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Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgendered Teens
By Cris Beam
Harcourt Press
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The transgender memoir has become its own genre these past several decades. Works such as Geoff Brown's 1966 I Want What I Want: To Be a Woman, Jan Morris's 1974 Conundrum, and Mario Martino's 1977 Emergence: A Transsexual Autobiography were path-breaking. More recent contributions range from the overly intellectualized (such as Deirdre McCloskey's 1999 Crossing: A Memoir) to the cloying and sentimental (Jenny Boylan's 2003 She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders), to the downright arrogant and unpleasant (Max Wolf Valerio's 2006 The Testosterone Files: My Hormonal and Social Transformation).

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ndeed, the basic transsexual/transgender story-- whether it be M-to-F or F-to-M-- is fairly predictable: "I knew from an early age I was really X, and here is my journey." Which is not to say that each of these stories can't be fascinating, or the books interesting-- although McCloskey's and Boylan's each make different, disastrous decisions that undercut any power they may have. But at this historical moment they deliver, for the most part, the expected. This has also been the case with books on transgender-- many are pseudo-medical accounts, or soggy sociology that careers between faux understanding and voyeurism.

What a total joy, then, to read Cris Beam's Transparent, which is not a memoir of a transgender person-- although we do get enough insights into the lives of these teens, mostly in their own words-- but of a woman who befriends and lives their lives with them. It's a gripping, illuminating, and moving portrait of transgender youths in Los Angeles, and probably the best popular book on transgender issues to be published in years.

Beam moves to LA and begins to volunteer at Eagles, a school for transgender kids. Not quite sure what to do, Beam decides, spur-of-the-moment, that she and her students-- all of whom are poor, and from a wide variety of national and ethnic backgrounds-- will put out a magazine, because well, this is what she's done for work in the past. Her involvement at the school grows into the largest part of her life and Beam enters into her students' world, becoming their confidante, friend, mentor, defender, and champion.

Beam's narration is on-target and avoids condescension. She's no liberal do-gooder out for an interesting story, nor a voyeur itching to titillate with tales from the other side. Transparent is a work of reporting, and Beam is observant and gets to the nub. She draws us deeper into a world that for all its differences, is remarkably like the one in which we live-- though with problems and pleasures of its own.

Halfway through the book, Beam is helping Christina, one of the transwomen she is closest to, change the name and gender on her driver's license from Eduardo and "M." Although Christina has the correct name-change form, the clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles claims never to have seen it and refuses to make the adjustment. Only after the humiliated Christina has a meltdown, does Beam, pretending to be an ACLU lawyer, demand to see a supervisor. Christina gets her new license. Not all stories have such satisfying endings, as when Beam relates how, after Christina is beaten during an attempted rape, she has to lie to the police about being transgender.

In some metaphoric way, Beam is also "trans" here-- as she morphs between roles of parent, therapist, chum, cheerleader, and legal advisor. Her book transgresses genre, being part memoir, part reportage, and part advocacy. She blends all three seamlessly to create a vivid narrative that is touching and fiercely empathetic. The author smolders with articulated fury at a culture, not only fearful of anyone who deviates from traditional gender roles, but which treats minorities and the poor with contempt. That passion distinguishes Transparent from its more personal or academic neighbors on the bookshelf.

Media accounts often glamorize transpeople's lives-- did you ever notice that the transgendered who make it onto "Larry King Live" or "Oprah" are only the prettiest people who conform to the most traditional standards of acceptable appearance? Here Beam shows us everything, and has turned out a work of journalistic integrity and incisive social criticism.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com