A manisfesto, a memoir, and a performance all rolled into one, Gender Outlaw challenges our most basic assumptions about what it means to be a man or a woman. Or something else entirely.
Kate Bornstein has been through some changes--a former heterosexual male, one-time Scientologist and IBM salesperson, now a lesbian woman writer and actress. In this work, she covers everything readers want to know about gender (but are too confused to ask) and takes a witty, incisive look at the radical new politics of sexuality and gender. Also includes Bornstein's play, Hidden: A Gender.
"Gender Outlaw is an eye-opening book, combining the emotional force of a coming-of-age story with a savvy cultural critique." -- Out"[Kate Borstein] offers us an abundance of questions--thoughtful, disarming, revelatory questions. Gender Outlaw is an invitation to dialogue, and it's a conversation well worth having." -- Ms."Gender Outlaw is a radical document. . ." -- The Nation"a pastiche of oddments--dreams and memories, influences and quotations, fresh ideas and numerous received wisdoms. . ." -- Richard McCann, author of Ghost Letters"In an age of often hostilely expressed gender politics, Ms. Bornstein gently leads audiences through her own psychic labyrinth without antagonism. She is sweet, sincere, lucid and sometimes as corny as Kansas in August. She really should have her own television show." -- New York Times"...it is a pastiche of oddments--dreams and memories, influences and quotations, fresh ideas and numerous received wisdoms.." -- The Nation"To help us rise above the Geraldo mentality of genital fixation, Bornstein has avoided writing a traditional, tell-all autobiography. Instead, her book is a stream-of consciousness essay designed to make us think for ourselves." -- The Boston Phoenix"Bornstein's revolutionary ideas about gender and sexuality are authentic precisely because they come from one who's been there. . .By the time readers finish Gender Outlaw, they may indeed wonder why we live in a world with only two genders, let alone why we place so much importance one which one someone happens to be." -- San Francisco Bay Guardian