Shes Not There: A Life in Two
Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan
Wonderfully Told Story
The provocative bestseller She’s Not There is the winning, utterly
surprising story of a person changing genders. By turns hilarious and
deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies
between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in
the redeeming power of family. Told in Boylan’s fresh voice, She’s Not
There is about a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret.
Through her clear eyes, She’s Not There provides a new window on the
confounding process of accepting our true selves.
“Probably no book I’ve read in recent years has made me so question my
basic assumptions about both the centrality and the permeability of
gender, and made me recognize myself in a situation I’ve never known and
have never faced . . . The universality of the astonishingly uncommon:
that’s the trick of She’s Not There. And with laughs, too. What a good

book.” —Anna Quindlen, from the Introduction to the Book-of-the-Month-
Club edition.
Personal Review: Shes Not There: A Life in Two Genders by
Jennifer Finney Boylan
From his earliest memories as a three-year old, James Finney was never
without the awareness that he was "in the wrong body, living the wrong
life." As a youngster, a teenager, a college student, a husband deeply in
love with his wife and two children, and a professor of English at Colby
College in Maine, Boylan countered that unsettling consciousness for
several long decades with "an exasperated companion thought, namely,
'Don't be an idiot, You're not a girl. Get over it.'" This deeply human
memoir tells how James never "got over it" and how at the age of forty-
three he finally had sex reassignment surgery that completed his
transgendering to Jennifer.
Boylan says that her journey caused her "an almost inexpressible
degree of private grief." She discovered that gender identity was far more
complex than sexual attraction, cultural expectations, cross dressing,
extended therapy, biology, or even genetics. It was not a choice for a
certain lifestyle. She tried mightily to "accept who I wasn't," knowing that
transgendering from male to female would "mean only loss and grief" for
many people. In that herculean but ultimately futile quest she was aided by
having inherited her mother's "boundless optimism." She counted her
blessings, and especially the "greatest years of her life" in marriage to
Carol and their two children. James knew full well that finally transitioning
to a female would cause his beloved Carol untold grief, loss, and a sense
of betrayal, and that he would bear his own grief and guilt as a result.
In the end, Boylan describes her transgendering from James to
Jennifer as more like an "erosion" or "forced conscription" than a decision.
This story is a powerful one because of its transparency. Most people
supported her; her sister has never spoken to her since she transitioned.
As you would expect, her memoir is partly a plea for understanding, but
even that is not compromised by polemical or partisan zeal. James
transgendered to Jennifer "because I can't not." After all the explanations
and anguish, she concludes, "What I have come to realize is that no matter
how much light one attempts to throw on this condition, it remains a
mystery" (248). At the end of the book Boylan offers thirteen questions for
discussion and eight books for further reading. Her sequel memoir called
I'm Looking Through You was published in 2008.
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