The Author Events Series presents Jennifer Finney Boylan | Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us
In Conversation with Congresswoman Sarah McBride
Jennifer Finney Boylan’s She’s Not There was the first bestselling work written by a transgender American. Since its publication twenty years ago, she has become the go-to person for insight into the impact of gender on our lives, from the food we eat to the dreams we dream, both for ourselves and for our children. But Cleavage is more than a deep dive into gender identity; it’s also a look at the difference between coming out as trans in 2000—when many people reacted to Boylan’s transition with love—and the present era of blowback and fear.
How does gender affect our sense of self? Our body image? The passage of time? The friends we lose—and keep? Boylan considers her womanhood, reflects on the boys and men who shaped her, and reconceives of herself as a writer, activist, parent, and spouse. With heart-wrenching honesty, she illustrates the feeling of liminality that followed her to adulthood, but demonstrates the redemptive power of love through it all.
With Boylan’s trademark humor and poignancy, Cleavage is a sharp, witty, and captivating look at the triumphs and losses of a life lived in two genders. Cleavage provides hope for a future in which we all have the freedom to live joyfully as men, as women, and in the space between us.
Jennifer Finney Boylan is the author of nineteen books, including Mad Honey, coauthored with Jodi Picoult. Her memoir, She’s Not There, was the first bestselling work by a transgender American. Since 2014, she has been the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University; she is also on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference of Middlebury College and the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. She is the former President of PEN America, and from 2011 to 2018 she was a member of the Board of Directors of GLAAD, including four years as national cochair. In 2022-23 she was a Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. She graduated from Wesleyan University and Johns Hopkins, and she holds doctorates honoris causa from Sarah Lawrence College, the New School, and Wesleyan University. For many years she was a contributing opinion writer for the opinion section of the New York Times. Her work has also appeared in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Literary Hub, Down East, and many other publications. She lives in Maine and New York with her wife, Deirdre. They have two children: a daughter, Zai, and a son, Sean.
Congresswoman Sarah McBride represents Delaware, the First State, as its sole member of Congress and has spent decades serving her home state as a public servant and advocate. From 2020 to 2025, she served as State Senator for the First Senate District, where she passed landmark legislation including paid family and medical leave through the Healthy Delaware Families Act and the bipartisan Protect Medicaid Act of 2024, which unlocked over $175 million annually to expand health coverage for roughly 200,000 Delawareans. A Wilmington native, McBride previously worked for former Governor Jack Markell and the late Attorney General Beau Biden, served as national spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, received the Order of the First State, and is a graduate of Cab Calloway School of the Arts and American University.
Because you love Author Events, please make a donation when you register for this event to ensure that this series continues to inspire Philadelphians.
Books will be available for purchase at the library on event night!
All tickets are non-refundable.
The views expressed by the authors and moderators are strictly their own and do not represent the opinions of the Free Library of Philadelphia or its employees.
