph James Savarese: www.ralphsavarese.com
• Trey Ellis: www.treyellis.com
• Augusten Burroughs: www.augusten.com
• Edward Albee: www.albeefoundation.org
• Timothy Kreider: www.thepaincomics.com
• Dr. Christine McGinn: drchristinemcginn.com
• Ann Beattie: authors.simonandschuster.com/Ann-Beattie/1926455
• Susan Minot: www.openroadmedia.com/authors/susan-minot.aspx
• Anna Quindlen: www.annaquindlen.net
JENNY BOYLAN’S WEBSITE is www.jenniferboylan.net and contains a wealth of material, some of it specifically related to this title. Jenny can be contacted at jb@jenniferboylan.net; she attempts to answer all mail, except when things get a little backed up. She can be followed at JennyBoylan on Twitter and as Jennifer Finney Boylan on Facebook.
THE BOYLAN FAMILY maintains two endowments, which are sustained by proceeds from this book and other JFB projects. The Boylan prize in nonfiction at Wesleyan is a small fund supporting undergraduate writers at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. More information is available at www.wesleyan.edu/writing/community/prizedetails/boylan.html.
The J. Richard Boylan Scholarship in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University provides major support for undergraduates at JHU in Baltimore, Maryland. www.jhu.edu/∼admis/catalog/misc/scholarships_awards_prizes.pdf.
Sympathetic readers and other supporters of undergraduate education wishing to contribute to these endowments can contact the schools directly at the links listed above, or write to the author at jb@jenniferboylan.net.
I WISH TO EXPRESS my sincere gratitude to everyone who helped with this project—the parents and former children who suffered through my endless questions; to Anna Quindlen, for agreeing to perform (and edit) the interview that provides the afterword to this work; to editors Deb Futter, Gerry Howard, Christine Pride, and Lindsay Sagnette at Random House; and to my agent Kris Dahl at ICM, for standing by me these last twenty years. I want to particularly thank my assistant, Grant Patch, for all the research he did on my behalf, as well as for transcribing many of the interviews. Other interviews were transcribed by Verbal Ink Transcription Services (www.verbalink.com).
I’m especially thankful to Augusten Burroughs, who first suggested that I write this book over a dinner of burning-hot food at Spice Market, in Manhattan; it’s probably worth mentioning that in reply I told Augusten that I was “all done with memoir” and “all done with gender.” Augusten is also responsible for the photograph of Edward Albee as well as the author photo.
I’m grateful to my colleagues and students at Colby College in Maine, as well as at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. It was Ursinus’s president, the late John Strassburger, who, along with English professor Jon Volkmer, brought me to that campus for the fall of 2010 and invented the position of Grace Hoyer/John Updike Distinguished Visiting Creative Writer for me. I miss him.
Above
all, I’m grateful to my family—my parents and my sister; my brave, glorious sons, Zachary and Sean; and to the incomparable Deedie Finney Boylan, whose love has made my life possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
©Augusten Burroughs
JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN is the author of twelve books, including the memoirs I’m Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted and She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders, the first bestselling work by a transgender American. She’s Not There was reissued in an updated, tenth-anniversary edition in 2013; both books are published by Broadway/Random House. Jenny has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, and the Today show. Documentaries about her life have appeared on CBS News’s 48 Hours, The Barbara Walters Special, and the History Channel. In 2005 she played herself on several episodes of ABC’s All My Children. The high point of her scholarly life was being imitated by Will Forte on Saturday Night Live.
She has spoken at conferences and universities around the country, including Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, Wesleyan, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin, and Duke, as well as the National Press Club in Washington, DC. She has served on the national screening committee of the Fulbright Scholars, is on the national board of directors of GLAAD, and is a member of the board of trustees of the Kinsey Institute for Research on Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. She is the winner of a Lambda Literary award as well as the “Stonewall Legacy” award from the University of Massachusetts. A frequent contributor to the op-ed page of the New York Times, Jenny’s work has also appeared regularly in Condé Nast Traveler magazine and Salon. com. Since 1988 she has been professor of English at Colby College. She lives in Belgrade Lakes, Maine, with her family.
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