LOVE AND MONEY, SEX AND DEATH

In a series of letters, a transgender woman reflects on her life before and after transitioning.

While in high school—when she was still passing as male—Wark, author of Reverse Cowgirland Sensoria, among many other books, had a female alter ego named Karen, a name she adopted from a “popular” classmate who, after an equestrian accident, ended up in a coma. The author is now grateful that she didn’t take on the name, both because of this history and the modern association of Karenwith problematic white women. She expresses her gratitude in a letter to Venus, a Black trans woman who the author explains is an amalgamation of “two young transpeople I have known and lost and still grieve.” The other letters in the book—addressed to recipients as diverse as Wark’s past self, older sister, ex-wife, and the goddess Cybele (“As an atheist, I might live without you, but somehow, you’re still there”)—trace the author’s personal and political history as a trans woman who didn’t fully realize her gender identity until well into adulthood. In addition to exploring her identity as a “T4T” who takes estrogen but doesn’t try to pass as a woman, Wark examines her relationship with her disability (she had surgery to correct her clubbed feet) and expresses joy and gratitude toward those who have shaped the body and life she now inhabits. At times, the author’s treatment of race can be clumsy. In one chapter, she describes her “problematic” objectification of a Black male stranger and then includes a picture of this stranger several pages later without clarifying whether the photograph was taken or included in the book with consent. However, Wark’s analysis of gender, sexuality, and queerness is both ebullient and trenchant, and her compassionate introspection is mostly a pleasure to read.

A sharp epistolary memoir about gender, family, disability, and age.