SELF-ish

The decision to transition late in life is a bold one. In Chloe Schwenke’s memoir Self-ish: A Transgender Awakening, which documents her own such choice, we meet Stephen, a married man, with a college-age son, a teenage daughter, and a flourishing career as a human rights advocate. But the pressure of another self demands to express itself. “When that dam breaks,” Chloe writes, “it does so with such intensity of thoughts and feelings that many outsiders misinterpret this as a radical life decision that is being rushed, or one that is irrational or bizarre—instead of being simply long overdue.”
Born Stephen, Chloe emerges a woman “who never had a girlhood” in her late fifties. “I still don’t know how to braid my hair,” she laments, and it’s a poignant reminder that despite her advancing age, Chloe is in some ways more emotionally a girl than a woman. It’s an idea that Selfish reinforces so well: that what we present as may be a far cry from who we really are.

Each decision and act that brought Chloe more prominently into the picture was a swipe of the eraser to Stephen.

While Stephen agonizes about hurting those to whom he’s made commitments, Chloe’s commitment is firmly to herself. “To be present in any relationship means first to be present to self,” Chloe argues. Hence the title’s conceit. As Chloe later explains, “[f]or transgender people…the decision to claim and own one’s authentic self is wholesomely self-ish…We’ve paid the most awful price for not being more selfish…without a “self” that [we] could love or respect.”

The consequences of the decision to transition are felt almost before Stephen’s even aware that a choice has been made. “It was quickly made clear to me that my decision—choice—to…transition gender was going to be turbulent and emotional for everyone concerned. ‘Everyone concerned’ turned out to be a long list with my name on the top.” Chloe’s conception initiates the gears of destruction on Stephen’s life—as if Chloe, not Stephen, had made the decision.

What makes this story compelling is this push-pull of perspectives: the emerging identification as Chloe and diminishing association as Stephen. We identify with and root for Chloe—yet it’s like a horror movie for those closest to Stephen. The scenes with Stephen’s ex-wife Christine and their children, the guilt and anguish conveyed, are some of the strongest in the book. As Chloe observes, “Christine was uniquely victimized by having to watch, powerlessly and without any control, as each change took place.” Each decision and act that brought Chloe more prominently into the picture was a swipe of the eraser to Stephen. The children each draw their own boundaries. Daughter Audrey, for example, admits she isn’t comfortable having Chloe accompany her to a high school football game. Chloe respects her family’s decisions, and yet between the lines, there’s a nagging feeling: Can’t they just be happy for me? And yet no one understands better than Chloe why they can’t.

Self-ish is a fascinating puzzle of identity. One of the most interesting pieces is Chloe’s faith as a Quaker. “Quaker listening is directed inward as much as it is upward; that essence of the divine is right there inside,” she notes. “I had only to open myself to its message, and listen.” Though the answers are not immediately forthcoming, Chloe’s faith never falters. She continues to engage herself in the quiet found within. ”Those answers were within me, once I knew how to access them—I surprised myself when I found that no one had to teach me to be a woman.”

...we meet Stephen, a married man, with a college-age son, a teenage daughter, and a flourishing career as a human rights advocate.

Chloe Schwenke

Another compelling aspect of this book is Chloe’s direct assault against ageism. She’s in her late fifties when she starts to transition Shortly afterwards, she was made one of the first transgender political appointees of the Obama administration as Senior Advisor on Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance for Africa at the US Agency for International Development. This high point is followed by a series of challenges which ultimately find Chloe living in a room in her ex-wife Christine’s house where she writes this book and looks for work and love.

As many people her age discover, dating’s no walk in the park. Discovering her attraction to men, Chloe is repeatedly rejected. We feel for her. One possibility for a new life is already foreshortened. Yet Chloe demonstrates resiliency and grace. “I have growing doubts that there exist many men of my generation who are able to accept me as a woman. Fortunately, my womanhood isn’t going to be defined by their acceptance of the same. I am what I am, and I am Chloe, a woman.”

One wonders if there’s been so much distancing from the man she was, that Chloe can no longer inhabit Stephen’s memories and recollections. The early scenes, flashbacks into Stephen’s youth, are dealt with summarily. Young Stephen may come across to some like a fledgling homosexual, but Chloe doesn’t seem to be introspective about Stephen when he was young. There is an awkward insistence on what a “dashing” young man Stephen was, playing his role of the “big man” during his stints living in Africa, yet these sections have very little life in them. Nothing is given of Stephen’s first wife’s perspective. Melanie doesn’t even get a name until the second time she’s mentioned.

Chloe’s experience as a public speaker is apparent and serves her well here. Her writing has a natural engagement, an easy way of letting the rope out--although there’s a somewhat annoying tendency to circle back and “land” her point at the end of each chapter. The book, a memoir, might have been better structured as a series of essays since there are overlapping details and themes. The repetitiveness leads to awkward bridging devices (“as described previously,” “That choice—as I relate later…”) which are clunky. One solution might have been to organize the material chronologically.
But perhaps it was Chloe herself who resisted. In many ways she’s like Athena, bursting whole from the split head of Zeus armed with her own ideas about what’s right for her. I’d have liked to have seen more of her gradual development. Why the name Chloe? We never find out. Stephen might have been able to tell us. But then, it’s refreshing that Chloe is there at the outset, on page one. It’s her story now.