50 pages • 1 hour read
Elliot PagePageboy: A Memoir
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Social Context: Transgender Identities and the LGBTQ Community
The LGBTQ community is a historical and contemporary alliance of shared culture and solidarity among people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning their identities. “Lesbian” is a term for women who are exclusively attracted to other women; “gay” is a term for men who are exclusively attracted to other men, though it is also sometimes used to refer to lesbians or as an umbrella term. “Bisexual” refers to people of any gender who are attracted to multiple genders (for example, a woman who is attracted to men and women, or a man who is attracted to people regardless of gender).
“Transgender” refers to people whose gender identity does not match the gender they were assigned at birth; for instance, a person who was assigned female at birth but who had a strong inner sense that they were a man would be a transgender man, or trans man. “Transgender” can also encompass nonbinary identities, meaning gender identities that exist beyond the man/woman binary. Transgender and nonbinary people may change their names and the pronouns they use to better reflect how they would like other people to address them. They may also pursue gender-affirming medical care such as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), vocal training, or surgery. Elliot Page, a transgender man, changed his first name to Elliot and changed his pronouns to he/him and they/them to align with his identity.
Gender and sexuality are not the same thing. Any woman, transgender or cisgender (the opposite of trans: a person whose gender identity aligns with their assigned gender), can be straight, bisexual, lesbian, or another label. Likewise, cis and trans men can be straight, gay, bisexual, or something else. Nonbinary people may define their sexualities in many ways. Page describes his twofold journey in Pageboy: He first came to terms with his attraction to women, and only later accepted that he is transgender. In his 2014 coming out speech, Page described himself as gay. For the next several years, because he was not yet out as trans, Page was publicly perceived to be a lesbian. In Pageboy, he describes his sexuality as queer, an umbrella term used by some members of the LGBTQ community to refer to experiences of both sexuality and gender that are not straight and cisgender.
Socio-Historical Context: Trans Rights in America and Canada
Members of the LGBTQ community have been fighting for equal rights, recognition, and respect for a very long time. For much of that time, there was limited understanding of the distinction between gender and sexuality; for example, the differences between trans women and drag queens were not widely recognized. For that reason, and because of the overlap in experience among all members of the LGBTQ community, the gay rights and trans rights movements have long been closely interconnected.
The gay rights movement made major strides in the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century. In Canada, sexual activity between members of the same gender was legalized in 1969. The country established equal marriage rights in 2005. In the US, anti-gay laws were repealed piecemeal, at the state level, until the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationally in 2015. Discrimination on the basis of gender identity has been illegal in Canada since 2017; the United States followed suit in a 2020 Supreme Court decision.
Despite a great deal of progress, members of the LGBTQ community and especially the trans community currently face a resurgence of discriminatory laws, particularly in the United States. Many US states have proposed or passed laws that restrict trans people’s access to gender-affirming medical care, legal name and gender marker changes, and public spaces like bathrooms. The basis for many of these laws comes from the unfounded belief that trans people pose a danger to cis people and that gender-affirming care (especially for young trans people) is an act of harm. In fact, access to gender-affirming medical care is often life-saving for trans people, and trans people’s identities do not make them dangerous to anyone. Trans people are much more likely to experience violence from others than to perpetrate it (“Transgender people over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime.” Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, 2021).
Page expresses how important it was for him to come out as trans and get the medical care he needed. He discusses his personal experiences with self-harm and suicidal ideation and links those experiences in part to his gender dysphoria and fear that coming out as trans would destroy his career and relationships. He also explains that transitioning brought him a profound sense of peace that he never thought possible. He notes that his story is not universal; each trans person’s experience is unique for myriad reasons, including disparate access to gender-affirming care.
