Living the T

When I got the email a few weeks ago asking me if I'd like to review a new book on transgendered teenagers in the US, I was flattered, but a little surprised. Firstly, it's not every day I get sent free books from the States!

Also, my own experience as a white, closeted transvestite growing up in rural England is about as far as you can get from life as a young transsexual on the mean streets of LA.

Which is not to say that I didn't identify with some of the characters in Cris Beam's book Transparent - Love, Family and Living the T with Transgendered Teenagers, because everyone can remember what it's like to be a teenager, and every transgendered person knows what it's like to feel "different".

A few years ago, seemingly due to a lack of anything better to do, Cris took a job teaching English at Eagles Academy, a feisty little school for GLBT children just off Los Angeles's Santa Monica Boulevard.

The school had a bad reputation, even amongst the foster services specialising in helping gay and transgendered children. The kids are all black or latino, and a lot of them live on the streets. Drug addiction, gang violence and prostitution are all daily experiences. But a lot these kids have an extra complication: dealing with varying levels of transgenderism.

Having worked as a writer, Beam was bundled into the role of Eagle's English teacher and, lacking any teaching materials or experience of teaching, sets about getting the kids to produce a school magazine as a class project. I'd really like to read the result, a magazine called Out and About, featuring such articles as "Hormones: Are They What YOU Want?" and "When Your Grandma Finds Your Drag Clothes".

The kids are immensely proud of their work, and distribute piles of issues to old neighbourhoods, or sneak them into the cafeterias of old schools. They desperately want to show the world that they're making something of their lives.

After two years working in Eagles, Cris is burned out and quits the school, but continues to stay involved with the kids she's met. She follows four in particular throughout the book: Christina, a feisty Latino who idolises the spice girls; Dominique, a "tragic, doomed beauty" with a crack-addict mum; Foxxyjazell, a black rap singer desperate to break into Hollywood; and Ariel, a quiet fragile creature from a strict catholic background who's certain she's going to hell for wearing a skirt.

Beam tells their stories with obvious sympathy, it's clear on every page she likes these kids and because of that is able to put up with their typical teenage tantrums, barefaced lies and flights of fancy. As she follows each of their stories, she uses milestones in their lives to relate the larger history and culture of transgendered people in the US, touching also on theories regarding causes of transsexualism and the legal issues confronting TG individuals today.

I thoroughly recommend Transparent. It's by turns horrifying, tender, funny and insightful. By showing how Christina et al "live the T" (T being shorthand slang among the kids for everything from "trans" to "truth"), Cris Beam has revealed truths that all people, transgendered or not, can learn from.

(Other than the free copy of the book, I received no material payment for this review.)