Interview of Kate Bornstein

Kate Bornstein discusses her life as a writer and actor. Moving between growing up in a Jewish family on the New Jersey shore, studying acting in school, joining the Church of Scientology, finding community in a dyke BDSM community in San Francisco and in the last twenty years living in NYC, Bornstein consistently emphasizes her grappling with gender, the eventual revelation she is neither a man nor a woman, and understanding the oppressive nature of gender dualisms. Bornstein is among the best-known trans authors since the mid-1990s, influencing a generation in her fusion of personal memoir and postmodern gender theory.

Date of Interview:

November 30, 2021

Location of Interview:

NYU Department of Sociology, New York City

Place of birth:

Neptune, New Jersey

Pronouns:

As you wish

Interviewed by

Michelle Esther O’Brien

Photo by

Kate Bornstein