"On February 11th 1994, Reena took a step that she’d put off for what seemed like an eternity. After a works party, and having being very drunk, she came out to her two best friends as transsexual. It wasn’t planned at all; it’s just the way it happened. The Long Road Ahead follows her own story and the way in which she remembers things from her tender years as a child and how it was for her back then."
"She admits at the time of “coming out” that she never fully understood what “transsexual” was; for her, the only reference point was two articles she’d seen in a tabloid newspaper and a women’s magazine of two transsexuals who had told their story how it was for them. Reena soon came to realise how very similar their own stories were to how she knew she’d felt since her early childhood."
I talked to Reena in 2015, and this is what she told me about the book: "Initially I felt that I needed it for myself, a book that was never going to be released to the world, but rather keep it as a complex and detailed diary for myself to look through and look back on later in life. But then, as I went along in my transition I realized had a story that needed telling, but I didn’t want it to be a typical trans-related story just about the transition.
My life is more than just about transition, I am more than just that part of my life. So I decided to include everything about my life in the first 27 years which takes me to the end of my first transition, the highs and the lows, and who I am as a person. I think I also needed closure on those early years too, writing the book offered me a way to come to terms with my past and who I am as a person."
Available via Amazon
Post a Comment