Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A trans poet and essayist who transitioned later in life reflects on decades of discovering, reckoning with, and finally embracing her gender identity. Poet and author Goetsch opens with a section about her mid-20s, when she was living as a man whose public persona concealed severe depression, aching loneliness, and the cross-dressing as a woman that exhilarated and confused her as well as isolated her from the human connection she craved. While studying at Wesleyan in the 1980s, the author tried desperately to understand herself and her “unmoored” perception of gender, struggling with feelings for which there were few avenues of expression at the time. At the beginning of the book, she includes a note about the language she uses throughout, which reflects the often offensive attitudes of the time period she describes. The narrative follows a nonlinear structure, with chapters indicated by years as well as titles. In the second part of the book, Goetsch returns to her childhood and adolescence, marked by family dysfunction, bullying, abuse, and loneliness, and the third section delves into the last significant relationships the author had with women while living as a man, her blossoming affinities for poetry and Buddhism, and the process of coming out as trans at age 50. Goetsch recalls periods and important locations in her life with rich, compelling detail, but sometimes her revelries are sprawling and unevenly paced. The prose is often lovely and emotionally affecting, as when she describes writing a painful goodbye to an ex-girlfriend’s sons after the breakup, and her insights into what it means to be trans, both on a personal and societal level, are valuable. Readers may find her blunt quips about transphobia even within the queer community sadly relevant, highlighting how much work still needs to be done: “The institutional transphobia was appalling: L, G, and B didn’t give a fuck about T.” A valuable memoir enriched by years of personal and societal insight into the fraught subject of gender identity. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A trans poet and essayist who transitioned later in life reflects on decades of discovering, reckoning with, and finally embracing her gender identity. Poet and author Goetsch opens with a section about her mid-20s, when she was living as a man whose public persona concealed severe depression, aching loneliness, and the cross-dressing as a woman that exhilarated and confused her as well as isolated her from the human connection she craved. While studying at Wesleyan in the 1980s, the author tried desperately to understand herself and her unmoored perception of gender, struggling with feelings for which there were few avenues of expression at the time. At the beginning of the book, she includes a note about the language she uses throughout, which reflects the often offensive attitudes of the time period she describes. The narrative follows a nonlinear structure, with chapters indicated by years as well as titles. In the second part of the book, Goetsch returns to her childhood and adolescence, marked by family dysfunction, bullying, abuse, and loneliness, and the third section delves into the last significant relationships the author had with women while living as a man, her blossoming affinities for poetry and Buddhism, and the process of coming out as trans at age 50. Goetsch recalls periods and important locations in her life with rich, compelling detail, but sometimes her revelries are sprawling and unevenly paced. The prose is often lovely and emotionally affecting, as when she describes writing a painful goodbye to an ex-girlfriends sons after the breakup, and her insights into what it means to be trans, both on a personal and societal level, are valuable. Readers may find her blunt quips about transphobia even within the queer community sadly relevant, highlighting how much work still needs to be done: The institutional transphobia was appalling: L, G, and B didnt give a fuck about T.A valuable memoir enriched by years of personal and societal insight into the fraught subject of gender identity. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.