Blanka Vay - Saját ketrec

2021, Blanka Vay, Hungarian,

Original title: "Saját ketrec" (My Cage) by Blanka Vay.

Blanka Vay had to answer one short, undecided question before Christmas 2015, but her whole life depended on it. More precisely, two lives. One previous and one new. The answer, however, swept away the old one like a flood. My Cage is the story of this answer to why a thirty-six-year-old married man decides to give up his comfortable, privileged social status and identify as a woman and choose himself and life instead.

And at the same time, this book tells us a lot about things: women, men, masculine women and feminine men, family, real friends, companions, loneliness, giving up, failures and perseverance, realizing and realizing dreams, transforming the body and getting to know a new one, men's glances, women's smiles, pants and stockings with pockets, first dances and first dates, the intimacy of hugs, and all the while talking a lot about gender roles, social expectations, politics, rights, Berlin, the island peak of Kisorosz, and contemporary Hungary. These are familiar stories. My Cage is an honest, courageous, ruthless and funny book about getting to know ourselves, about acceptance and rebirth, about wanting to live happily.

Blanka Vay has been working with ‘Circles‘ for two years. One year ago, she co-founded the ‘Circles Coop‘ as a new legal entity with which to realize the UBI project. Furthermore, she is founder of the green party in Hungary and served as the spokesperson and communication manager at ‚Greenpeace Hungary‘. She did crisis management for an animal welfare NGO, organized house occupation with homeless people and is active in feminist and queer issues. 

At the opening ceremony of Budapest Pride 2017, she came out as transgender woman. Since then, she has spoken openly about her transition, lost privileges, women and men locked into social roles.

Available via libri.hu

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Photo via platform.coop