Diana Goetsch's This Body I Wore chronicles one woman's long journey to coming out, a path that runs parallel to the emergence of the trans community over the past several decades.
Enthralling ... Told with unique eloquence and tenderness, the memoir follows the emotional and physical transition of someone who spent 50 years living in someone else’s skin ... Her memoir opens a window into the cultural evolution of trans communities, gender identity, authenticity, and mental health, with nothing held back as she ascends shame through intimacy. Hope blooms within these pages. Readers will witness first-hand the tragedy of living a life closeted and the miracle of discovering it’s never too late to shed your old skin and become the person you were always meant to be ... Powerful and beautifully written, this is a mesmerizing memoir.
Exquisite ... Goetsch harnesses the power of language to describe truths that went unspoken for too long. Goetsch’s skill as a poet informs the beauty of her prose ... I was utterly riveted by the narrative Goetsch crafts ... Goetsch’s memoir....offers a significant contribution to the documentation of LGBTQ history and culture in New York during that era. But perhaps more importantly, the hard-won wisdom contained in This Body I Wore offers a new generation of trans and nonbinary youth a guiding hand from a previous generation.
Goetsch fashions a brilliant and tapestried story of her late-in-life gender transition ... Balancing profound personal revelations...with cogent analysis of cultural gender narratives...she constructs a gorgeous self-portrait that defies categorization. The result obliterates binary confines around gender with breathtaking finesse.
