In the early 1970s, a boy from a Conservative Jewish family joined the Church of Scientology. In 1981, that boy officially left the movement and ultimately transitioned into a woman. A few years later, she stopped calling herself a woman—and became a famous gender outlaw.
Gender theorist, performance artist, and author Kate Bornstein is set to change lives with her stunningly original memoir. Wickedly funny and disarmingly honest, this is Bornstein’s most intimate book yet, encompassing her early childhood and adolescence, college at Brown, a life in the theatre, three marriages and fatherhood, the Scientology hierarchy, transsexual life, LGBTQ politics, and life on the road as a sought-after speaker.
This eBook edition includes a new epilogue. Reflecting on the original publication of her book, Bornstein considers the passage of time as the changing world brings new queer realities into focus and forces Kate to confront her own aging and its effects on her health, body, and mind. She goes on to contemplate her relationship with her daughter, her relationship to Scientology, and the ever-evolving practices of seeking queer selfhood.
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The last time I looked into a mirror and I saw daddy? (PROLOGUE, THE KISS OF DEATH)
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(@BeaconPressBks, 1 May 2023, e-book, 281 pages, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveInc, @POPSUGAR Reading Challenge, A Memoir That Explores Queerness)
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I enjoyed A Queer and Pleasant Danger. I decided to read this book because I liked the title and because it fit the Popsugar category. Kate Bornstein’s story is unique as a Jewish Boy who becomes a Scientologist and rises quite high in the ranks before deciding to transition to a woman yet refuses to use the label ‘woman’. Who needs a label anyway? This book is very funny at times but there’s also a lot of sadness when Kate’s family and fellow Scientologists are unable to accept her and she’s forced to leave the church. Scientology disturbs me. I think people who practice it are very disturbed. I found the insights into Scientology in this book fascinating if even creepier and more unsettling than I expected. The book is also about queerness in all it’s rainbow glory and who doesn’t love that? I’d recommend this.
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