Book Review:

Branded T, by Rosalyne Blumenstein

Reviewed by Tracie O'Keefe

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I would say that autobiographies are probably the most difficult books to write in that in writing about oneself one can be self-indulgent. Blumenstein's account of her life and drug addiction interwoven with the dynamics of her transsexual experience are riveting in an age of fly-on-the-wall entertainment. She certainly digs deep down to the bottom of her soul and confesses all beyond decency, which leads to her revelations being admirable and fascinating. Rarely will you ever read such an honest depiction of debauchery and desperation born out of pills and the need to define oneself as a female having been barmitzvahed as a Brooklyn pretty boy.

Blumenstein was the brassy blonde who stripped and worked for many years in the peep shows of New York. Tall, slim, pretty and sexy she was the trannie who lived on the streets and survived in the sex industry. "I'm doing ok," she would have told you, but secretly she was living a life of prolonged and enslaving multiple drug use with complex addictions that even today she is still dealing with. What appeared to be a mirage of the mister who became a sister and then the queen of the queens hid someone who had a harrowing journey to learn how to realise her own potential.

Her story tells how after her transition she got clean, went on to higher education, became a director of the Gender Identity Project, New York, a social worker and a political campaigner for the rights of sex and gender diverse people and learned how to fall in love. For many years she lived in fear of being found out, walking in the shadows and not disclosing her transsexual history to other people. Through her journey she tells us how in many ways it does not matter how well you pass or not, you are your history and what you have become through what you were.

So is this just another tale of a dumb blonde goes public - well no, it's much more than that because her story peels away the layers of illusion about who she really is, what she has become and she lays herself open and vulnerable. It is a great book for anyone dealing with issues of sex and gender honesty in the public eye. It is also the most useful book I have ever read dealing with issues of sex and gender diverse people and addiction. The reader wants her to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but most of all the unforgivable things she does to herself. You will want her to come back from Death's door and be mad at her for taking the long way round, but most of all you will admire her for her honesty. This is the tale of a woman whose brains eluded her until the looks she created for herself began to fade and she evolved into something more than she thought she was.

T.O'K

[Branded T is available from www.amazon.com or Angus & Robertson book stores]

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