# Kate Bornstein Born Albert Herman Bornstein on March 15, 1948 in Neptune City, New Jersey. American author, performance artist, and trans theorist whose 1994 book ***Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us*** is one of the foundational popular-press texts of contemporary American trans-political thought. ## Major Works - ***Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us*** (1994) — the breakthrough trans memoir-and-theory hybrid that introduced a mass audience to trans-theoretical concepts: gender as performance, the political stakes of binary gender enforcement, the lived experience of being read as gender-illegible. Updated in 2016 as *Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation* - ***My Gender Workbook*** (1998; updated 2013 as *My New Gender Workbook*) — interactive workbook applying gender-theoretical concepts to readers' personal experience; widely used in college gender-studies courses - ***Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws*** (2006) — Bornstein's most-distributed book; written as direct suicide-prevention material for LGBTQ youth and other marginalized young people. Used as a reference resource by the [[Trevor Project]] and other youth-services organizations - ***A Queer and Pleasant Danger*** (2012) — autobiographical memoir covering her early life, twelve years in Scientology, and her trans transition ## Scientology Background Bornstein was a member of Scientology for twelve years (1970-1981), rising to the senior leadership level of the Sea Organization before her expulsion. Her Scientology background is unusual in the trans-political-figure world and has produced a distinctive analytical lens on cult dynamics that informs her work on coercive social systems generally. ## Performance Career Bornstein has produced and starred in original solo and ensemble performance work continuously since the early 1990s. Notable productions: - ***Hidden: A Gender*** (1989) — early solo performance work on gender identity - ***Y2K-12: Hidden Gender Revival*** (2012) — large-cast retrospective production - **Recurring collaborator** with avant-garde performance institutions including PS122, Joe's Pub, and university-based performance programs ## Place in the Vault Bornstein occupies a distinctive niche: the **popular-press trans theorist** who translated academic gender theory into accessible memoir-and-workbook formats for a general readership. Her work has been particularly important in the trans-youth and queer-youth contexts — *Hello, Cruel World* is one of the most-recommended suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ teens. As such she sits in the contemporary [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] alongside the trans-academic ([[Susan Stryker]]), trans-clinical ([[Lou Sullivan]]'s legacy), and trans-direct-service ([[Sylvia Rivera Law Project]], [[Trevor Project]]) traditions. --- ## See Also - [[Queer Liberation Ecosystem]] - [[Queer Liberation Timeline]] - [[Susan Stryker]] - [[Trevor Project]]