Tag Archives: Boylan

What Trans Activists Can Learn from New York

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: June 25, 2011

Amid all the cheering about marriage equality in New York State, it’s worth remembering that transgender people continue to lag far behind our gay brothers and sisters in the fight for equal rights.  In 36 states, I can still be fired for being my own damned self, and here in Maine we only narrowly defeated [...]

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JFB op/ed in New York Times: “Oprah, I Hardly Knew You.”

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: May 28, 2011

THERE I was, on Oprah Winfrey’s couch, when she turned to me and asked: “So. You have a vagina?” As a transgender woman, I’d gotten this question before. I allowed as how I did. Ms. Winfrey began to sing to me. “Yes, she has a vagina.” I interrupted her. “What you mean,” I said, “is, [...]

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Video of JFB testimony to Maine Judiciary Committee

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: April 14, 2011

This is the three minutes of testimony I provided to the Maine Judiciary Committee, which was considering the bill to exempt transgender Mainers from the Human Rights act. This is part 3 of four videos that cover the entire testimony. If you want to study the whole process, you could begin with part one, below, [...]

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JFB testimony to the Maine Judiciary Committee: “The ‘Wacky’ Professor”

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: April 13, 2011

Yesterday, I spoke to the Maine legislature’s Judiciary committee. A bill has been proposed to “exempt” transgender people from protections under the Maine Human Rights Act, which went into effect six years ago. Currently, Maine protects GLBT people from discrimination, and this includes a so called “public accommodations” provision of the very sort that was, [...]

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Interview with JFB at Barnes & noble audio site

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: April 4, 2011

Here’s an interview Barnes & Noble’s podcast division did with me during the I’M LOOKING THROUGH YOU TOUR. I’d forgotten about this entirely before coming upon it by accident recently. Hit the ol’ play button to hear the talk.

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The IT GETS BETTER anthology, pub date March 22. Containing JFB story, “In the Early Morning Rain.”

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: March 18, 2011

Tuesday is publication day for the new IT GETS BETTER ANTHOLOGY, the book based on the Youtube phenomenon of last fall in response to the suicides of a series of young LGBT people.  The book, published by Penguin, contains 100 stories of heartache and hope by gay, lesbian, bi, trans people, and their allies.  Contributors [...]

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On Washing Elephants Naked

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: March 15, 2011

Today we introduce a new feature in this blog which we’ll call “Stories Our Friends Swear Are True Though We Actually Doubt That Very Much.”  As our first example, I’ll share the following, told to me this week by Colby’s resident scholar in Greek and Latin, Dr. Kerill O’Neill, Ph.D. It seems that a few [...]

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The Month of the Buckeye (and a week of the Cardinal)

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: February 20, 2011

Greetings, Buckeyes.  Jenny Boylan will be making not one but two trips to your fair state of Ohio in the forthcoming month of March.  Trip the first is on March 3, when I’ll be speaking at Wright State University in the evening.  I believe my event will be open to the public, and I’d be [...]

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Geeks Guide to the Galaxy interviews JFB

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: January 20, 2011

Here’s a podcast hosted by two writers, John Joseph Adams & David Barr Kirtley. Their copy runs: Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror, joins us this week on io9′s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast to talk about literal and metaphorical monsters, and growing up transgender. Falcon Quinn book cover [...]

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Magic Eight Ball Reveals the Future

By Jennifer Finney Boylan | Published: January 19, 2011

I spent this New Year’s Eve safely at home, hunkered down with the family and a couple of friends.   I’ve done New Years in a variety of venues—on a rooftop in Manhattan, in the streets of Cork, Ireland—but home is best.  At home, at the very least, you can be certain that no one is [...]

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  • 4576011240_572c819271

    Jenny Boylan's twelfth book, FALCON QUINN AND THE CRIMSON VAPOR, now on sale from HarperCollins!

  • Browse Inside Falcon Quinn!

  • PROFESSOR JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN is the author of twelve books, including She's Not There: a Life in Two Genders, and I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted, both published by Random House. A novelist, memoirist, and short story writer, she is also a nationally known advocate for civil rights. Jenny has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Live with Larry King, the Today Show, the Barbara Walters Special, NPR's Marketplace and Talk of the Nation; she has also been the subject of documentaries on CBS News' 48 Hours. and The History Channel. She is a regular contributor to the op/ed page of the New York Times and Conde Nast Traveler magazine. Since 1988, she has been Professor of English at Colby College in Maine; in 2010, she was the Hoyer-Updike Distinguished Writer at Ursinus College in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. She has also served on the judging committee of the Fulbright Scholars, administered by the U.S. Department of State.

    Her next published book will be STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU: Parenthood in Two Genders, coming from Crown/Random House in 2013, along with an updated, 10th anniversary edition of SHE'S NOT THERE.

    Check out the Twitter feed at JennyBoylan; or join Jennifer Finney Boylan on facebook.

  • Blog Archive

  • The Boylan Family, summer 2010

    DSC_0063 "You hang around our family, you learn all kinds of stuff."

  • Will Forte as Jennifer Finney Boylan on “Saturday Night Live”

    WiFo-Jennifer Finney Boylan-1

  • Jenny with Barbara Walters, December, 2008

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  • Jenny atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin

    2036947979_34bfbec240 August, 2002.

  • Surrounded

    boylanWith President Clinton and Maine's Governor John Baldacci, fall 2006.

  • JFB and Edward Albee

    edward_albee_by_fred_j_field-150x150

    Edward had been my teacher at Johns Hopkins in the winter of 1986. He visited Colby in fall, 2007. As we took our leave of each other, he kissed me on both cheeks and said, "We have done well. You and I."

  • Jenny and her teacher, the great John Barth

    Boylan_Barth

    Jack was my professor at JHU when I did my thesis, back in the day. After many years, I can now confidently say I finally understand his definition of plot. Which is, of course, "the perturbation of an unstable homeostatic system and its catastrophic restoration to a new and complexified equilibrium."