She's Not There Quotes

“As it turns out, we're all still learning to be men, or women, all still learning to be ourselves. pg 197”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“...I really did "choose" to be Jim every single day, but that once I put my sword down I haven't chosen Jenny at all; I simply wake up and here I am.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Although my understanding of exactly how much trouble I was in grew more specific over time, as a child I surely understood enough about my condition to know it was something I'd better keep private. By intuition I was certain that the thing I knew to be true was something others would find both impossible and hilarious. My conviction, by the way, had nothing to do with a desire to be feminine, but it had everything to do with being female. Which is an odd believe for a person born male. It certainly had nothing to do with whether I was attracted to girls or boys. This last point was the one that, years later, would most frequently elude people, including the overeducated smarty-pants who constituted much of my inner circle. But being gay or lesbian is about sexual orientation. Being transgedered is about identity.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“I feel like somebody who just got out of prison after 40 years for something she didn't do, like I got pardoned by the governor. When dear friends deal with me with mixed emotions, it is a little like being told, 'Well, Jenny, we're glad you got sprung, really, but quite honestly we did kind of like you better when you were in jail.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Having an opinion about transsexuality is about as useful as having and opinion on blindness. You can think whatever you like about it, but in the end, your friend it still blind and surely deserves to see.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“And at every moment as I lived my life, I countered this awareness with an exasperated companion thought, namely, Don’t be an idiot. You’re not a girl. Get over it. But I never got over it.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Which is to say that we all have dragons to slay in life. This one is mine. I hope that doing so will provide a model to others on how to find the bravery to be true to oneself, even if it means doing something that seems impossible.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“A plot, I used to remind my students, is not merely a sequence of events: "A" followed by "B" followed by "C" followed by "D." Rather, it's a series of events linked by cause and effect: "A" causes "B," which causes "C," and so on. True, a person's (or a fictional character's) destiny may be more than the sum of his choices--fate and luck play a role as well--but only scientists (and not all of them) believe that free will is a sham. People in life--and therefore in fiction--must choose, and their choices must have meaningful consequences. Otherwise, there's no story.”
― Richard Russo, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“gay and lesbian people don’t necessarily have that much in common with transsexuals.” “Yeah,” I said. “Except for the fact that we get beaten up by the same people.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“If I could imagine the past with compassion, why couldn’t I breathe hope into an imagined future?”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Probably no people embrace change more enthusiastically, at least in theory, than Americans. Who we are at birth is less important to us than who we will become. We are expected—indeed, obligated—not just to be, but to become.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Is it? I thought. Is it really better if I talk about it? Isn’t keeping this hidden the only way I can protect you, can protect this family? Isn’t that my job, taking care of us? Sometimes you can do that better with silence than with words.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“The thing that I felt testosterone had given me more than anything else was a sense of protection, of invulnerability. I had never imagined myself to be particularly invulnerable when testosterone had free rein in my system, but this new world I was approaching seemed to have no buffers. Things that used to just bounce off me now got under my skin. There were a number of occasions when I wished I still had that male shield standing between me and the harshness of the world.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“You’re not dying, are you?”
“I’m not dying.”
“ ’Cause if you are, and you’re not telling your friends about it, all I can say is Fuck you.”
“I’ll let you know if I’m dying,” I said.
“You’d better,” Shell said. “Or I’ll fucking kill you.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“What are the three phases of male-to-female transition? Step one: Hey, that guy looks a little weird. Step two: Hey, that person looks really weird. Step three: Whoa, that chick is ugly!”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“As a woman, I found that there were six different styles of jean, from “boot cut” to “reverse,” and that the sizes bore no relation to any known system of measure.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“There were times when it was as if I were trying to prove I was truly female by oppressing myself.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Barbara looked alarmed. “You mean you could have decided to be anybody?” “Not anybody, but the person I became. I think we are who we are because consciously, or unconsciously, we choose ourselves.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“After six months of Premarin, I had another round of levels taken. I was found to have 59 nanograms of estrogen in my system. The average for an adult male is 6. The mean for females is 26.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Sorry,” I said. “They’re great, but you know. The world doesn’t revolve around breasts.” “Listen to you!” Curly shouted. “Of course the world revolves around breasts! What else would it revolve around?”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“it’s the same monkeys, different barrel.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“and spoken my name for the first time.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“The line between male and female turns out to be rather fine. Although we imagine our genders as firm and fixed, in fact they are as malleable as a sand castle.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“At every waking moment now, I was plagued by the thought that I was living a lie.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“No one leaped to his feet to rescue her. I think we all knew Grace well enough to understand that she would prefer to rescue herself from this predicament, and we were right.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“That was the last time I saw Carol. I didn’t want to be told I had to be a woman. What I wanted from her was the mystery to a solution.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“I was sitting on top of a mountain of secrets so high that it was almost impossible to see the earth anymore. For one thing, now that I lived alone, I was living as a woman about half the time. I’d come home and go female and pay the bills and write and watch television, and then I’d go back to boy mode and teach my classes. I didn’t venture out into the world much en femme, although I did get out now and then. It was unbelievably frightening.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Briefly, I was a journalist in my twenties, although not a very good one. I didn’t quite grasp the whole concept of accuracy.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“Since then, the awareness that I was in the wrong body, living the wrong life, was never out of my conscious mind—never, although my understanding of what it meant to be a boy, or a girl, was something that changed over time.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

“It would be my first official reintroduction to the college community since I’d switched from regular to Diet Coke.”
― Jennifer Finney Boylan, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders