Once Out of Nature
Selected Essays on the Transformation of Gender
Joy Ladin
This compassionate, constructive volume collects eleven essays written between 2008, on the cusp of what Time called America's “transgender tipping point,” and 2021, as anti-trans laws began metastasizing around America. Drawing on her experiences as a trans parent, spouse, teacher, and author, she writes honestly and insightfully about gender, exploring its intersections with feminisms, psychotherapy, divinity, ontology, and even the poems of Emily Dickinson. Written for any curious reader, these essays teach us about who we are, who we can be, and what it means to be human.
"Joy Ladin is our finest writer on transgender issues." —Jennifer Finney Boylan, New York Times bestselling author of She's Not There
Joy Ladin is a widely published essayist and poet, literary scholar, and nationally known speaker on transgender issues. From 2003 to 2021, she held the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University; her gender transition and return to teaching in 2008 made her the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. Joy is the author of twelve books, including the National Jewish Book Award-winning The Book of Anna, The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, Through the Door of Life, and ten books of poetry. She is also a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist.
Paperback / $20 (Can. $27) / 978-0-89255-586-4 / 192 pages / Essays