A JOURNEY TOWARD WHOLENESS AND LOVE

AN ORDINARY COMING OUT STORY THAT'S NOT THE ORDINARY COMING OUT STORY.

 

"Kate Birdsall's journey toward 'rightness' is a series of love stories, as Kate gradually comes to trust her love for the person she is. It is a story of how love moves within us and, sometimes surprises, by moving us toward hope."

—Bill Sinkford, Senior Minister, First Unitarian Church, Portland

In Between is about my being born transgender 20 years before the word existed, trying to figure out why I am the way I am, and learning to accept myself. This memoir began as a story for my daughter but became more than that. I began to see that it helped readers understand what it is to be transgender. 

So many transgender stories are full of tragedy – rejection and loss, danger and violence and even death. Those stories are real and much too common. But not all transgender stories end in tragedy. There also can be hope and love and the opportunity to live whole. 

In Between: A Memoir

Just after World War II, a child in Detroit found no words to describe the mismatch between body and soul. It would be decades before Kate Birdsall claimed her true self and transitioned, at 65.

In Between is Kate’s story. As Kate made her way through jobs, homes, and relationships, she and our culture slowly developed the vocabulary to express who she was. By turns practical and personal, In Between shares a story more often lived than told.

When Kate finds the love of her life as her true self, it proves that not every transgender story is a tragedy. Now adapted as the feature film, Strictly for the Birds, Kate’s story is an inspiration for anyone who has ever been relegated to the category of Other.

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“In Between, the story of Kate Birdsall’s youth and coming of age in the 1940s and 50s is so compelling that it qualifies as a page-turner. The tensile strength of the writing, and a story that needs to be told more widely, show what it takes to come to an understanding of who one feels born to be. A great sense of peace develops as the book comes to a close, not only in the writer but in the reader. I believe this book will save lives in a way that only ‘story’ can.”

— Melissa Madenski, essayist, poet, and author of Endurance

 

“It’s common to hear people ask, ‘Where have all these trans people come from?’ Kate Birdsall’s elegant memoir demonstrates we’ve been here all along, we were just unable to live as our true selves. With honesty and wit, she shares the story of a life that was not able to come into focus until the lives of many others begin winding down. If you’d like to know more about the life of trans elders, this book is an excellent place to start.”

— Mikki Gillette, staff member at Basic Rights Oregon