My Brother, My Sister

Even though our culture is dripping with sex, topics of sexuality don’t always come easily to our understanding or to our conversation.  It has taken generations for gays and lesbians to begin to achieve their full measure of acceptance, and there is still work to be done.  Same sex marriage is finally beginning to gather a majority constituency.

But clearly, the world of transgender people is yet to achieve anything near equality or understanding.

Yet as we understand more about it, as we begin to see it up close and personal, inside our own families and friends, perhaps the understanding and acceptance will evolve.

There is no more powerful example of this than the story that esteemed film critic Molly Haskell tells about the transformation of her own brother in her memoir My Brother My Sister: Story of a Transformation.

My conversation with Molly Haskell: