Io sono lei: Storia della mia transizione

by Lucy Sante

All'inizio del 2021 Luc Sante invia a una stretta cerchia di amici una mail a sessantasette anni sta per affrontare la transizione di genere. A lungo Sante si è sentito fuori figlio unico di genitori cattolici e operai, nato in Belgio, emigra da piccolo con la famiglia negli Stati Uniti, per poi trasferirsi a New York e frequentare la scena artistica e culturale dei primi anni Settanta. Sante stringe amicizia con figure da Nan Goldin a Jean-Michel Basquiat, da Jim Jarmusch a Paul Auster e Martin Scorsese, che si ispirerà alla sua opera per realizzare Gangs of New York. Nel momento in cui Sante riconosce la sua vera identità di genere, repressa per oltre sessant'anni, la rivelazione scuote il suo essere dalle fondamenta, e con disarmante onestà ripercorre i momenti in cui questa coscienza sotterranea ha segnato la sua vita, dalle scelte esistenziali all'osservazione del mondo, fino al momento in cui ha preteso la luce.
Brillante, ironica, profonda, Lucy Sante ci consegna il racconto di una vita, la un passato a inseguire il sogno della verità artistica eludendo la verità della propria identità di donna; e la promessa di un futuro, da abitare come persona finalmente integra, finalmente connessa al proprio autentico sé.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer, Audiobook, Biography, Biography Memoir

228 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 13, 2024

About the author

Lucy Sante was born in Verviers Belgium and emigrated to the United States in the early 1960s. Since 1984, she has been a teacher and writer, and frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. Her publications include Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, and The Factory of Facts and Folk Photography. She currently teaches creative writing and the history of photography at Bard College in New York State.

Reviews

[Sucre · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm discovering that I really dislike when a memoir keeps me at arms length. Why am I reading someone's musings on their life if I'm not getting an in-depth look at their feelings and thoughts throughout? Sadly, this memoir falls under that umbrella.

Sante has some nice turns of phrase, but a lot of this memoir is her talking about random people from her past that aren't sketched out well enough for me to care. It bounces back and forth from her life pre-transition to her life during and post-transition. The shifts in time are jarring and not done well. She brushes over important relationships and seems to absolve herself of a lot. Sometimes she talks about how dysphoria and shame ruled over her pre-transition life, but it wasn't enough to make a good through line for every section. There were also a few things in this that put me off, one being her judging young trans women on Reddit for what she perceives as poor fashion sense. The clothing she described sounded cute and trendy to me, but Sante makes some very catty comments about these women and it felt so unnecessary.

One thing I did enjoy was all the punk, post-punk and no wave music references. She was in the scene in New York and seems to have been friends with quite a few musicians I really admire. It was fun reading about anything related to that, but I realize that won't be something everyone can relate or be interested in.

In the end, I feel like I didn't get very much out of this memoir. Transitioning is a very personal process, and one that by design requires a bit of navel-gazing, but the thoughts laid out in this memoir didn't go deep enough for me to feel super connected to it. At one point Sante even mentions that her writing style is distant and impersonal, so it's not just me that feels that way. I'm glad that Sante is much happier now that she's transitioned, and I hope that happiness continues for her. If anything, this memoir does contain a message of hope for anyone who wants to transition but thinks it's "too late" for them. It's never too late! Don't die wondering!

[Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this autobiography up after hearing Lucy Sante's interview on the podcast Gender Reveal and really enjoyed it. Sante came out as trans at age 67 after a lifetime of repressing her gender feelings and knowledge of carrying a weighty secret. Sante came to New York City as an immigrant from Belgium as a young child, and grew up bilingual, bicultural, and poetically inclined. This book weaves together near daily updates of the year her egg cracked and her early transition with memories of her childhood, teen years, and young adulthood in a cheap, dirty, punk, bohemian NYC which no longer exists. This window into the past is gorgeously narrated but might read mildly infuriating, depending on how much rent you are currently paying or how much you've struggled to break into the publishing industry. I devoured the audiobook in nearly one sitting.

[William2]

Notes

1. Here is what Jan Morris couldn’t have said in Conundrum, perhaps because the culture wasn’t there yet; though her book remains a courageous one.

2. The author describes an explosion of gender dysphoria after a lifetime of suppression of same — and even after that doubts persist. This makes for astonishing reading.

3. Lucy Sante is of my generation, so her allusions to various cultural touchstones are very familiar.

4. Her depictions of her virulently Catholic mother will set your hair on fire.

5. Her review of her crushes on girls and her family’s pathetic dysfunction seems more like tempered evisceration than mere background. Who’s the TMI Frenchman who lays it out warts and all? Lehrer, I think.

[Bonnie G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have, for many years, found Sante an interesting person, I was excited to learn about her gender transition at the age of 67. This book started quite well. She drew a picture of her childhood and family relationships that sang. She has always known how to write a good sentence and how to set a scene. About 1/3 in though this fell apart for me. Sante zings back and forth in time, one moment talking about things that happened in 2021 and suddenly, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, discussing things that happened in 1978. She randomly brings up the names of people we never learn anything about other than a random sentence about Cindy or Judy or Jim. Who are they and why are they being mentioned? No idea. She has this wink-and-nod method of talking about the famous people with whom she hung out. For example, there are several times she randomly refers to "Jean Michel." I know she is discussing Basquiat, but she never uses that name and never tells us what his relevance is to the story that is supposed to be central here. That is the story of Lucy's place on the gender spectrum, the ways in which she forced down her knowledge that she was a female despite being identified as male at birth, and how after a lifetime of performing maleness she finally chose to live as a woman.

There is a good stuff here about gender, but it is buried under a litany of sub-references to events that have little or nothing to do with the purported subject of the book, and the bizarre jumping from present to past and digressions about relationships that also do not relate to the subject matter. Don't get me wrong, Sante has had an interesting life and I am here for her more detailed memoir about downtown life in the last few decades of the 20th century. That is just a different book than this one, and it will need a whole lot more detail and structure than I found here. This one gets a 2.5, rounded up.

[Sleuthfullyours · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for a better understanding of gender confusion and I am still confused. I found the book disjointed and confusing.

[Traci Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciated this trans memoir from an older perspective— a person transitioning late in life. The writing is good but extremely cold and removed. Matter of fact. I struggled with the straightness of the narrative and who the audience might be and why the book has become so beloved. I think it’s a solid memoir but it didn’t really resonate with me because of the remove.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

I Heard Her Call My Name is a fascinating description of the process of transitioning at an "advanced" age. What's it like when a vague discomfort with yourself and a penchant toward distance suddenly are transformed into new knowledge about your gender? How do you change the way you've presented yourself to the world after 60 years?

Lucy Sante is exactly the right person to be writing this book. She's thoughtful and articulate. She's brave enough to share moments of difficulty and confusion, as well as moments of clarity and empowerment. Regardless of the identity of the reader, I Heard Her Call My Name offers an opportunity to reflect on how we come to know ourselves and how assumptions about "normal" can make that self-knowledge more difficult.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley: the opinions are my own.

[Kyle C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still haven't made many forays into trans world. I know a dozen or so trans women, only or three of them in non-superficial ways—but they have been vital to my health and happiness. I'm old, of course, live in the hinterlands, don't anything like the social energy of people a third my age, which is most trans women. I obviously didn't grow up hearing the conversation on gender that marked my youth. I'm allergic to theory and even more to the shibboleth rhetoric (and its principal by-product, a defensive posture) that pervades much—but by no means all of trans writing. In the spirit of my friend Darryl, who years declared that he was not a gay writer but a writer who is gay, I am a writer who is trans. I don't wish to be a spokesperson, although I accept by writing this book I will become just that.

In early 2021, at the peak of the pandemic, at the age of 66, Lucy Sante, the well-known essayist, came out to her family and friends as trans and began the process of transitioning. Her memoir is testament to her struggle to come to terms with her identity and to live as a trans woman, in all its complexity and uncertainty. It's a beautifully written, urbane and meditative, examination of her gender transition.

The part that I found most poignant was the initial sense of self-doubt and disbelief that came with her coming out—not that she ever doubted that she was a woman; rather, she doubted whether she "deserved" to be a woman, thinking herself too old, too bald, too weird, to "qualify" as a woman. Her whole life she had been the beneficiary of male privilege. Her authority had never been questioned. She would never experience breast cancer or menopause. She had suffered neither the social repercussions of being a woman in a patriarchal world nor the biological liabilities of having a female body, and so her transition engendered an enormous sense of unworthiness. Surveying the array of female writers she had idolized, she felt inadequate. And when she did begin to transition, she worried that by transitioning, she was "exiling herself beyond love"; she worried that people would see her as simply following a trend. Transitioning is a process and Sante's memoir vividly shows the fraught back-and-forth hesitation and self-questioning that is both an obstacle and a necessity to becoming one's true self.

The self-doubt aside, her transition proves to be liberating: gone are the lifelong neuroses, the "carapace" of maleness, the "artillery" of masculine competitiveness. "When there is nothing left to protect, the result is freedom", she writes. In transitioning, she finds herself free to create her self anew. Sante's memoir, an exploration of gender dysphoria from her earlier childhood and an account of her transition, is a probing examination of all the contradictions of being a trans woman—of being a woman but also of always feeling like a "woman-in-training", of pursuing a sense of "authenticity" that is both a social construct and also viscerally real. From her earliest memories of school, a Belgian Francophone plunged into a Catholic school run by nuns in New Jersey, she never felt attracted to maleness, "with its acrid musk, its stubble, its needful dangling genitalia, its oafishness and clumsiness, its sense of mission and conquest, its resemblance to the aspects of myself I most despised". In her memoir, she tries to come to terms with what it means to be a woman—not just a question of endocrinology and surgical intervention but of daily practice, of how to walk, dress, behave, talk, move. Her femininity becomes a more metaphysical investigation into "a way of being in a room, of moving through a space, of seeing the world, of organizing place and time, of the urge to give, of connectedness to others, of moral responsibility, of representing truth". Transitioning requires a transformation not just of her outward appearance but of her own interior mental life. At one point, she catches her inner self-talk misgendering her as male and she has to forcefully remind herself that she is, indeed, a woman.

Sante's book is autobiography and Sante repeatedly abjures the idea that she is the expert or the spokeswoman of transness. In fact, for much of the book, she is trying to understand how her transition, her second puberty, should proceed. It's profoundly moving and I often found myself shocked with self-recognition.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sante has a witty and enthralling writing style that makes this a quick, enjoyable read. She gives us a look at what it means to transition later in life, a perspective often left out. And she avoids many of the clichés and tropes that trans stories can fall into, while remaining authentic and honest. A good reminder that being trans isn’t some new trend or fad, but something that has existed before this generation.

[Andrew]

I’ve been a big fan of hers for a while, but if this very trendy memoir of transition gets more people into Lucy Sante, that is unequivocally a good thing. Is she much of a memoirist? Not really, but she’s by no means bad, and she manages the right balance of bitchy ironic distance and personal pain in a manner which I find charming. I still prefer her histories-of-all-the-weirdos work and her more out-there journalism, but this was a fine capstone on a long career and a life well-lived, in the hope that the years remaining will be lived even better.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are curious about why a 60-something male writer decides to transition to a female, this well-written memoir might be a good place to start your reading. I know I learned some things, which is why I read it.

[Wayne Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all, it’s fascinating: deciding to transition “late in life,” as if there’s a “right” time, raises all kinds of interesting internal psychological challenges, portals to self-knowledge, reflections on the construction and internalization of gender “norms.” There is a courage and humility and sweet honesty to Sante’s voice. One trusts her, roots for her.

That said, much of the narrative dwells at the level of high-level summary. We are rarely in specific scenes of her life, real places, which gives the narrative an intellectual remove, an aloofness that’s easy to disengage from. I’m glad I read this book, but I skimmed sections because, I think, in her own way Sante was skimming too.

[Louis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I Heard Her Call My Name is an excellent title to a not so excellent memoir of transition.

Unlike The Factory of Facts, this was lacking wit and creativity to a shocking degree. No Freud no Marx no Joyce. Where is the history? Where is the philosophy? Where is the fire? Which inapt or inept or inane word would Epstein have cut?

“For those who haven’t experienced it, gender dysphoria is a hard thing to conceptualize.”

Yes, especially when you don’t manage to conceptualize it yourself, so imagine me, bored to sleep, trying to figure out what is going on. Why didn’t you try answering the long list of questions you put forward that are baffling the minds of the cis people? There is little here that illuminates the topic of gender dysphoria nor do we delve into the bubbles of either stigma or romance which surround gender and sexuality in general; I was expecting much more. I guess, Lucy: seemingly stuck in the middle of it (“transitioning is not an event, it is a process.”), is at least able to have a dialogue with herself in the form of a second memoir - poor girl - but it remains there: another dialogue with the self with a father here and a mother there and a nun to the left and a teacher to the right. 

“I wanted so badly to be a woman that I could not really understand anyone wanting anything else.” 

Perhaps that explains something. How important are playacting and the stage? (“a feature of every human enterprise”) but how much does it drive us?

Lucy has a son that had a father that is now a mother, or how do you (or he) see this, Lucy? You do not talk about this, and in fact, you barely mention your son at all… I guess if my father would become a woman I would still see her as my father but respect her as a woman - yet would there be a change? I think this could have been a point of interest, like so many other points you do not touch.

“I certainly hope that my story will be read by people who need to see that gender dysphoria, expressed in childhood or adolescence, is not a passing fancy that will evaporate when the social climate changes.”

I certainly hope one day we can meet at the dog park and you can tell me what the deal is because I didn’t read it here.

Forever doomed to play by its rules, in the end, Lucy could not escape her conservative upbringings. Who determines that Lucy is more feminine than Luc? Ah but I might be seen… I might be seen… I might be seen… yes keep seeing yourself, Lucy. What happened to chance, and that belief in negative capability? Ah, but the need to tell people, the need to write, and the need to join ranks. Yes, animals and their needs - still acting in a movie. But why are we so needy? And why do we often become so dull when endlessly talking about ourselves?

Admiration flows in many ways but this was just boring if not repetitive, even with a joint a day.

[Hein Matthew Hattie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s Sante, so the prose is a sensuous pleasure (as a result of profoundly thoughtful writing. It’s a breezy trip through a Disneyland food court, only possible due to expertly invisible architecture.

The great candor of this “memoir of transition” convinced me that I was discovering depths to Sante’s interior along with the author herself. It’s a wonderful, easy-reading ride.

[Adrienne Luther Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a dream. The prose was gorgeous, heartfelt, painful and complex. Easy to get lost in the audiobook.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sante’s late-in-life transition is the jumping-off place for a reminiscence that’s both fascinating and aloof. Even the most intensely personal reflections have an intellectual remove, giving the whole thing a feeling of examination from a distance.

The more contemporaneous vignettes of Sante coming out as trans hold more intrigue than her childhood and early adulthood memoir, which seem to have been written more for the author than the reader. Photos throughout are un-captioned - Sante knows who they are, but we do not (aside from a few recurring characters) - and the academic observation of these figures from the past never really engage.

So frankly, it’s a disappointment, even with its moments of arresting honesty and courage. Perhaps the most fascinating through-line is how technology has fueled Sante’s journey (as how seeing her face through a Facetune filter first inspired her to transition). Old and young, across the gender spectrum, we are fascinated by seeing ourselves through the lens of selfies and strangers’ perceptions, none of us immune to the narcissism and harsh scrutiny that social media has wrought.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transcendent.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

This was articulate, conducive to my ADHD, and a unique perspective not often seen in mass media.

Not to get emotional on main but this book marks me finishing my reading goal. So to celebrate here are some random thoughts and feelings I’m having right now.

1. fuck all the bitches who said I couldn’t do it (the bitches in question being my own anxiety)
2. I’m really happy with the books I’ve read this year. They were (mostly) weird, informative, big-hearted, and of course… gay
3. I have to use the bathroom but I’m on a train right now so wish me luck

To my favorite people who read these reviews from me, just wanted to say I love ya! ❤️

[Megan]

My review of this book is now up at 4Columns: https://4columns.org/milks-megan/i-he...

Here's an excerpt:
Over the past decade or so, trans memoir has tended to fall into two categories. There’s the straightforward version penned by a newly out public figure—directed to a mainstream audience and organized around transition as a main event (or series of events). Then there’s the more self-consciously stylized work of personal nonfiction by a non-famous writer who is trans—who might engage with the form of the transition narrative but do so with a wink, a shrug, or a metaphorical or conceptual conceit (running, weather, jokes). This second category is in a vexed and critical relationship with the first, which does not give back, unaware that its enemy exists.

Lucy Sante’s new book, I Heard Her Call My Name, tilts toward the first (no surprise: see the subtitle), but in some ways bridges both categories. It’s a candid account of when, why, and how Sante chose to embark on gender transition at the age of sixty-six; yet one never forgets that she is a writer—a prolific critic, historian, artist, and scholar who has been honing her craft for decades. This is not the first record that Sante has shared of her life, and hardly the only one. What makes I Heard Her so compelling is how Sante uses this new trans lens to retell a life already told.

Full review at https://4columns.org/milks-megan/i-he...

[Edward Champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

What do you do when you're pushing seventy, you finally realize who you're truly meant to be, and you decide to transition? That's the premise behind Lucy Sante's wry and often emotionally moving memoir. And it very much helps that it's Sante - an exceptional writer whose LOW LIFE is a rightful classic -- who is telling us this story. Sante is bracingly honest about all the life events that led up to her coming out. There are numerous concerns over wigs and clothes and how to walk. When you've been teaching your classes at Bard for so many years, how do you present? And can you keep things together with your partner? Sante also juxtaposes her story with anecdotes about her life in the drug-addled New York cultural underground of the 1970s and the 1980s and it appears that the transition has made her more candid. There are thoughts on growing up working-class and how much this translates into your work and life -- which I could very much relate to. It was stunning to learn how friendless Sante was for so many years of her life, particularly since Sante is exceptionally erudite in person. Most importantly, while becoming a woman has been a rightfully earned source of joy for Sante, it is not without its pitfalls -- even in a world more tolerant of LGBTQIA. And Sante GOES there in ways that somehow (and thankfully!) don't come across as navel-gazing. This is an excellent trans memoir and I wish Sante the best on her exciting late life journey!

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this hit so many critics' end of year lists is because Sante writes about her life and her transition like a critic. The writing is great-- I got a sense of her childhood and the NY era she grew up in. But mostly it's a kind of unremarkable story of a life. Like, she could be anyone. Even towards the end she says her life is the same as before she transitioned, but of course totally different. She writes that she's more free now. I wish I could have felt that minus the critic's remove.

[Lillian Poulsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful memoir of transition as a 60-something-year-old. Lucy’s writing is so raw and real, navigating the challenges of knowing you’re trans from an early age but unsure how to come out or if you even deserve to.

I recommend for anyone interested in hearing stories by and about trans people, especially since trans people who transition later in life are often not talked about!

[Jackie Burton · Rating 2 out of 5]

this felt pretentious and self indulgent? it lacked focus and there were whole chapters that felt unnecessary. Multiple times she unironically referred to herself as a “weirdo” and at one point she said “it feels great to have tits” and I rolled my eyes

[Max · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this, but with 1.5 hrs left of the audiobook, I had to quit it. DNF.

[Susannah Poteet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up from my school’s library, from their pride month shelf (celebration in April, because schools out in June). I picked this book up primarily because it tells the story of a trans woman. One aspect of Pride that I’ve noticed is the tendency to celebrate oneself, and while I think that is necessary and fun(!), it vital to take this month as a chance to learn about the histories and stories of other members of our community, especially those who are the most attacked in our media and by our government.

Ever since I picked it up, I have had this book in my bag almost everyday. It has been my book of choice when I’m waiting in line, taking a school break, or when I just want to sit down and read. In this book, Lucy Sante tells the story of her life and her transition in 2020. However, she tells her story through some of the most beautiful and resounding prose that I may have ever read. Often, I find myself reading purely for the plot or the facts I’m trying to learn from a book. But in this book, Lucy Sante recentered the power of words, and what good writing can and should look like in my life.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was kind of cool to read a story of transitioning late in life, but a lot of the book seemed to be more a wandering narrative of her younger years in New York, chock full of names of people and places that I didn’t really care about.

[Krondokiller · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was bored to tears. Sante objectifies women and reduces them to fashion choices and body hair removal techniques in his study of what he wanted to extract and adopt in transitioning. Trivial decisions are itemized—choice of name, hair style, accessories—all superficial. Zero real introspection (says "I'm a Gemini" at one point!) and zero that connects his unhappiness to body or gender dysmorphia. S/he's just unhappy so seems to try this new shell. One person's story is one person's story, but from where I sit, Sante's rendering of transgender has zero connection to being a woman. I experienced Sante as a drug-using unhappy person obsessed with appearance, which is a personality I’d avoid regardless of gender.

[Sharon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. Instead it was so jumpy (I.e going from the 1980s in one sentence to sometime in the 2000). The book was also confusing, not related to gender just the writing style. The author talked about teaching at a university, but I don’t know if it was as a teaching assistant or professor. At one point, the author mentions in passing that there is a son. There was also a lot of name dropping. I listened to the audio book and was able to skip ahead by 15 seconds and the name dropping was still going on. I had high hopes from the rave reviews from reputable sources, but was ultimately disappointed.

[Mindi Lutwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry and hard to follow (writer was all over the place with anecdotes and characters)

[Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here She Comes Now
A review of the Penguin Books paperback (January 21, 2025) of the Penguin Books hardcover original (February 13, 2024).

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. - Epigraph from Henry David Thoreau's Walden or, Life in the Woods (1854).

My secret poisoned my entire experience of life. There was never a moment when I didn't feel the acute shame of being me, even as I denied to myself that my secret had anything to do with it.

I had missed this memoir by Lucy Sante (pronounced Sahnt, the e is silent) when it first appeared. But I recently read and enjoyed her Six Sermons for Bob Dylan (2024) and was surprised to learn that up until 2021 she had written as Luc Sante and that in my pre-review days I had even read her under that name.

So this is a memoir of a late-in-life gender transition by an eclectic writer who has often documented the offbeat in major cities (e.g. Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, The Other Paris, etc.), written essays (Own work in Kill All Your Darlings: Pieces 1990-2005 and for others Inferno by Luc Sante) and acted as historical consultant for film (e.g. Gangs of New York (dir. Martin Scorcese, 2002).

The story toggles back and forth between the young Belgian-American's life growing up and becoming a writer, initially for a college press and then for the New York Review of Books, and the coming out and ongoing life in 2021 and afterwards. The NYC life intersects with the era of punk rock clubs such as CBGB's, bands such as The Velvet Underground (which provides the song which is the source of the book's title) and Sante's relationships and friends. The late in life coming out is an awakening which breathes new life into her writing.

Soundtrack
The book's title is taken from the raucous noise rock song I Heard Her Call My Name from The Velvet Underground's 2nd album White Light/White Heat (1968) which you can listen to here.

The live version from the 1993 reunion is more restrained. You can see a video of it here from the L'Olympia, Paris, France in June 1993.

Trivia and Links
There were various own articles during the coming out and then at the time of the book's release in hardcover and paperback. You can read some of them at On Becoming Lucy Sante by Lucy Sante, Vanity Fair, January 20, 2022, and A gender-swapping photo app helped Lucy Sante come out as trans at age 67, by Tonya Mosley, NPR, February 21, 2024.