Munroe Bergdorf lands six-figure book deal for Transitional

18th July 2020

Munroe Bergdorf is set to publish her ‘gender manifesto’ next year.

Trans advocate Munroe Bergdorf is set to release her ‘gender manifesto’, Transitional, next year after landing a landmark six-figure book deal with Bloomsbury. The book, which will draw on her experiences of growing up in a mixed-race family, attending an all-boy’s school and beginning her transition, will explore six different parts of the human experience.

These parts will be adolescence, sexuality, gender, relationships, identity and race.

Speaking to The Guardian about the book, Munroe explained that she wanted to show that the trans experience was normal. She said the experience is “thought of by a lot of people as this far-off idea that isn’t that relatable. I wanted to drive home the fact that we all transition in one way or another. None of us stays the same. We’re all on a journey, and a transition with regards to gender is just one of many we all experience as human beings.”

The book will also explore approaches to gender identity from other cultures, like Indian, Native Americans and Polynesian, which embraced other gender identities in the pre-colonial era. “I’ve gone into the depths of where gender came from, because it hasn’t always existed in [the way] we think about gender today,” Munroe explained.

“What it’s like to be a cisgender woman today is not what it was in the middle ages, or the 1950s, or even the 1980s.”

Munroe further explained that she hoped the book might change people’s perceptions about her that they would’ve received from negative media coverage. “I’m looking forward to sharing a piece of work where people can actually read what I’m about firsthand, instead of seeing me when I pop up in the papers every now and again,” she said.

“If I can change people’s minds about how they view people who aren’t like them, and how they view human difference, than that is a job done.”

She added that Gen Z “take a much more fluid approach to gender and sexuality … and I think that that’s where we need to go. We need to stop labeling ourselves with archaic definitions of humanity because we’re not simple.

“Humans are complex and you can’t label everything and you can’t label everybody else either. I feel like we need to widen how we see ourselves, and widen how we see each other, because then you realise that we all want the same thing.”

Munroe also addressed the transphobia coming from another Blomsbury author, JK Rowling, as well as Conservative peer, Baroness Nicholson. “It’s such a shame, especially with these gender critical feminists like JK Rowling and Baroness Nicholson,” she said.

“I think if they actually sat down with me and communicated in a respectful way instead of posting things about our community that are detrimental to the mental health, physical wellbeing and emotional wellbeing of trans people, they would see that trans people want what’s best for cisgender women, too.

“One group of society’s rights isn’t to the detriment of anybody else’s – equal rights are equal rights. It means equality, it doesn’t mean less for some, and more for others.”