Jennifer Finney Boylan is set to publish a new book about gender identity. The author and transgender rights activist shared an excerpt and cover of her upcoming book Cleavage: men, women and the space between us exclusively with people. The book will be published next year by Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishing Group. Boylan, author of 18 books including the 2023 bestseller crazy baby s Jodi Picoult published her groundbreaking memoir She is not there: Life in two sexes In 2003, Boylan made history when the book became the first bestseller by a transgender author. Now, inside cleavageBoylan reflects on her gender identity journey over the past 20 years, what it was like to come out as transgender when she did in 2000, how it differs from today’s climate and more.
cleavage raises a number of questions, including how gender affects our body image, relationships and our sense of self. Through her pages, Boylan also considers her journey as a writer, activist, spouse and parent in the present day, and the overriding power of love.
‘Cleavage’ by Jennifer Finney Boylan.
Celadon books
cleavage “offers hope for a future in which we all have the freedom to live joyfully as men, as women, and in the space between us,” according to the publisher. Read an exclusive excerpt from the book below.
The PEOPLE Puzzler has arrived! How fast can you solve it? Play now!I was born in 1958, on June 22, the second day of summer. It was also the birthday of Kris Kristofferson and Meryl Streep, whom I later resembled, although not at the same time.
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With these words, I began the story of my life She’s not here, a memoir published in 2003. At the time, it seemed reasonable enough, starting from the beginning. Now I wonder if I chose the right companions. Instead of Streep and Kristofferson, I could just as easily have chosen others born that day—Elizabeth Warren, say, or John Dillinger, or Dan Brown. Would my book have been perceived differently if my companions had been a senator, or a gangster, or an author Da Vinci’s code?
Sometimes I think about that, about all the other lives I might have led.
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Jennifer Finney Boylan.
Dan Haar
At the time of publication, She’s not here was a real mess. I was involved Oprah five times, Larry King twice. Will Forte imitated me Saturday night live. Although not the first trans memoir, it came out at a time when things were changing at least a little. I hope She’s not here pushed the needle, at a crucial moment. The publisher’s promotional copy now calls it “the book that launched the transgender rights movement.” Big words.
But She’s not here was a story told by someone to whom everything was new; the voice is that of a woman still in the late stages of an incredible ride, her clothes still smoking after being shot by a cannon. The memoirs of transgender people almost always talk about that moment, when a little morning dew still sparkles on the cobwebs of their transitions. It’s a good question: How is transitioning from male to female, or vice versa, or to some identity more liberating than that? But the more important, although less scandalous, question is: How is it for those who finally have what have they incredibly longed for all their lives? And what about the people we were, and our history from the past? Surely all that can’t simply disappear, like breath on a mirror?
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I spent almost a third of my life here. I have stories to tell, now that my tinkles are no longer burning, about the differences between the worlds of men and women, not to mention the fertile land that lies in between. This time, instead of Streep and Kristofferson, maybe I’ll celebrate the fact that I share a birthday with Cyndi Lauper, who sang “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” as well as Billy Wilder, the man who directed Some like it hot.In the last scene of that movie, of course, Jack Lemmon rips off his wig and tells Joe E. Brown why they can never get married. “You don’t understand, Osgood!” he shouts. “I am a man!” “Well,” says Osgood. “Nobody is perfect.”From Cleavage: men, women and the space between us by Jennifer Finney Boylan. Copyright (c) 2025 by the author and reprinted by permission of Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.Cleavage: men, women and the space between us will be published on February 4, 2025 and is available for pre-order now, wherever books are sold.
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Source: HIS Education