
This Body I Wore
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Diana Goetsch
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By:
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Diana Goetsch
Long before Laverne Cox appeared on the cover of Time, far removed from drag and ballroom culture, there were countless trans women living and dying as men, most of whom didn't even know they were trans. Diana Goetsch's This Body I Wore chronicles one woman's long journey to coming out, a path that runs parallel to the emergence of the trans community over the past several decades.
"How can you spend your life face-to-face with an essential truth about yourself and still not see it?" This is a question often asked of trans people, and a question that Goetsch, an award-winning poet and essayist, addresses with the power and complexity of lived reality. She brings us into her childhood, her time as a dynamic and beloved teacher at Stuyvesant High School, and her plunge into the crossdressing subculture of New York in the 1980s and '90s. Under cover of night, crossdressers risked their jobs and their safety to give expression to urges they could neither control nor understand. Many of them would become late transitioners, the Cinderellas of the trans community largely ignored by history.
Goetsch has not written a transition memoir, but rather a full account of a trans life, one both unusually public and closeted. All too often trans lives are reduced to before-and-after photos, but what if that before photo lasted fifty years?
©2022 Diana Goetsch (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...




















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Stunning
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Perfect
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One thing I was uncomfortable with and that I think is important to note here- The author, a white woman, repeatedly quotes some of her Black students, using the n-word several times. It was very uncomfortable to listen to and I had to take a break from the book for a bit after about the 4th n-word out of her mouth. It isn’t like this is an old audiobook so it’s surreal to me that Audible allowed it and that the author didn’t appear to receive or heed any guidance around not saying the word. It wouldn’t have been difficult to have Audible insert bleeps instead of having her say the word.
A unique perspective, but frustratingly organized by every gf she ever had
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Love the details
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Beautiful, Tender, Fierce
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This book is for readers interested in trans experience, love, sex, and US society. In particular, it shares the story of a person born and labeled male in the 60s but who can't figure out what isn't clicking for this label. Why can't they have successful relationships, love, and confidence in their sexuality and identity? Why do they feel immense pleasure and resonances wearing, and even just thinking about women's clothes? With limited community, culture, and understanding, matched with no uncertain antipathy from the broader society, she explores the margins of cross-dressing in a largely unsympathetic and insensitive LGB and straight world. But community does arise, clarity is found, and authenticity realized. But then what?... This isn't just a memoir, but a meditation on authenticity and the courage required to be a sexual being in the world.
I gave it five stars because it is smartly written and crafted, entertaining, and full of important wisdom and knowledge presented in a fresh and unexpected way.
A giant leap in human history coming to learn more about itself
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Read beautifully! Amazing, smart and endearing individual.
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Brave but too much score settling
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The struggle for and the affirmation of self.
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The depth in which the story was told!
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