Entertainment
A ‘Weary but Fabulous’ Poster Girl for Trans Life Opens Up About Aging
In her fifth memoir, “Cleavage,” Jennifer Finney Boylan writes about her 36-year marriage, her adult children and why she keeps telling her story.
Early in her new memoir, “Cleavage,” Jennifer Finney Boylan describes a moment of reckoning in a changing room. A size 12 dress is too snug; she needs a size 14. Cue regret, ennui and soul searching.
It’s a relatable scene for anyone who has stood, sweating, before a three-way mirror.
But for Boylan, who is transgender, appearances are more complicated than they might be for the average shopper.
The problem wasn’t that she’d gained almost 50 pounds in 25 years. “The crisis was that it mattered to me now, as a woman,” Boylan, 66, writes. “When I was a man (sic), I can say most definitively that it had not.”
During an interview at her book-lined, riverfront apartment in Morningside Heights, Boylan spoke about the pressure to look a certain way, a predictable but persistent side effect of the gender-affirming surgery she had when she was 44.
“There’s this tyranny of beauty, especially among trans women,” Boylan said. “There’s this feeling that, if we’re not beautiful enough, we’re not really women.”
In “Cleavage,” her fifth memoir in 22 years, releasing on Feb. 4, Boylan explores issues pertaining to trans people (and most people) who qualify for AARP. Among them: How it feels to get older in an imperfect body. How relationships and families evolve over time. How she squares who she once was with who she is now.
