Biography

Welcome to my website. I’m Kate Bornstein—author, playwright, performer, and lifelong mischief-maker when it comes to questioning the rules about who we’re supposed to be.

I call myself a gender outlaw, and if you’ve landed here, chances are you’re a curious soul, maybe even a bit of an outlaw yourself. Either way, you’re in the right place to find some good trouble.

For over thirty years, I’ve been writing, speaking, and performing about what we now call nonbinary gender—what it means to be neither man nor woman, decades before "nonbinary" was even a word.

My books, Gender Outlaw, My New Gender Workbook, and Hello, Cruel World have stirred up conversations in classrooms, community spaces, and anywhere people are questioning the boxes we’ve been handed.

I wrote Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives To Suicide For Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws for anyone who’s ever felt backed into a corner, life’s not all that worth living, and desperate for a way out.

There’s always another way out. Always. And you can always make your life more worth living. I promise.

I started out in theater, and that sense of playfulness, performance, storytelling, and creative community has shaped everything I do.

Whether I’m writing, speaking, or performing, what I want most is to expand the ways we see ourselves and each other. I’m well into my seventies now, old enough to know that life isn’t a straight line—it’s a wibbly, wobbly, twisty, ever-changing story, and we all get to revise ourselves as the lead character as we go.

My own story has had its fair share of plot twists.

I grew up in a more or less Conservative Jewish family in New Jersey, studied theater at Brown University, and spent twelve years deeply enmeshed in the Church of Scientology before leaving and starting over.

I transitioned from male to female in the 1980s, back when the language around gender was even narrower than it is now. I came to realize that neither “man” nor “woman” told the whole truth about me. So, I’ve spent the rest of my life exploring that space in between and standing up for the right of everyone to define themselves however they see fit.

I wrote about my life’s journey in my memoir, A Queer and Pleasant Danger: the true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves 12 years later to become the lovely lady she is today.

Over the years, I’ve taken my ideas on the road, performing solo shows across North America and Europe.

I made my Broadway debut at age 70 in Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, and I’ve popped up on TV in The Blacklist and I Am Cait.

Whatever the medium, my goal is the same: challenge assumptions, ask better questions, and open up new ways of thinking.

We’re living in a time where trans and nonbinary people are facing challenges I never imagined we’d have to fight again. But here’s the thing—we’re still here. We’re still thriving. We’re still finding ways to live our best outlaw lives. That’s why I’ve written a new edition of Hello, Cruel World, with twenty new alternatives to suicide that speak to this moment in time.

The book is now at the printer and will be on shelves April 8, 2025.

This edition also features a brand-new Afterword by Paul Preciado, the brilliant philosopher and author of Testo Junkie.

And because I can’t stop myself from thinking about gender in new ways, I’ve added an shiny new essay that lays out my latest theory: gender in four dimensions. It’s a different framework that I hope makes gender feel bigger, wilder, and more possible for anyone who’s been told they have to fit inside a box that’s not of their own making.

So, yeah, welcome. Whether you’re here because you’re questioning, searching for connection, or just curious about this whole “gender ideology” thing, I hope you find something useful.

Maybe a new way of seeing yourself.

Maybe a reminder that you’re not alone.

Maybe just a little permission to be exactly who you are, no apologies required.

Take your time, look around, and if you feel like saying hi, I’d love to hear from you. We are all in this together–it’s up to all of us as a community of outsiders not to let any powers that be erase us or our words. And it’s up to each of us as individuals to not do that power’s dirty work for them by erasing ourselves.

I love you.

Please stay alive.