From “Born into the Wrong Body” to “A Kaleidoscope that I Spin and Spin and Spin”: Reflections on Historical Differences in Trans Autobiography Informed by American Discourses

Two trans autobiographies, Conundrum: An Extraordinary Narrative of Transsexualism by Jan Morris (1974) and Nina Here Nor There: My Journey Beyond Gender by Nick Krieger (2011) are analyzed to compare how trans selves have been constructed differently across different Western historical contexts. The traditional transsexual narrative of Conundrum and the American medical discourses that inform it are contrasted with the more contemporary transgender identity narrative of Nina Here Nor There, the latter of which can be linked to turn-of-the-century challenges among American trans activists and scholars to the monopoly of medical models on (socially legible) trans identity construction. Different trans autobiography conventions like childhood gender conviction and surgery as a narrative event are discussed to show how autobiography as a form helps consolidate the trans self.