Kate Bornstein

Tonight I went to see Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw, My Gender Workbook, and most recently Hello, Cruel World: 101 alternatives to suicide for teens, freaks, and other outlaws.

Kate was born male, became (operation and everything) female, and later abandoned that as well, preferring to live without gender. Kate's books address the nature of gender as a social construct and the inherent oppression of that system.

Tonight Kate told us about how the New York Times asked hir if she could rephrase "transgender movement" because them printing it would acknowledge that such a movement did exist.

Ze spoke about coming out to hir mother as a transsexual.

(I learned about gender neutral pronouns.)

Ze informed us about Scientology's persecution of ex-members. Did you know Kate was beyond evil? So evil just being in the same room with hir has the potential to contaminate you? Good thing Kate gave us 'get out of hell free' cards on the way out, ensuring that if we did whatever we wanted in order to be happy (except for being mean), ze would serve our time in hell for us. I like this philosophy so much that I would even serve my own time in hell.

Because of her work and the fact that the UMN Transgender Commission was hosting the event, I also got to meet some other transgender people and hear what they had to say.

And the food was delicious. (Food is always important.)

Loves,
More-Gender-Conscious-Jessi