Trans Figured

August 27, 2018
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, Stormé 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. Agent: Tom Miller, Carol Mann Agency.

September 15, 2018
Belovitch has led a complicated life as a queer teenager, a transgender woman, and, finally, retransitioning into an HIV-positive gay man. How he managed to survive these various phases is the story of this fascinating, at times disturbing memoir of abuse, discovery, and acceptance. Growing up in a working-class New England family surrounded by five hyper-masculine brothers was not easy. The sexual abuse by neighbors, friends, and strangers started at a young age, as did petty crime. A self-described "pretty and slightly cherubic boy, he endured profound sexual confusion and felt that he never belonged anywhere. And so he turned to doing tricks in drag before transitioning into a transgender woman. He also drank heavily and became hooked on heroin. Eventually, he married an American soldier and moved with him to what was then West Germany. Back in New York, he became the darling of the club scene. This is a wild, harrowing tale, but Belovitch is a likable narrator, and readers will root for him along the tortuous way to his hard-won happiness.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)