Oliver Radclyffe
“Transition is such a mysterious and complex subject, even for those of us who’ve been through it, so I try to write for the kind of reader who has an open heart and mind but lots of unanswered questions. I want them to know that it’s OK if they’re struggling to understand what the hell gender is.”
“Radclyffe writes movingly about parenting and the emotional risks of every step he takes toward affirming his maleness . . . [A]s a testament to midlife transition — especially in a time when so much of the cultural conversation around gender rights focuses on young people — Radclyffe’s memoir offers a valuable alternate narrative to the loss and pain that queer history has too often insisted on.”
“This book is consistently frank, vulnerable, perspicacious, and insightful, covering an impressive variety of aspects of the transgender experience in intimate, lyrical language and dry, compassionate humor. The author’s analysis of privilege is particularly refreshing, as is his description of transitioning as a parent. A stunning memoir about discovering one’s identity late in life.”
“It’s the voice that makes this memoir stand out . . . This is a writer who can capture any moment with a dazzling, insightful, at times musical phrase.”
“A brief but powerful and affecting book on the struggles of the trans community.”
Oliver Radclyffe is part of the new wave of transgender writers unafraid to address the complex nuances of transition, examining the places where gender identity, sexual orientation, feminist allegiance, social class, and family history overlap. His most recent book is Frighten the Horses (Roxanne Gay Books, 2024), an Oprah Best Book of the Fall selection, which Kirkus Reviews called “frank, vulnerable, perspicacious, and insightful.” His first book is Adult Human Male (Unbound Editions, 2023) His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Electric Literature, The Gay & Lesbian Review, PRINT Magazine and Them.
He was asked in an interview about why he decided write about his transition: “Legitimately, I am less vulnerable than a lot of trans writers. I'm trans masculine, I'm white, I'm comfortably off, I live in this lovely house in the Connecticut suburbs with my children. I am not in a position of extreme danger and vulnerability. When I made the choice to write about some of the more intimate details, I thought, I'm going to do this because I can. I wanted people to understand that transness is not ideological. It's incredibly physical. The only way to show this is by going into those details about my body. It's not something you can think your way out of, or intellectualize your way out of--it's your body that is leading this journey. I leaned into that.”
He currently lives on the Connecticut coast, where he is raising his four children.
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