Boys Like Her: Transfictions

Choosing which public bathroom to useAmen's or women'sAseems a simple thing most of us do everyday without thinking. That decision raises complex issues, however, for a diverse and growing group of people. "Transgender is the term that has come to refer to all those who blur or bridge the boundary of gender expression they were assigned at birth: cross-dressers, transsexuals, intersex people, Two Spirits, masculine females, feminine males, drag kings, and drag queens." Feinberg (Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul, LJ 7/96) identifies as a "masculine, lesbian, female-to-male cross-dresser and transgenderist." During the spring of 1997, Feinberg spoke around the country to such groups as the Texas "T" (Transgender) Party in Richardson, TX, where she addressed 350 heterosexual cross-dressed men and their spouses. She stresses the need for coalitions in the trans-liberation movement. Interspersed among adaptations of those powerful talks are short self-portraits of a wide variety of transgender activists. Taste This was formed in 1995 by a group of four writers and performers (Anna Camilleri, Ivan Elizabeth Coyote, Zoe Eakle, and Lyndell Montgomery), who alone or in various combinations tell stories, play music, sing, and "sort of" dance. Their first book is based on material originally written for performance, here transformed into evocative narrative fiction. In her brief foreword, Kate Bornstein refers to these stories as scary and forbidden, told with "great dignity, great gentleness, grace, and gallantry." The handsomely designed volume is illustrated with 75 images of the group on the road and at home. Both titles raise consciousness about different ways of being in the world, and each speaks eloquently to the need for civil rights for all of us.AJim Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.