Jennifer Finney Boylan's latest memoir 'Cleavage' is a reflection on transgender life

Summary

NPR's Book of the Day: Jennifer Finney Boylan's "Men, Women and the Space Between Us"

Host: Robin Young
Guest: Jennifer Finney Boylan
Book Discussed: Men, Women and the Space Between Us
Release Date: March 13, 2025

---

Introduction

In this episode of NPR's Book of the Day, host Robin Young engages in a heartfelt conversation with Jennifer Finney Boylan, a distinguished transgender author and advocate. Boylan delves into her latest memoir, Men, Women and the Space Between Us, which offers a profound reflection on transgender life, personal transformation, and the evolving societal landscape surrounding gender identity.

---

Jennifer Finney Boylan: A Voice in Transition

Jennifer Finney Boylan has been a pivotal figure in transgender literature since her groundbreaking memoir, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders (2003). As a writer in residence at Barnard College and president of PEN America, Boylan has consistently provided insightful narratives that illuminate the transgender experience. In Men, Women and the Space Between Us, she expands her exploration beyond her personal transition, addressing broader themes of aging, family dynamics, and societal changes.

---

Growing Old as a Transgender Person

Boylan discusses the nuanced challenges of aging within the transgender community. Unlike her first memoir, which focused on the immediate aftermath of her transition, this new work examines the long-term implications of living authentically over the decades.

Notable Quote:

“I think that if you have a secret, you spend a lot of energy making sure that no one ever finds out. And to some degree, I think that is the biggest difference in me between now and 25 years ago. It's really not having gone from male to female. It's going from someone who had a secret to someone who doesn't.”
— Jennifer Finney Boylan [03:15]

---

Family Dynamics and Parenting a Trans Child

A significant portion of the memoir focuses on Boylan's unexpected journey into parenthood of a transgender child. She candidly shares the emotional complexities and fears that accompany a parent's realization of their child's transgender identity, even as a seasoned advocate.

Notable Quotes:

“My child comes out as trans. And I didn't see it coming. And I wasn't crazy about this news, in part because I was embarrassed that I hadn't seen it coming, and in part because, you know, it's a hard life being trans.”
— Jennifer Finney Boylan [08:12]

“What I want above all is to be able to live this woman's life that I fought so hard for and to share that life with the people that I love with my friends.”
— Jennifer Finney Boylan [10:05]

Boylan reflects on her initial reaction to her child’s transition, revealing a blend of surprise, embarrassment, and concern. She navigates the delicate balance between her role as a parent and her identity as a trans woman, illustrating the universal challenges of supporting a child's authentic self.

---

Societal Shifts and the Cultural Climate

Boylan addresses the stark contrast between the societal acceptance experienced during her early years as a trans woman and the current political climate, which has seen increased hostility and legislative challenges against transgender rights.

Notable Quote:

“In 2003, Jenny writes, people hadn't yet had formal instruction on how to hate transgender people. They fell back on their own human decency. Now transgender people are being banned.”
— Robin Young [03:35]

She articulates the frustration and disillusionment that come with witnessing regression in societal acceptance, emphasizing the personal toll it takes on individuals striving for authenticity.

---

Personal Anecdotes and Reflections

Throughout the conversation, Boylan shares poignant stories from her life, including moments of vulnerability and resilience. From the metaphorical "cardboard rocket" of her childhood memory to the intimate dynamics with her wife, Dede, and their children, Boylan paints a vivid picture of a life lived authentically amidst adversity.

Notable Quote:

“I want to say, look, if you think this is a curse, please know this curse is actually going to turn out to be your gift, because being trans is going to enable you to see things that most people don't get to see.”
— Jennifer Finney Boylan [11:11]

This optimism shines through as she encourages her younger self—and by extension, her readers—to embrace their identity, highlighting the unique perspectives and strengths that come with living truthfully.

---

Concluding Insights

Men, Women and the Space Between Us is not just a memoir of transition but a comprehensive exploration of life as a transgender person navigating love, aging, and parenthood. Jennifer Finney Boylan offers a candid and compassionate narrative that serves both as a personal testament and a call for greater understanding and acceptance.

Final Notable Quote:

“But pain is not the only thing you will feel. And in time, you're going to know love, you're going to know hope, you're going to know joy, and laugh your head off.”
— Jennifer Finney Boylan [11:11]

Boylan’s memoir stands as a beacon of hope and resilience, inviting readers to empathize with and celebrate the multifaceted experiences of transgender individuals.

---

Closing Remarks

Robin Young concludes the discussion by acknowledging the strength and grace with which Boylan approaches both her personal journey and her role as a mother to transgender children. Jennifer Finney Boylan’s Men, Women and the Space Between Us is a vital addition to contemporary transgender literature, offering deep insights into the intersection of identity, family, and societal change.

---

This episode of NPR's Book of the Day provides a touching and insightful exploration of Jennifer Finney Boylan’s latest memoir, making it an essential listen for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of transgender life and the enduring power of love and authenticity.

Transcript

[Andrew Limbong]

Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. The writer Jennifer Finney Boylan has been one of the most prominent transgender voices since she wrote her memoir, she Is not there back in 2003. Since then, she's been on the news and has written more books about the trans experience. And yet even she was taken aback when her own kid came out as trans. She writes about this in her new book, Men, Women and the Space Between Us. And she talks to Here and Now's Robin Young about what it's like to grow old as a trans person, which, yes, includes your kid not talking to you about their feelings. That's coming up.

[Advertisement]

This message comes from Charles Schwab. When it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices like full service, wealth management and advice when you need it. You can also invest on your own and trade on thinkorswim. Visit schwab.com to learn more. This message comes from Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Robin Young]

Jennifer Phinney Boylan's new memoir is as lyrical as her previous bestsellers about her journey transitioning from male to female in her early 40s with loving wife Dede and their two little kids by his then her Jenny. Jenny says her earliest memory at 4 or 5 is of knowing she was a girl, even as she loved that tall cardboard rocket her dad built for all the neighborhood boys. Dad lit it and poof. Metaphor alert. It just plopped over but then roared back to life, scudding along the baseball field, aimed right at the meanest kid in town, which reminded the adult Jenny of Senator Josh Hawley running from The Mob on January 6th. Oh, such writing, Jenny says. While her first memoir, 2003's She's Not There, was about the newness of her life as a woman, this new memoir is about growing old as one. There's another difference between now and then. In 2003, Jenny writes, people hadn't yet had formal instruction on how to hate transgender people. They fell back on their own human decency. Now transgender people are being banned. Oh, and in this book, there will be a new to some gob smacking revelation. Didn't see that one coming. Jennifer Finney Boylan is a writer in residence at Barnard College, president of PEN America her new memoir is Men, Women and the Space Between Us. Jenny, welcome back.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Hi. How are you?

[Robin Young]

I am just fine. Just gotta get this out of the way. Elephant in the room. Did you mean for this memoir to land in the middle of a nuclear culture war over transgender people?

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Oh, my God. I've been working on this book for over five years, and wouldn't you know, it happens to come out now.

[Robin Young]

Well, so, no, that wasn't intended. And when you read the book, there is no mention of it except kind of sideways. Meantime, there seems like there are two themes here. You know, the overwhelming power of love in all of your amazing friendships growing up, and this Charlie Brown, like, doubt that you deserve it. Is it from, you know, living with a secret?

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

I think that if you have a secret, you spend a lot of energy making sure that no one ever finds out. And to some degree, I think that is the biggest difference in me between now and 25 years ago. It's really not having gone from male to female. It's going from someone who had a secret to someone who doesn't.

[Robin Young]

Yeah. Well. And in so many ways, this was like reading some of those Scout magazines that my brother used to have, you know. Right.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

What, because of the Rocket Club?

[Robin Young]

Well, the Rocket Club and, you know, going off in the woody cars and the oops. The car accidents you and your pals had to, you know, hide and, you know. Yes. All the time you have this terrible secret and a secret cupboard in your room, you know, with your earrings and things. And then these stories, you thread them throughout. And, oh, there's the beautiful Ben, one of your sweet best friends. And right in front of you, when you're teens, he's riding a wave. It crashes into the ground right in front of you. He's paralyzed for life. Later, when you go back to a school reunion and you go back as a woman and he goes back in a wheelchair, he says to you, we both have a before and after. And I'm also thinking, wow. And there's a lot of different ways to be trapped in a body.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Well, and I think there's a lot of befores and afters in our lives, too. But I think a challenge for us is to find a connection between that before and that after so that you wind up living one life rather than two. I mean, everybody needs a childhood, even if it's a childhood in which you were uncomfortable or unhappy or uncertain. But one of the things that I have happily been able to do is to make peace with that boyhood.

[Robin Young]

But as we said, this book is also about, yeah, look back at your childhood through today's prism, but also sharing with us growing old as a transgender woman. You know, I'm like, here's something.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Well, I mean, most trans memoirs, and there's a new one that comes out every five minutes. Most of them are about transition. And why wouldn't you want to write about transition? It is amazing. But a transition is not the only moment in a transgender person's life or in anybody's life. So some of the questions that I wanted to look back on and to answer are questions like, what is it like to have the thing for which you've been yearning your whole life, finally? And also just some of the basic differences between being a man and being a woman. And at least as I've lived it, everything from my relationship with food to my experience of time itself, in fact, and friendship and sex and my sense of safety in this world has certainly changed as well. So all of those are things worth exploring and worth telling stories about, which.

[Robin Young]

You do, and just take a couple of them. Your weight suddenly became an issue, and suddenly you're like, wait a minute, my svelte little figure. Yeah.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

I'll tell you what. I weighed myself this morning before coming on the radio. Like, seriously, that's a thing that happened. And I had a cold last week, so my voice is kind of a little bit lower than it normally is. And I'm worried, like, okay, when people hear this voice, is that gonna change the way people think of me as whether I'm authentic or inauthentic and all of that? So all these little things, some of which I thought I had left behind forever, some of them are still with me.

[Robin Young]

But it's interesting voice. You reveal to us that there's a small cott of people who help people who've transitioned find their new voice. There are a couple of gasp inducing moments in the book for many. One, dede summons you. We're going for a hike right now. And you nervously go. And she gets to the top of this mountain, and she's speaking to you, but it's like she's speaking to all of us, because you're kind of like, what's happening? And she says, are you kidding me? I just wanted to tell you how much I love you and how fun my life has been. And I felt like saying, oh, me of little faith, you know?

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Well, but me too, because both in that moment as well as throughout, you know, there are a lot of times when I quite honestly, I think, how can she possibly be Happy with somebody like me. And as she will remind me, if you have found the person that you love, maybe even what gender they are is less important than what's in their heart. I don't know. I mean, I think we marry the people we love in hopes that whatever changes come, there are changes that we will endure and with any luck, celebrate.

[Robin Young]

Yeah. And if I can, I want to go to that other moment in the book. You know, this is at a point when you and dede have settled into lives of writing and watching sunsets and watching your amazing kids, ready to set off on their own paths, when yowzers, Zach and his girlfriend approach you one night nervously clutching hands. This revelation could have knocked me over with a feather. Zach wants to and does transition.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Yeah. My child comes out as trance. And I didn't see it coming. And I wasn't crazy about this news, in part because I was embarrassed that I hadn't seen it coming, and in part because, you know, it's a hard life being trans. I mean, it's a great life. It's a gift. I can say all of that, but it's also a hard life. I feared that I had made this life look like fun, as if that would be enough. But in my brain, I thought that.

[Robin Young]

But I have to say, you did. You thought, I think I might even have caused this somehow by also being trans. And in that moment, you realized, oh, my gosh, I am having the reaction of a lot of parents, even though I've been through this.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Indeed. And, you know, if parents are struggling, and I know they are with a child who comes up and says, I'm trans and I'm gonna go through transition or I'm gonna start on hormones or something like that. That child is 10 years old or 40. A parent can find themselves challenged because your idea of who it is that you have been in love with all these years has to be rethought.

[Robin Young]

Well, and you also, Jennifer Phinney Boylan, took it personally. Like, wait a minute, why haven't you come to me for advice? Because, have you not noticed I am Jenny Finney Boylan?

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Yeah. Well, and this will sound familiar to parents, too, that even though you might be considered by some people an expert or an authority in some particular way, my child kind of wanted to do it on her own. She didn't want to walk in my footsteps. That was also humbling for me.

[Robin Young]

Well, and you write, yes, there are hate mongers, but you also know that there are people who are genuinely confused and don't understand and even you, with all of your understanding, had moments of, wait, what's happening? So this gave you even more of an understanding of the, you know, genuinely good people who may not understand some of this.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Yeah. And I think. I mean, it may be that our movement has wound up being defined at least in the last half a dozen years by some of the gnarliest and most difficult to understand aspects of our experience. And I can tell you, look, I don't want to play on your sports team, and I don't want to come over to your house and force your child to have hormones. What I want above all is to be left alone. What I want above all is to be able to live this woman's life that I fought so hard for and to share that life with the people that I love with my friends. And I think that's what most transgender people are fighting for.

[Robin Young]

We should say that your daughter's eye is flying.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Yeah, she's thriving. And so is my son.

[Robin Young]

Yes. Oh, my God. The two of them are pretty amazing.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

The kids are all right.

[Robin Young]

So what do you want to say to that little then boy, decades ago, such all these friends and everything and this burning secret, who could never imagine the possibility of the life you have now? What would you say?

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

To some degree, I want to say, look, if you think this is a curse, please know this curse is actually going to turn out to be your gift, because being trance is going to enable you to see things that most people don't get to see. And above all, it's going to give you some amazing stories that you are uniquely positioned to tell. So I would tell that young child, I'm so sorry for the pain that you feel. But pain is not the only thing you will feel. And in time, you're going to know love, you're going to know hope, you're going to know joy, and laugh your head off. Because sometimes things that are terribly sad can also be strangely comic when viewed from the right perspective and with enough hope.

[Robin Young]

Author Jennifer Phinney Boylan. Her new memoir, Men, Women, and the Space Between Us. Jenny, thanks so much.

[Jennifer Finney Boylan]

Thank you so much.

[Advertisement]

This message comes from Best Western Hotels and resorts. From adventures to new places, Best Western has you covered. With over 4,000 hotels worldwide, you're sure to find the right hotel for your next getaway. Life's a trip. Make the most of it. @bestwestern.com this message comes from Warby Parker. What makes a great pair of glasses at Warby Parker? It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Like free Adjustments for Life. Find your [e-mail] or visit one of their hundreds of stores around the country. This message comes from Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless? And made it right. They offer premium wireless plans for less, and all plans include high speed data, unlimited talk and text, and nationwide coverage. See for yourself at mintmobile.com switch.