"Trans Like Me" - c n lester

I must confess to having a crush on c n lester – a literary crush, needless to say, we have never met. We haven’t met but so much of what they write chimes with me and with what this site is all about. There are a lot of personal accounts of trans on the shelves these days, some very focused on an idea, or on an issue, some wrapped up in self-accounting, some strongest on storytelling and memoir, some fierce and argumentative, but “Trans Like Me” draws together the silkiest threads of all that into a virtuoso personal demonstration of tolerance, story-telling and shrewd commentary. Maybe it’s because they are a musician, or because they wear their research lightly, or because they reference interesting culture, or in the end because to be “trans like me” when “me” is c n lester feels quite manageable, quite admirable, quite relateable, quite desirable really. Or is that my crush talking? The book sashays round a lot of what you’ll find in “Treasured”. There’s a dissenting view on “The Danish Girl”, feminiellos and castrati, an appreciation of Leslie Feinberg, a necessary survey of “trans panic”, a superbly candid and unusual consideration of love, and a balanced overview of feminism in the age of trans – and that’s just for starters. It ends with a sanity-inducing gaze into our future and its possibilities,- “I trust that with compassion, empathy, the deep respect for what is unique and special in each of us – the core lessons of trans experience – that it is a future we could all be proud of creating. We just have to find the courage to try.” Amen to that.