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  • Cover

Kate Bornstein Heals the World with Her New Book,
Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide
for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws

There is no way you won't fall in love with a "self-proclaimed outsider" like Kate Bornstein. Kate's latest book Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws, out this year by Seven Stories Press, NY, is so compassionately honest we'll have to cry uncle before we let go of every lie we've ever carried and believed about ourselves.

Bornstein is trying to get us back to celebrating life-back to celebrating ourselves, our dreams, our futures, and fates.

"I'm asking you to do something, anything, everyday to change the way we as a culture have been dealing with difference," says Kate. "Today could be the last day of your life. Whether or not you're thinking of killing yourself, you could die at any moment. Still here? Excellent! That's called staying alive."

Transgendered from birth, Kate Bornstein has broken every rule, every boundary of gender geography, claiming she is neither he nor she but "ze," neither him nor her but "hir." Starting as a boy and ending up as a girl who is neither, Kate wiggles her way into the heart of our stiff understanding of the sexes. She insists there must be another way. We must be ourselves.

More than the basic question Kate asks us why. Why are you who you are? Or better put, who's been insisting that you are who you're trying to be? Are you being bullied to fit in?

"Look I want to be a good and better person everyday of my life. I want to be the best possible me I can be. I want to live in a world where people won't try to hurt me for trying to achieve happiness the best way I've found to do," adds Bornstein.

Hello, Cruel World is a handbook for the explorers in life who find themselves at odds with our definition of what is proper, what is good, what is valid and important.

These are our teens, our outcast, our special "different ones" who travel through the back alleys and lonely continents of their own torn hearts and minds. It is from her own experience, from this understanding that Bornstein reaches out. "Can we be more than the either/or the bullies want us to be?" says Kate. "Outsiders should call themselves outsiders, we are mostly all outsiders so we should welcome one another's company."

Even if we've never been suicidal, even if our life has been relatively calm, this book is for us. It is chock full of the kind of advice all of us want to hear. We might even be talked into taking Kate up on some of her suggestions. Hello, Cruel World is definitely not just a book for crazy, troubled, suicidal teens. It's for everyone. In it are "101 Alternatives to Suicide" in a simple, coded, quick-start guide.

As the guide says, "The best minds and kindest hearts in our culture would likely agree that the first seven options in this quick-start guide will help you stop hurting so much. So, please try these before you move on to the less orthodox options listed in the 101 Alternatives to Suicide.... I've tried most of the following recommendations myself, and many of them worked well. Predictably, some of them weren't the best choices for me. One or two seemed to make things worse, but left no permanent ill effect that I am aware of. Hands down, each of these steps is worth a shot before deciding to end your life. If they are just what you needed, you can read the rest of this book just for the funny parts."

Hello, Cruel World offers a detailed, step-by-step intervention that helps keep our bad and destructive directions in life from building. From practical "who to call when suicidal" advice to helping us learn how to "make a wish" to feel better, we learn the importance of replacing destructive behaviors with healthy, happy ones.

"When you make believe, you're giving yourself clues to a useful future identify," says Bornstein.

From Bornstein's "Go For It Against All Odds" to "Rant, Rave, Bitch and Moan" to "Go Completely Batty" to "Go Shopping" to "Find The Love Of Your Life," Kate Bornstein's wisdom is clearly brought to us from a life of mixed joy and suffering. It is only from Kate's searing range of life and experience that Hello, Cruel World is brought to those of us who need it most.

Kate's unending love of humanity is clearly our gift.

The sometimes rough and rocky terrain of personal sexual identity is not judged or put down in Hello, Cruel World. "Keeping a secret, staying in some closet, never expressing some loving part of ourselves can drain our energy to the point of exhaustion," says Bornstein.

"And then there's the paranoia about someone finding out. It makes you jumpy. So, come on out. You don't have to come out to everyone all at once. Start by coming out to someone that other people have safely come out to. And remember, just because you come out as something, that doesn't mean you have to always keep on being that. You can always come out as something else later."

Acceptance, love, and encouragement are overflowing in Hello, Cruel World.

Kate's own background includes the vast neighborhood of learning how to be her "own best friend." From terrible experiences with bullies and the intolerant, Kate has developed a kindness and understanding that reaches everyone.

As Kate says, "I love walking down the streets of New York City these days. I'm smiling at people and people smile back. I've always wanted that."

She adds, "That's how I've wanted to walk in the world ever since I was a hippie boy who wanted to be a hippy girl....I'm caring less and less what people think they see when they spot me. I used to scare people. But I don't get the jeers, not much anymore. I stop traffic now. Sometimes, a lot really, I get this stare that says Oh my God, what are you? But it's not a mean stare, it's not a stare of horror, because I know-I've come to believe-that what they're seeing when they see me is something cute. And when they stare at me and their eyes say, Oh my God, what are you? I smile at them, or sometimes I'll give 'em a wink. When they stare at me now, I say.

Hello, isn't it a beautiful day?

And one by one, they blink, and smile, and say, Yes. Yes, it is. It could be pouring rain outside. Doesn't matter. We've connected, and that makes it a beautiful day."

In spite of humanity's confusions and separations, despite all odds, Bornstein has kept her wonder and optimism. Always keeping the faith that the bad guys are few and the rest are good or could be good. Hello, Cruel World is a recipe for healing the deep part of loneliness and separation inside each of us.

As Kate reminds us, "This may be a scary time for you, and if that's so, I hope that I can help you find your courage again. If we meet some day, let me know what worked."

Lys Anzia is assistant book reviews editor for Moondance magazine. As a 2006 Pushcart Prize nominee she currently writes international news through Women News Network for UN agencies and affiliates in addition to writing for NewWest magazine, ProgressNow, SquareState, and ColoradoPols. Currently Lys is also producing news radio for international syndicate WINGS-Women's International News Gathering Service. In 2003, she was chosen as creative affiliate in poetry by UNESCO for her contributions to OtherVoices International, (Sam Hamill's) Poets Against War, BluePrintReview, Muse Apprentice Guild, MiniMag, and Ah-Ha poetry among others.