SO MANY STARS

A chorus of queer voices elaborate on the “gender revolution” that changed their lives, past and present.

Novelist De Robertis assembles insightful and educative life experiences from interviews in 2022-23 with 20 multicultural transgender, genderqueer, nonbinary, genderfluid, butch, Two-Spirit, transfeminine, and transmasculine people. Each personal history is notable in its own scope and perspective, but collectively these voices representing elder queer generations of color become extraordinary. Generous anecdotes about what coming out queer or questioning gender was like three, four, or five decades ago form the crux of several stories. Trailblazing activists Adela Vázquez recalls being a “fat, loud, queeny little kid” who identified as a girl, and Brooklyn-born transmasculine punk musician KB Boyce relates seeing himself as a little boy and “didn’t feel gender, I just felt like I was me.” Elsewhere, participants share coming-of-adolescence stories and unflinching anecdotes touching on familial transphobia, “chosen family,” identity, and survival; they oscillate between bittersweet pain and defiant audacity, as in Black trans woman Ms Billie Cooper’s U.S. Navy enlistment, where astounded fellow servicemen “could see that I came from a different realm.” Iconic San Francisco drag artists Landa Lakes and septuagenarian Donna Personna share vivid anecdotes from childhoods revealing misunderstanding from family and peers and memorializing the resilience that made them whole. Each story—from trailblazing trans activists and advocates to pioneering community leaders to a trans Latine immigrant business owner to cultivators of queer culture—reflects on how the joys and pains of living authentic queer lives formed the people they have become. The lasting impressions each of them has made on society beautifully amplify the heartbeat of queer trans life.

A colorful tapestry of potent, radiant, and relevant testimonials from queer people of color.