Feedback Request

A new version of the query just below this one.


Dear Agent,

In 2009, after 28 years of marriage, I lost my 15-year-old son under allegations a transgender woman was unfit to be a mother. The male disguise that had weaved the uncommon path to becoming a mother, now threatened to destroy the dream I’d had since childhood.

Accused of abusing my son, I lost everything. I became the defendant in a legal drama dedicated to protecting mother and child, dispossessed of any notion that I was the mom. Every appearance came with new threats from the court, felony charges, loss of parenting time, more legal fees, contempt of court, even jail time. Even therapists I had once sought for help were making accusations against me.

The consensus was overwhelming; no judge would ever grant me custody but I was unwilling to abandon my son. I dismissed two attorneys unwilling to defend my custody position, finally representing myself in a custody battle lasting four years.

Isolation and the economic and emotional stress, combined with the threats from the court, drove me into a near-suicidal depression but the love of my son prevailed. I regained custody while becoming the woman I had always known I was.

Whipping Girl took transgender women from the genre of Lesbian non-fiction into the realm of feminism. My book, The Transgender Myth, broadens that scope, challenging our perceptions of gender, invoking the complementary notion of gender put forth by The Feminine Mystique and asserting that men and women do in fact come from the same planet.

The book is not a story about transition. It is a journey from blissful innocence, through fear and isolation, past denial and defeat into acceptance and triumph, examining the best and the worst of living in both genders.

The Transgender Myth is complete at 93,000 words. I trust this story will appeal to your interest in LGBTQ narratives. Thanks for your time and consideration.

Notes

Here's how I would condense the first three paragraphs (into two):

In 2009, after 28 years of marriage, I lost my 15-year-old son under allegations a transgender woman was unfit to be a mother. Wrongly accused of abusing my son, I became the defendant in a legal drama dedicated to protecting the birth mother and child, dispossessed of any notion that I was the mom. 

Every court appearance came with new threats: felony charges, loss of parenting time, more legal fees, contempt of court, even jail time. Therapists I had once looked to for help made accusations against me. The consensus was overwhelming; no judge would ever grant me custody. But I was unwilling to abandon my son. I dismissed two attorneys unwilling to defend my position, finally representing myself in a custody battle lasting four years.

Feedback Request

The author of the book most recently featured here would like feedback on this version:

Dear Agent,

Growing up, I dreamed of being a 50's-TV-style mom, just like Donna Reed and June Cleaver. Just like my own mother. So imagine my shock and dismay when, nearing puberty, I was placed in the boys' section at my school.

A brutal rape in college and a violent suicide of a second love interest put an end to fantasies about men that would never be. [I think you need to mention transgenderness before you jump ahead five years. Readers could interpret your being placed in the boys section as a clerical error. Possibly add to the first paragraph: It wasn't the school's fault; my birth certificate and my body both proclaimed I was male.] I discovered the love of another woman and her young child. Through the chaos of the marriage, I found joy in our three children becoming the mother I dreamed about as a child.

In 2009, after 28 years of marriage, I lost my 15-year-old son under allegations a transgender woman was unfit to be a mother. Despite the overwhelming consensus that no judge would ever grant me custody, I was unwilling to abandon him. Acting as my own attorney, I fought a four-year custody battle.

Isolation and the economic and emotional stress combined with threats from the court drove me into a near-suicidal depression but the love of my son prevailed. I regained custody while becoming the woman I had once imagined as a young girl [always known I was].

Whipping Girl took transgender women from the genre of Lesbian non-fiction into the realm of feminism. My book, The Transgender Myth, broadens that scope, challenging our perceptions of gender, invoking the complementary notion of gender put forth by The Feminine Mystiqueand asserting that men and women do in fact come from the same planet.

The book is not a story about transition. It is a journey from blissful innocence, through fear and isolation, past denial and defeat into acceptance and triumph, examining the best and the worst of living in both genders.

The Transgender Myth is complete at 93,000 words. I trust this story will appeal to your interest in LGBTQ narratives. Thanks for your time and consideration.



Notes

In my opinion, the third paragraph is the place to start. The first two paragraphs are backstory, fine in the book, but not so important in the query. You would have been fighting for custody whether you'd been placed in the boys section, raped, etc. or not.

Of course I'm assuming the majority of the book deals with the custody battle. It seems to be the aspect that sets your book apart from other memoirs of trans women.

If you start with paragraph 3 you have room to add, right after that paragraph ,a paragraph detailing the injustice of the system and the setbacks you had to overcome.

Feedback Request

The author of the book featured in Face-Lift 1363 would like feedback on the following revision.

Dear Agent[comma]

I had a great childhood, believing I was a girl. I dreamed of being a mom like my own mother in the glamorized media style of housewife in the 50’s. Yet, there were shadows of a different reality. Like the tree of knowledge of good and evil, I’d have to partake of its fruits to understand its secrets. 

Nearing puberty, I was enrolled in a school that separated boys and girls. I encountered a social ordinance that I was a boy, and soon, the harsh realization I was never going to be pregnant. [These opening paragraphs aren't doing it for me. I'd go with something simple:

Growing up, I dreamed of being a 50's-TV-style mom, just like Donna Reed and June Cleaver. Just like my own mother. So imagine my shock and dismay when, nearing puberty, I was placed in the boys' section at my school.]  

A brutal rape in college,[no comma] left me isolated; in denial about fantasies of men that would never be.After a second love interest ended with a violent suicide, I chose to be a man. I discovered the love of another woman and her young child. I became provider in the image of my father, andmother to our three children in the traditional homemaker image of my mom. Fearful of losingthem, [Apparently the words "be./After" "and/mother" and "losing/them" come at the end of a line in your file, so you don't realize you didn't put a space between them. Whether the missing spaces are encountered by the reader depends on the size of the screen she's reading on.] I struggled against growing tension in the marriage, until my two oldest were adults and my youngest was fifteen. I lost my son under allegations a transgender woman was unfit to be a mother.

Despite the overwhelming consensus that no judge would ever give me custody of my son, I was unwilling to abandon him. Forced to become my own attorney, I fought a four-year custody battle.

Isolation and the economic and emotional stress combined with threats from the court drove meinto a near-suicidal depression but the love of my son prevailed. I regained custody while becoming the woman I had once imagined as a young girl.

Whipping Girl took transgender women from the genre of Lesbian non-fiction into the realm of feminism. [My book,] The Transgender Myth, broadens that scope, challenging our perceptions of gender, invoking the complementary notion of gender put forth by The Feminine Mystique [Italicize.] and asserting that men and women do in fact come from the same planet.

The book has a central position in gender studies for its historical context and contemporary view of gender, examining the social, political, economic and legal impact on my life as a transgender woman. It evolves within the context of feminism, gay rights, and today’s transgender movement, while challenging society’s sexual definition of gender. It is not a story about transition. It is a journey from blissful innocence, through fear and isolation, past denial and defeat into acceptance and triumph, examining the best and the worst of living in both genders.

This true autobiography, The Transgender Myth, is complete at 93,000 words. I trust this story will appeal to your interest in LGBTQ narratives. Thanks for your time and consideration.


Notes

I think your best bet is to focus the query on your quest to win custody of your son. Presumably that's the main focus of the book, but you call it an autobiography, and devote half your story description to the years before you had any children, suggesting otherwise. Even if you focus on the custody battle, you can (and should) still work the events of your early life into the book, but they may not be needed in the query. The query would begin something like:

In 19__, after __ years of marriage, I lost my 15-year-old son under allegations a transgender woman was unfit to be a mother. Despite the overwhelming consensus that no judge would ever grant me custody, I was unwilling to abandon him. Acting as my own attorney, I fought a four-year custody battle.

The specifics of your 4-year struggle may be the heart of your book, and if so, are more relevant in the query than your childhood. 

Try to limit or eliminate language that suggests this is an academic treatise. It's a memoir. A story. 

Face-Lift 1363

Guess the Plot

The Transgender Myth

1. If a transgender person is allowed to pee in a public bathroom, the world will end.

2. Paula is devastated when she realizes she can never get pregnant. Especially when she discovers the reason: She's actually a Paul.

3. Having spent seven years as a woman and then being changed back into a man, Tiresias is in great demand as the only person who can settle the argument of which sex enjoys sex the most.

4. The real story of Hermaphroditus. You won't believe what happens in chapter four.

5. What happens when you're born half minotaur and half centaur? Let's put it this way: you have to put up with a lot of bullshit and a lot of horseshit.



Original Version

Dear Agent

The Transgender Myth is the curious belief that there are but two distinct sexes, each with its own unique gender that defines specific abilities

Paula’s childhood was typical of most girls[,] without knowing [with one big exception:] her assigned sex was male. She dreamed of being a mom like her own mother in the glamorized media style of housewife in the 50’s. That changed when she was enrolled in a school that separated boys and girls, providing her with the realization that she was a boy, and soon, the harsh realization she was never going to be pregnant.

After two devastating relationship[s] with men, she discovered the love of another woman and her young child. As provider in the image of her father, she went on to have two more children in the traditional homemaker image of her mother. Tensions grew during the 28 year marriage until Paula was forced out of her home under allegations a transgender woman was unfit to be a mother. [How old were the kids when this allegation was made?]

Despite the overwhelming consensus that no judge would ever give her custody of her son, Paula was unwilling to abandon him. She represented her son’s interests as her own attorney in a four[-]year custody battle. [She had two children; why is this one son the only one at issue? Has the 2nd child reached adulthood?]

Isolation and the economic and emotional stress combined with threats from the court drove Paula into a near[-]suicidal depression. The love of her son prevailed. Paula regained custody while becoming the woman she had once imagined as a young girl. [Becoming or pretending to be?]

Whipping Girl took transgender women from the genre of Lesbian non-fiction into the realm of feminism. The Transgender Myth broadens that scope, challenging our perceptions of gender, invoking the complimentary [complementary] notion of gender put forth by The Feminine Mystique and asserting that men and women do in fact come from the same planet.

Inspired by Paula’s costly legal battle to retain custody of her son: a battle against social prejudice and rigid legal norms. She examines society’s gender norms within family relationships, creating a challenging perspective on the true meaning of gender equity.

The book has a central position in gender studies for its historical context and contemporaryview [2 words] of gender, examining the social, political, economic and legal impact on Paula’s life as a transgender woman. It evolves within the context of feminism, gay rights, and today’s transgender movement, while challenging many of the media representations. It is not a story about transition. It is a journey from blissful innocence, through fear and isolation, past denial and defeat into acceptance and triumph, examining the best and the worst of living in both genders.

This true autobiography is complete at 93,000 words with an attached appendix of a short play written and performed by me in 1999. I trust this story will appeal to your interest in LGBT narratives. My manuscript is available, in part or full, upon request. Thanks for your time and consideration.


Notes

This is a little long. Removing the red words will get it closer to a good length.

It's standard to summarize the story in present tense. No reason not to here.

Perhaps it's my ignorance of transgenderness, but if Paula's assigned sex was male, why was she having a childhood typical of most girls before she went to the school where she realized she was a boy?  

I'm not clear on what this sentence means: As provider in the image of her father, she went on to have two more children in the traditional homemaker image of her mother. Maybe it would be simpler to say: After two devastating relationships with men, she discovered the love of another woman, with whom she "fathered" two children. (I'm assuming she didn't give birth to the two children, as it was previously stated she was never going to be pregnant.)

If you haven't already, check out Manuscript Wish List. A lot of agents and editors are hungry for LGBT.