Cyrus Grace Dunham: Gender Can Get Pretty Complicated
LGBTQ&A
Jeffrey Masters
4.7 • 703 Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2019
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Cyrus Grace Dunham has written a complicated, necessary addition to the trans literary canon. A Year Without A Name, Dunham's debut book, recontextualizes gender dysphoria as something that is not solely exclusive to binary trans people. Readers get to know Cryus as Dunham gets to know Cyrus, and the memoir makes clear that one's journey to figuring out their gender is a messy, life-long process.
He joins us this week to talk about how his experience of gender is still evolving, how it's affected by privilege and whiteness, and why using he/him pronouns feels "scary and erotic."
LGBTQ&A is hosted and produced by Jeffrey Masters. @jeffmasters1
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So I really, really like this interview. |
| 0:15.4 | Now, I like all of them, just because my ego is beyond massive. |
| 0:20.0 | But I like this interview specifically because of how honest Cyrus is about how complicated |
| 0:26.6 | gender is. |
| 0:28.6 | Gender is not black and white for anyone, trans or not, and I really appreciate that Cyrus is |
| 0:34.6 | still figuring it out and he's cool with that. I think we need more examples of people like Cyrus who are not at the quote-unquote end of their gender journey, |
| 0:44.3 | people who don't have all the answers. |
| 0:47.3 | So that is what you'll hear today. |
| 0:49.3 | And then you'll also hear us talking about his new book. |
| 0:52.3 | That is called A Year Without a Name, |
| 0:54.8 | and it is out right now. |
| 0:57.6 | From Luminary Media, I'm Jeffrey Masters, |
| 0:59.9 | and this is LGBTQ and A. |
| 1:09.6 | One of the things that your book did for me was that it really recontextualized and made clear that dysphoria is not only this binary trans thing. |
| 1:20.6 | I think that it really is easy for people to make that assumption that it's only for, you know, like trans men and trans women. |
| 1:26.6 | Do you find that? I do, and I also think, I mean, like trans men and trans women. Do you find that? |
| 1:28.6 | I do. |
| 1:29.1 | And I also think, I mean, this is such a huge point of conflict in the so-called trans movement. |
| 1:37.5 | You know, I think increasingly, especially in a younger generation, we see this presence |
| 1:41.7 | on the internet of young, binary-identified trans people |
| 1:45.9 | who assert that the only way to be a transgender person is to experience a really specific |
| 1:52.6 | type of dysphoria, which is then treated with medical intervention. And increasingly, |
... |
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