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Show Trans
A nonfiction novel about sex addiction, sex work, navigating the MSM scene, a trip West, dissociative identity disorder, and the struggle to find love, connection, and self-actualization as a non-binary trans person. This book is DeLine's most autobiographical (and arguably scandalous) work to date.
158 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2014
1 person is currently reading
389 people want to read
About the author
Elliott DeLine
9 books113 followersElliott DeLine (born 1988) is a writer from Syracuse, NY. He is the author of the novel Refuse, the novella I Know Very Well How I Got My Name, and his latest, Show Trans: A Nonfiction Novel. His essays and excerpts have been featured in The New York Times, The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard, Original Plumbing Magazine and The Advocate. He is currently a content writer for The Body is Not an Apology. Elliott is the founder and former vice president of the non-profit CNY for Solidarity as well as the lead coordinator of Queer Mart, an LGBTQ artist and crafts fair. Elliott is also a visual artist and songwriter. He currently lives on land in upstate, NY with his partner.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 9, 2020
Mokasin sen verran, etten tajunnut DeLinella olevan aiempiakin omaelämänkerrallisia novelleja, joista tämä jatkuu. Näiden aiempien kirjojen lukeminen varmaan auttaisi, koska tässä viitataan vanhoisin suhteisiin, mutta koin kyllä kirjan toimivan myös itsenäisenä teoksena. Raskaista aiheista huolimatta yllättävän katkeransuloisen rauhoittavaa luettavaa. Ehdottomasti luen aiemmatkin kirjat jossain vaiheessa.
November 11, 2014
Show Trans has been my favorite book of 2014 so far and there’s not too much time left for another book to come along and steal the prize. Show Trans is a memoir about: being transgender, Grindr hookups, losing time, being dissociative, a trip out West, unrequited everything, the search for intimacy, writing novels based on real people, casual sex work, STDs, transphobia from medical practitioners and the world at large, having a non-binary gender identity, sex addiction, and finding a partner. I really love recovery memoirs, but this was no typical recovery memoir. It was better.
In a lot of memoirs, when people think about their own story they frame it as a narrative identity where bad things happen and they persevere and it all makes sense. But real life doesn’t work in this orderly way as far as I know. I also think whenever people come to a new conclusion about their identity they want a narrative to go with it so they recast everything that ever happened to support their new identity. And everything is viewed through the prism of identity so a different set of things become important and unimportant. But DeLine does not play along with any of this. He presents life as it actually is, which is picaresque, nonsensical, and almost completely inside one’s own head. He takes on, or recognizes, a number of new identities in this book but he won’t recast the narrative. It’s just one damn thing after another, in the best possible way. So maybe that is one reason why this book is a non-fiction novel, not a memoir.
You know how they say a fox knows many things but a hedgehog knows one big thing? One big thing is boring. DeLine is a fox, not a hedgehog. I think this is my favorite quality of his writing. I believe anyone who likes literature that defies a few of the usual customs of writing to deliver a very real experience would love this book. I kept thinking, “In the future when the world is less transphobic, everyone will recognize Elliott DeLine as a really amazing writer.” And then, “No, wait, can’t we just cut to the chase and recognize this right now?”
In Show Trans, DeLine tells a very personal story including painful, intimate details and it feels raw and true. But he never goes a step too far and over-shares. That is a very delicate balance and I really admire the way he did this. There is a strong sense of personal dignity and integrity deeply woven into the fabric of this book. Why should he explain everything? If he really were the Show Trans of the title (like a show pony), he would display everything to gratify the audience’s prurient curiosity or to “educate” them. But that’s not what this is about. DeLine writes as if his audience is smart and can figure things out without him explaining every little thing, and I like that subtlety. This is also not an “emotion recollected in tranquility” kind of story. It’s more of a “This all happened recently; emotion recollected in more emotion” kind of story. This makes it more impressive to me that DeLine is able to sift through what needs to be told with such discriminating prudence.
The one thing I was worried about before starting the book was that there would be disturbing sex scenes, because I’m a fragile squeamish flower. But it was no problem at all; these scenes were distressing but not graphic, making it a powerful book with a low ick factor. I guess part of the reason is that if the narrator is totally dissociated and not really present then there’s nothing to describe, is there? But it wasn’t just that, it was mainly excellent writing and good judgment. On the other hand, the medical scenes were truly harrowing. I have an extremely low opinion of medical practitioners and I expect them to be transphobic and cis-normative (as well as everything else that is bad.) But the treatment that DeLine received was so appallingly criminal and medieval that it was shocking. This book is a damning indictment of the medical-industrial complex!
Book design: I don’t talk about that anymore, which is a shame because this book is very pretty and even has photos.
What other book does this remind me of?: They’re actually not that similar, but how about Gender Failure by Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon, another great non-binary transgender memoir of 2014?
Theme song: Trouble Loves Me by Morrissey
In a lot of memoirs, when people think about their own story they frame it as a narrative identity where bad things happen and they persevere and it all makes sense. But real life doesn’t work in this orderly way as far as I know. I also think whenever people come to a new conclusion about their identity they want a narrative to go with it so they recast everything that ever happened to support their new identity. And everything is viewed through the prism of identity so a different set of things become important and unimportant. But DeLine does not play along with any of this. He presents life as it actually is, which is picaresque, nonsensical, and almost completely inside one’s own head. He takes on, or recognizes, a number of new identities in this book but he won’t recast the narrative. It’s just one damn thing after another, in the best possible way. So maybe that is one reason why this book is a non-fiction novel, not a memoir.
You know how they say a fox knows many things but a hedgehog knows one big thing? One big thing is boring. DeLine is a fox, not a hedgehog. I think this is my favorite quality of his writing. I believe anyone who likes literature that defies a few of the usual customs of writing to deliver a very real experience would love this book. I kept thinking, “In the future when the world is less transphobic, everyone will recognize Elliott DeLine as a really amazing writer.” And then, “No, wait, can’t we just cut to the chase and recognize this right now?”
In Show Trans, DeLine tells a very personal story including painful, intimate details and it feels raw and true. But he never goes a step too far and over-shares. That is a very delicate balance and I really admire the way he did this. There is a strong sense of personal dignity and integrity deeply woven into the fabric of this book. Why should he explain everything? If he really were the Show Trans of the title (like a show pony), he would display everything to gratify the audience’s prurient curiosity or to “educate” them. But that’s not what this is about. DeLine writes as if his audience is smart and can figure things out without him explaining every little thing, and I like that subtlety. This is also not an “emotion recollected in tranquility” kind of story. It’s more of a “This all happened recently; emotion recollected in more emotion” kind of story. This makes it more impressive to me that DeLine is able to sift through what needs to be told with such discriminating prudence.
The one thing I was worried about before starting the book was that there would be disturbing sex scenes, because I’m a fragile squeamish flower. But it was no problem at all; these scenes were distressing but not graphic, making it a powerful book with a low ick factor. I guess part of the reason is that if the narrator is totally dissociated and not really present then there’s nothing to describe, is there? But it wasn’t just that, it was mainly excellent writing and good judgment. On the other hand, the medical scenes were truly harrowing. I have an extremely low opinion of medical practitioners and I expect them to be transphobic and cis-normative (as well as everything else that is bad.) But the treatment that DeLine received was so appallingly criminal and medieval that it was shocking. This book is a damning indictment of the medical-industrial complex!
Book design: I don’t talk about that anymore, which is a shame because this book is very pretty and even has photos.
What other book does this remind me of?: They’re actually not that similar, but how about Gender Failure by Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon, another great non-binary transgender memoir of 2014?
Theme song: Trouble Loves Me by Morrissey
February 18, 2017
I want to begin by saying that this was a difficult book for me to read. Knowing that someone lived through many of the things that the main character, Elliott, did made me quite uneasy. I went through periods of depression and would have to stop reading for awhile. I found the account to be at times harrowing, and even triggering, in some cases.
The writing is awesome—There is no doubt DeLine has a style that will make you lose yourself in the pages. Everything goes together very smoothly, and during the good times I would not want to put the book down. It was pretty different and contained a raw, contrastive realism compared to his other books.
Elliott’s struggle with doctors and nurses resonated with me in a funny way—It is not that I have had trouble with medical staff necessarily, but their dismissiveness and critical attitudes felt similar to how people in my life have acted towards me. The nurses who turned up their noses felt hauntingly realistic, and we all know the constant unwanted lecturing that happens to so many trans people.
I loved watching Elliott grow as a person. He keeps plugging along, trying and trying again to connect with the people around him in the only ways he knows how. His journey was portrayed with a fresh sense of urgency; I felt trapped as I read through his days, wondering how he could pull himself out of his loneliness.
The one letdown, I found, was a lack of development in the last section. It read more like a quick epilogue, rather than an equal section in the story. It was not that much shorter, but the pace seemed to pick up and left me feeling as though I got only a glimpse at this new, healthier part of Elliott’s life. I thought that after having endured the pain of all his trials and dejections, we deserved a little more of the light at the end of the tunnel.
Overall, this was a roiling journey written with style and wit. I enjoyed the cellphone screencaps and photos—They made me feel closer to the story, as if I were actually watching it unfold. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a tale of adventure and curiosity; of the realization that we all deserve something more than what we have been dealt.
The writing is awesome—There is no doubt DeLine has a style that will make you lose yourself in the pages. Everything goes together very smoothly, and during the good times I would not want to put the book down. It was pretty different and contained a raw, contrastive realism compared to his other books.
Elliott’s struggle with doctors and nurses resonated with me in a funny way—It is not that I have had trouble with medical staff necessarily, but their dismissiveness and critical attitudes felt similar to how people in my life have acted towards me. The nurses who turned up their noses felt hauntingly realistic, and we all know the constant unwanted lecturing that happens to so many trans people.
I loved watching Elliott grow as a person. He keeps plugging along, trying and trying again to connect with the people around him in the only ways he knows how. His journey was portrayed with a fresh sense of urgency; I felt trapped as I read through his days, wondering how he could pull himself out of his loneliness.
The one letdown, I found, was a lack of development in the last section. It read more like a quick epilogue, rather than an equal section in the story. It was not that much shorter, but the pace seemed to pick up and left me feeling as though I got only a glimpse at this new, healthier part of Elliott’s life. I thought that after having endured the pain of all his trials and dejections, we deserved a little more of the light at the end of the tunnel.
Overall, this was a roiling journey written with style and wit. I enjoyed the cellphone screencaps and photos—They made me feel closer to the story, as if I were actually watching it unfold. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a tale of adventure and curiosity; of the realization that we all deserve something more than what we have been dealt.
October 30, 2014
Elliott Deline’s new book, $how Trans, reads like a journal that has been edited to read like narrative. It’s a rollercoaster of a read. Deline interprets his own and others’ behaviors inconsistently – one minute flagellating himself for his desires and choices, another minute reporting them with eerie detachment, still another minute blaming all his problems on other people.
As the author of a romance book with a trans protagonist, I chose to write a world where things are a little bit better, go a little bit smoother than is usual in real life. I felt that folks could use a feel-good book where a trans man finds love and the conflict has nothing to do with his gender. It is a realistic trans* story in the same way that most romance is realistic, and important only if it succeeds in providing warmth and hope.
Happy possibilities and best-case-scenarios aside, there are other important trans* stories. This one doesn’t waste any time on how being trans* can be a blessing (not even in disguise) or what amazing lessons and perspectives a trans* person is given. Deline is handing over his experiences, edited and shaped but remarkably honest, and they are frequently painful. Banal or hypersensitized, his responses to events vary according to a complicated chemistry of anger and exhaustion, awareness and blockage, disgust and need.
The use of first person memoir to tell stories in which the person frequently blacks out – not passes out, but has memory blackouts – is both compelling and severely restricted. Deline remembers at least one instance of rape, but questionable consent is a constant thread throughout the book, and some crucial moments when consent might have happened are erased by Deline’s dark memory. Moments of decision, moments of pressure. These disappear into a shrug, Deline’s admission that he doesn’t remember what came next.
On the other hand, there are plenty of stories told in great detail that carry a similar weight of indecision, with Deline often bowing to pressure in ways that don’t feel like decision-making. Another thread through the book is that things just happen – sex, love, rejection – with Deline barely paddling either with or against the flow. In this tone, I hear the voice of an addict, and Deline uses the word himself about his relationship with sex. His struggle to exert his will over his life is as painful to read as it is chillingly realistic for so many.
There is no truth in this book but the author’s truth. No attempt has been made to balance or flesh out Deline’s understanding of events, except with his own changing perspective through time. In the scenes with Grindr hookups or the more regular sex trade partners, this doesn’t seem to matter. I’m only interested in what Deline is feeling and how he is experiencing his own desires and those of others. His descriptions of wanting something more nebulous than sex from them are compelling. Some of his strongest voice, moments when I can practically hear him speaking, is in the agonizing confusion of being inadequately gendered by sex partners who simplify him, deny him, or just use him and ignore his need for someone to understand his maleness and blend of masculinity and femininity.
The relationship he has with the object-of-love is beautiful and empty, formed of feelings and denied by them, as unwanted by the object as it is impossible to give up. In some of the most intimate description in the book, the object is brought only into soft focus. Deline doesn’t give us a well-rounded, complex character in the person. It is the image of love and of the lover that we see in the book. The person is specific only in that no one else affects Deline the same way. We don’t get to know this person at all and have no idea whether or not we would sympathize with their version of this situation.
It’s not about that, though. It’s about Deline’s experience of love and loss, love and rejection, love and hate. While the object-of-love is vague, Deline’s response to him is not. He feels his way through the relationship, his desire and yearning the strongest impressions provided us. This is where Deline’s authorial voice is given the reins and allowed to speak. He provides a little context with some nice descriptions of Santa Cruz, for example, but focuses on the feeling of being in yet another situation he doesn’t control. The hope he holds for this situation doesn’t outweigh the sense of doom I have as the reader. His hope is tenuous and depends far too much on other people. His pursuit and eventual loss use the same personal and interpersonal tools he’s been using in the rest of his life – assumption, unwarranted hope, and blind pushing. There is no way that this love will be the growth experience that changes everything for him. This is not a romance.
I sense that there is a lot of truth to the idea that Deline’s life has been made harder by some of the people in it. On the other hand, the way he moves toward a mode of blaming others makes me think of people I know who’ve gone into therapy and started looking for “causes” for their behavior or experience of the world. More than a reliable indictment of the people involved, I got the image of a person struggling to change. He admits to self-diagnosing his sex addiction and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which I find telling as a search for explanation more than a convincing diagnosis.
His desire to understand his own choices grows through the book and provides the bulk of the narrative continuity. I’m not certain he comes to a place of great self-knowledge, but he does find support from outside that helps him feel better about himself. Perhaps self-love will open the door to self-knowledge.
$how Trans was provided to me free for an unbiased review. I'm a tough grader.
As the author of a romance book with a trans protagonist, I chose to write a world where things are a little bit better, go a little bit smoother than is usual in real life. I felt that folks could use a feel-good book where a trans man finds love and the conflict has nothing to do with his gender. It is a realistic trans* story in the same way that most romance is realistic, and important only if it succeeds in providing warmth and hope.
Happy possibilities and best-case-scenarios aside, there are other important trans* stories. This one doesn’t waste any time on how being trans* can be a blessing (not even in disguise) or what amazing lessons and perspectives a trans* person is given. Deline is handing over his experiences, edited and shaped but remarkably honest, and they are frequently painful. Banal or hypersensitized, his responses to events vary according to a complicated chemistry of anger and exhaustion, awareness and blockage, disgust and need.
The use of first person memoir to tell stories in which the person frequently blacks out – not passes out, but has memory blackouts – is both compelling and severely restricted. Deline remembers at least one instance of rape, but questionable consent is a constant thread throughout the book, and some crucial moments when consent might have happened are erased by Deline’s dark memory. Moments of decision, moments of pressure. These disappear into a shrug, Deline’s admission that he doesn’t remember what came next.
On the other hand, there are plenty of stories told in great detail that carry a similar weight of indecision, with Deline often bowing to pressure in ways that don’t feel like decision-making. Another thread through the book is that things just happen – sex, love, rejection – with Deline barely paddling either with or against the flow. In this tone, I hear the voice of an addict, and Deline uses the word himself about his relationship with sex. His struggle to exert his will over his life is as painful to read as it is chillingly realistic for so many.
There is no truth in this book but the author’s truth. No attempt has been made to balance or flesh out Deline’s understanding of events, except with his own changing perspective through time. In the scenes with Grindr hookups or the more regular sex trade partners, this doesn’t seem to matter. I’m only interested in what Deline is feeling and how he is experiencing his own desires and those of others. His descriptions of wanting something more nebulous than sex from them are compelling. Some of his strongest voice, moments when I can practically hear him speaking, is in the agonizing confusion of being inadequately gendered by sex partners who simplify him, deny him, or just use him and ignore his need for someone to understand his maleness and blend of masculinity and femininity.
The relationship he has with the object-of-love is beautiful and empty, formed of feelings and denied by them, as unwanted by the object as it is impossible to give up. In some of the most intimate description in the book, the object is brought only into soft focus. Deline doesn’t give us a well-rounded, complex character in the person. It is the image of love and of the lover that we see in the book. The person is specific only in that no one else affects Deline the same way. We don’t get to know this person at all and have no idea whether or not we would sympathize with their version of this situation.
It’s not about that, though. It’s about Deline’s experience of love and loss, love and rejection, love and hate. While the object-of-love is vague, Deline’s response to him is not. He feels his way through the relationship, his desire and yearning the strongest impressions provided us. This is where Deline’s authorial voice is given the reins and allowed to speak. He provides a little context with some nice descriptions of Santa Cruz, for example, but focuses on the feeling of being in yet another situation he doesn’t control. The hope he holds for this situation doesn’t outweigh the sense of doom I have as the reader. His hope is tenuous and depends far too much on other people. His pursuit and eventual loss use the same personal and interpersonal tools he’s been using in the rest of his life – assumption, unwarranted hope, and blind pushing. There is no way that this love will be the growth experience that changes everything for him. This is not a romance.
I sense that there is a lot of truth to the idea that Deline’s life has been made harder by some of the people in it. On the other hand, the way he moves toward a mode of blaming others makes me think of people I know who’ve gone into therapy and started looking for “causes” for their behavior or experience of the world. More than a reliable indictment of the people involved, I got the image of a person struggling to change. He admits to self-diagnosing his sex addiction and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which I find telling as a search for explanation more than a convincing diagnosis.
His desire to understand his own choices grows through the book and provides the bulk of the narrative continuity. I’m not certain he comes to a place of great self-knowledge, but he does find support from outside that helps him feel better about himself. Perhaps self-love will open the door to self-knowledge.
$how Trans was provided to me free for an unbiased review. I'm a tough grader.
January 5, 2019
I'll be honest, it took me a couple chapters to really connect with the narrator enough to feel like I wanted to keep reading this. Once I did, though, I couldn't put it down. This story is autobiographical but it sure isn't self-aggrandizing or even particularly self-promoting. It feels honest and uncomfortable, it shows elements of the narrator's character that are problematic without apology, and it humanizes complex emotions in a way that felt refreshingly unusual for me (I'm currently reading a LOT of trans autobiography). Ultimately I really enjoyed it, I was impressed by how quickly I went from "I'm not sure I want to keep reading this book" to "I want to read every single thing this author has ever written"!
cw: sexual violence, transantagonism, negative/critical remarks about people's bodies (including a few that seemed unnecessarily race-specific), drug/alcohol use
cw: sexual violence, transantagonism, negative/critical remarks about people's bodies (including a few that seemed unnecessarily race-specific), drug/alcohol use
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July 23, 2023i found deline’s storytelling to be relatable and comforting. i do wish there was more development on deline’s experience with Transexuality as an overall experience — that is, a deeper analysis of the nuances and depths of trans identities, and how those identities shift and change.
additionally, “i let him see me in my girl clothes” was such a beautiful line.
additionally, “i let him see me in my girl clothes” was such a beautiful line.
September 4, 2021
Fuck, I loved this book so hard. A little painful, a little uncomfortable, but so worth it and so good. DeLine’s writing is raw and real, and I flew through it. Elliott writes about his life as a 25 year-old stuck at a dead end in Syracuse. As a gay trans person he’s fighting a cyclical war with many demons, and it seems like the only way out is through. It truly was fate that brought me to this book one afternoon at a queer bookstore in the city; the book was very small but I’d heard of the author, so I read a few paragraphs and decided to pick it up. I related to it so much more than I thought I would, and I have so many sticky notes for the moments when I went “wow, I know that feeling.” DeLine’s writing is not terribly polished or flowery, but I don’t see that as a bad thing - I get the vibe that he’s not trying to impress anyone, and that makes it accessible. He is definitely on my radar now as a trans writer to watch and he should be on yours as well.
TW: sex, STDs, transphobic medical professionals, transphobia/trans ignorance, toxic relationships, f-slur
TW: sex, STDs, transphobic medical professionals, transphobia/trans ignorance, toxic relationships, f-slur
June 27, 2015
I was afraid this would be dry being non fiction that is far
From the case. It is so hard to read the narrative seeing the problems but not able to help.... Good book!
From the case. It is so hard to read the narrative seeing the problems but not able to help.... Good book!
March 29, 2016
I don't know how to even start reviewing something this intensely personal.
December 15, 2015
Show Trans by Elliott DeLine: http://reviews-and-ramblings.dreamwid... 2015 Rainbow Awards Honorable Mention (5* from at least 1 judge)
April 24, 2016
Really interesting look into a few-year period of the life of a transexual man. At times nerve-wracking, frustrating, and heartbreaking.
September 16, 2015
Good book. Well written and rather interesting. Won courtesy of Goodreads Giveaway.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews