One Life: Two Genders

By: Kaylah Baca

Posted: 10/4/07

Jennifer Boylan read exerpts from her two acclaimed books "I'm Looking Through You" and "She's Not There" to a full room yesterday. The later, "She's Not There," is the first best-selling book by a transgender.

"It is impossible to hate anyone whose story you know," said Boylan, an English Professor at Colby College who visited the Rainbow Center Wednesday Afternoon.

After being introduced by the new director of the Rainbow Center, Fleurette King, Boylan began telling the crowd about a piece of legislation that is struggling to be passed. The new law would forbid employers from firing someone on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Before it was up for vote, it was thought that perhaps the bill would have a higher chance of passing if the gender identity section was taken out. When human rights activists heard about this, they were outraged. Boylan went on to say that the law is somewhat at a standstill,and will probably be vetoed by President Bush and is a perfect example of what the majority of America still thinks about transgender people or trans-identity as a whole.

Before Boylan began to read from her book "She's Not There," she gave a little background information on herself and her family. She is of Irish decent and as she read aloud excerpts of dialogue between herself and her father, she even took on a perfect Irish accent. Boylan grew up in a large house in the suburbs of Philadelphia with her parents and sister. The house, she said, was haunted, in "more than just the Scooby-Doo type of way."

She described hearing voices and cold spots in the house, otherwise known as haunted. The other ghosts she described as a part of her past.

Boylan began by reading the chapter about a time she stayed with her grandmother, whom she called Gammie, and her friend, while her parents were away watching her sister ride horses. At the time she was actually a male and only 12 years old. During that time period in her life, she was seriously trying to figure out what to do with the bad feelings about herself and the body she woke up in every morning. Boylan told the audience that she took the "Big Walk" while she stayed with her Gammie. The chapter described how she sat upon a rock next to the ocean and pondered her thoughts of feeling not quite like a boy, yet knowing she was not a boy. She questioned, how can I be something that is impossible for me to be? After watching the waves crash against the rocks for some time, she thought, "Maybe I can be cured by love, then perhaps I would still be content to be a boy."

Boylan paused during her reading, many times, and told the crowd that her feelings had nothing to do with whether she was attracted to boys or girls. She said it is not a hobby or even a lifestyle. The way she feels about herself is a fact.

"Transgender people are different because of their history, which many people cannot accept" Boylan said.

The next chapter she read discussed a time she was in her house alone, or so she had thought, and was practicing a speech out loud while wearing a bra. She commented on how her house was perfect for two types of people: someone such as herself and someone who did drugs. Boylan explained that because the paneling in the walls was perfect for hiding things, she would hide pot or bras. The crowd laughed as she recalled how one could tell what type of day she was having by which panel was open.

She continued reading and described how the door to her room creaked open and the sound of the piano downstairs floated into her room. She put the bra away and went downstairs to investigate. Boylan found her dad at the piano and both were alarmed to find each other in the house. She began to converse with her father about playing and about a cancerous mole he just had removed. Boylan asked her father whether he was alright now, but her father said if anything were to happen, she was suppose to take care of her mother and sister.

"Be a man," he said to her.

"I think the whole gender-identity topic is a very touchy issue and to hear the struggle someone like [Boylan] has had to go through, really makes it more real to us who never really understood it before," said Stacie Hernandez, a 6th- semester business major.

Boylan then began to talk about how supportive her mother was and still is about her being a transgender. She also talked about her wife, whom she married while still known as James Boylan. They have two children together and have remained together throughout all of the hard times.

Contact Kaylah Baca at Kaylah.Baca@UConn.edu