"Bear Witness" and "Build Legacies": Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Trans* Autobiography. (1st September 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rondot, Sarah Ray
• Is Part Of: Auto/biography studies. Volume 31:Number 3(2016)
• Page Start: 527
• Page End: 551
• Publication Date: 2016-09-01
• Subjects: Autobiography -- Periodicals; Autobiography; Periodicals; 920.005
• DOI: 10.1080/08989575.2016.1183339
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0898-9575

Abstract

ABSTRACT: After examining the historical tradition of twentieth-century autobiography by transsexual-identified writers, this article analyzes two contemporary life narratives: Alex Drummond's Grrl Alex: A Personal Journey to a Transgender Identity and Jennifer Finney Boylan's I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted: A Memoir . In contrast to earlier autobiographers, Drummond and Boylan representatively demonstrate a new era of trans* epistemology, which does not rely on the wrong-body model as the foundational aspect of trans* existence. Boylan remembers her haunting past, which inevitably leads her to seek medical intervention, while Drummond situates her self-actualized identity in opposition to medical discourse. Although their stories differ, their perspectives reflect similarly radical conceptions of gender. Because they narrate continuous subjects rather than subjects split between pre- and post-transition, Drummond and Boylan put forth a new way to understand and narrate trans* identity by exploring rather than justifying trans* experience.