Trans Figured
My Journey from Boy to Girl to Woman to Man
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Imagine experiencing life not as the gender dictated by birth but as one of your own design.
In Trans Figured, Brian Belovitch shares his true story of life as a gender outlier and his dramatic journey through the jungle of gender identity.
Brian has the rare distinction of coming out three times: first as a queer teenager; second as a glamorous transgender woman named Tish, and later, Natalia Gervais; and finally as an HIV-positive gay man surviving the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. From growing up in a barely-working-class first-generation immigrant family in Fall River, Massachusetts, to spinning across the disco dance floor of Studio 54 in New York City . . . from falling into military lock-step as the Army wife of a domineering GI in Germany to having a brush with fame as Natalia, high-flying downtown darling of the boozy and druggy pre-Giuliani New York nightclub scene, Brian escaped many near-death experiences.
Trans Figured chronicles a life lived on the edge with an unforgettable cast of characters during a dangerous and chaotic era. Rich with drama and excitement, this no-holds-barred memoir tells it all. Most importantly, Brian's candid and poignant story of recovery shines a light on the perseverance of the human spirit.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this frank memoir, often cheeky despite dark subject matter, Belovitch recounts an unusual life. His childhood is characterized by child abuse, a vicious rape, and merciless bullying from children and adults alike about his "effeminate" behavior. In 1972, Brian becomes glamorous Natalia Tish for short and escapes to New York. Tish is charming, beautiful, and charismatic, and she becomes by turns an escort, a military wife, and an actress and scenester. She makes a name for herself among New York's glitterati Andy Warhol, Storm DeLarverie, Marsha P. Johnson, and RuPaul Charles all pop up but cannot escape her addiction to drugs. After hitting rock bottom, she is finally forced to confront the trauma she's been hiding from her whole life. In recovery, Belovitch realizes that "I had never felt I was a girl, only that I was feminine-inclined" and, because of the rigid gender categorizations of the '70s and '80s, that she had to "pick a lane" rather than have a body and presentation that didn't match in others' eyes. With a measure of social change and self-acceptance, Tish becomes Brian again, pursues acting and photojournalism, and meets and marries his husband. This dizzying tale of family, addiction, and the weight of cultural expectation testifies movingly to the harm rigid social categories can inflict. Photos.
