Book Review: “November 17th” by Charley Dean Sayers

Photo book and diary of the author’s gender transition and surgery

*** 3/3 ***

A very dear person gave this book to me.  She said she knew I would cry, which is what I told her after I read it.  When someone gives you a gift, a very personal, and thoughtful gift, it is a very nice feeling.

Buy the book directly from Charley by clicking here: November 17th, Charley Dean Sayers.

Charley Dean Sayers is now a successful glamour photographer and fashion model.  But growing up she suffered intense gender dysphoria like all of my trans brothers and sisters.  Her life circumstances were such that she could not afford SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) so she turned to sex work to make money.  

It is alarming just how many of us turn to sex work for that very reason, because it is the only way.  Readers will know how much I respect SW as a career path.  It is a beautiful profession, or at least it can be.  But when it is a socio-economic necessity, one that deals with issues of survival, then it is bittersweet.

Charley relates in the introduction how as a young pre-op trans girl, she met with a handful of men.  One, in the end, offered to pay for her entire surgery, and just like that, put the money in her bank account.  She relates that she saw him once and has never seen him since.  I don’t know how I would feel in her shoes.  Joy.  Relief.  Tenderness towards a stranger.  Gratitude.  Its beauty lies in his disappearance from her life.  Magic.

I cried my eyes out through the whole introduction.  Not just little whimpering tears, but wrenching sobs.  I bawled.  There is something about reading about the trans experience, when it gets into that raw feeling of coping with dysphoria that always cuts deep into me.  And I know why.

It is because I waited so long.  That I put off my real life.  I made choices which felt necessary.  You cannot regret things not done.  I am curious about the life I didn’t have.  Curious about what it would have been like to grow up female, curious about what it would have been like to have transitioned as a child.  To have done then what I knew now.

Charley had a supportive mother.  Bless her.  I think if I were to meet a woman like that I would just start crying.  It was the same when I read the book How to Be a Girl, by Marlo Mack.  And the feeling is this intense nostalgia for memories, feelings, experiences that I never had.  I can feel that life, imagine it, but have not lived it.  I had a wonderful life.  And part of the joy that I experience now is joy that relates to this.

Charley Dean Sayers has become what so many, if not every trans woman wishes to be, acceptance as a woman in a female profession.  She is beautiful.  But read her story, see these pictures, understand the pain: physical, emotional, existential, that one must go through with surgery, but even more so, just being trans.

I don’t ask for pity.  Neither does she.  I wouldn’t trade my dysphoria for anything.  Being trans is the most beautiful thing about me, most delicious, most complexifying.

The book is a lovely pink cloth bound hardback.  The pictures are mostly polaroids.  There are her own diary entries, the diary entries of her mother.  The ones about Charley’s behaviour post-op towards her carers are startling.  There are pictures of her transition, of the alien land that Thailand is to a Westerner who has flown in for SRS.  This is the experience of so many people.  So many.  

Thailand is still the world capital for sex reassignment surgery.  There are 4-5 truly internationally renowned surgeons who perform over 200 surgeries a year each.  They are pioneers and their work is copied widely in the west.  While I am optimistic that I will do my surgery in the US, and have a date set now, Thailand is a backup.  It is cheaper, the waiting lists are shorter.  But it is desperately hard to find accurate and unbiased information, particularly related to outcomes and sexual function.

This book is different than any other trans book I have read.  It is a welcome addition to my library and my life.  The more that books like this enter the world, the better society becomes.  When people read about people who are different than themselves, they begin to understand.  We are a tiny minority.  We are heavily demonized by mainly right-wing politicians.  Hate speech is made of us and never labelled as such.  We are called all kinds of hideous and ugly things.

Here is a photo montage of some of the book.

In the pressure to satisfy our sceptics, self-censorship becomes an intrinsic part of being trans. We do it to hide until the time is right. We do it so that medical practitioners believe us. We do it because we fear, at the smallest hint of doubt, those who support us will stop doing so. And so the story goes: HRT? I feel amazing! Every day is a total fucking gift. I was trapped and now I’m free.

DAZED Magazine excerpt from November 17th by Charley Dean Sayers

And yet, we are fragile, vulnerable, and beautiful creatures, human just like everyone else, and need to be protected.  When people say I made a ‘choice’ to be trans, when this is portrayed as a ‘choice’, it is so profoundly inaccurate.  We do not choose this.  We are this.  Not all of us, very few in fact, have the circumstances to come out.  Society is not welcoming, and that is very dangerous for us.

My experience is and will be relentlessly positive.  When I read Charley Dean Sayers, I feel that hers will be too.  And that is so deeply life affirming.  She bares her soul in the pages of the book.  And the more that non-trans people see of us, see us as vulnerable, emotional, humans, the safer it will be to be trans.

Thank you Charley Dean Sayers for writing this beautiful book, for making me sob, for making me feel a love and zest for life which stems from that place we both share.  Bless you.