Book Review: Gender Outlaw

Gender Outlaw
by Kate Bornstein
Vintage Books (revised edition 2016)
pp 299

I trained in ballet with a trans woman I’ll refer to as “Ali.”  She and I performed together in an amateur ballet performance. Every time I saw Ali approach the studio for our next rehearsal, I experienced a rush of happiness, but I could not fully explain why. Then when I read “Gender Outlaw,” I understood my joyful response to Ali. She had the courage to become who she needed to be.

The first edition of Gender Outlaw, by author and performance artist Kate Bornstein, was published in 1994. A later edition of Gender Outlaw (the one I read) was published in 2016. I have no doubt that another edition might one day emerge. Gender Outlaw is a timeless classic that fills a much needed void. Kate Bornstein has said she wrote the book she had once wished someone had written for her.

Playful and serious, as well as charming, frank, and sincere, Kate Bornstein shares the stories of brave nonbinary-identified people who have lived their lives hiding within the confines of false gender—“and who after much soul/searching, decided to change their gender, and spent the rest of their days hiding deep within ‘another’ false gender.” Gender Outlaw is interspersed with many anecdotes that will break your heart as well as stories of heroic adventure.

During the inevitable process of discovering who one is, there is the abject refusal of categories that are false, limiting, and do not feel right. Gender identity answers the question: who am I? There is a fundamental lesson that must be learned: Any one of us can be imprisoned by our gender.

Kate Bornstein’s own story of growing up as a Jewish boy outside of Asbury Park, New Jersey is the starting point in her journey. Her gradual awareness of being a young gay man and coming out to her family is a milestone. But the major transformation comes when she understands that she is more than a gay man. Kate Bornstein radicalizes her identity to be a person who is not straddling gender between a man and a woman. She arrives at a clear, cogent revelation: “gender fluidity recognizes no borders or rules of gender.”

The finely honed nuances of gender exist in every person, but we have to be able to see them. While gender, sex and sexuality are an integral reality of being human, it is common to confuse gender, sex and sexuality as one and the same, but they are different. The manner in which you choose to have sex and to whom you are attracted is not necessarily defined by one’s gender. Yet gender and sexuality can be inextricably linked. The relationship between gender, sex and sexuality is not simple and is best defined as paradoxical.

Bornstein probes beyond individual personhood to marvel at the connections among many types of communities. “The conflation of sex, sexuality, and gender affects more than individuals and relationships—it contributes to the linking together of the very distinct subcultures of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, leather sexers, sex workers, and trans people.”

How do people see one another? Every individual is more than what meets the eye. Gender identity exhibited through apparel can be cobbled together from thrift stores, or comprise elaborate wardrobes, accoutrements, shoes, jewelry, hair, nails & skin, all taken to new heights of glamor and couture fashion. To accessorize is dramatic and the essence of good theater. In Bornstein’s words, “Talk to a few trans people and see how beautifully textured the normally drab concept of gender can become.”

Exploring the many facets of gender is not only the domain of trans people. The Mummers Parade is an annual tradition that takes place on New Year’s Day in Philadelphia. Hundreds of working class, family men dress in elaborate costumes and gowns, showered with sequins, feathers, and glitter. Parading from City Hall, and marching south down Broad Street, they get the chance to revel in their inner girl.

Good information and, better yet, good thinking pervades Gender Outlaw. Dense with witty anecdotes and provocative queries that are compelling enough to make you think, this book is never trivial and never dull.

You’ll learn about things you thought you already knew, e.g., how to differentiate among sex, sexuality and gender. And you will also learn the nitty-gritty details of what happens when one undergoes “the operation.” If your trans journey culminates in a succession of surgical procedures and hormone therapies, then Gender Outlaw is a blue print. Expect a Sea Change, a profound transformation, a complete shift from one gender to another, metamorphosis.

But it doesn’t stop there.

There is a tremendous self-empowerment in not having to be defined one way or another. Gender blur. Gender blend. Gender fluid. At its core, an evolving gender identity is a practice based on the courage of embracing constant change; it is the Sea Change that is the only constant. Who am I? The journey to discovering who you are is not fixed by society, culture, religion, media, marketing, consumerism, or the doctor who assigned gender at birth.  

Bornstein notes how “our western culture tends to tends to sacrifice the full range of human experience to the lowest common denominator that’s acceptable to most people…” There are many selves within each person—that’s a primary reason why everyone should read this book.

Dictating hardwired categories of man or woman, black or white, either/or is cruel, confining and unrealistic. Gender fluidity can free us and inspire us.  Actualizing one’s gender yields an authentic persona and the full expression of what it means to be a human being. It’s why seeing my friend Ali in dance class brought me joy. To me, she represented freedom. As Bornstein said, “Only our bonding will permit a true revolution of sex and gender.”