Getting to Ellen: A Memoir about Love, Honesty and Gender Change

As a spiritual, humanist parenting author myself, I am 100% convinced:ALL parents (whether child is LGBTQIA+, CIS, straight, or somewhere in btw) who read this will understand unconditional love & positive regard matter & SAVES LIVES!Ellie’s retelling of her life’s story is moving and gripping.Ellie does a wonderful job of showing the (to borrow her words) “clean lines” that took her from a young child confused about her body all the way through an adulthood that was lovely and fulfilled, successful from the outside, LOVED and LOVING, but still had something that didn’t work inside. She shows how hard someone can work to make those thoughts about the “lines” of her body go away and still be who they are inside. People who don’t understand the inner turmoil of living as a trans person (I’ll admit I never understood it to this depth) will see it on a new level and find a new appreciation and compassion for the internal fight. Ellie fought for her marriage and her kids, until the woman inside could no longer be silenced. Thank you Ellie for sharing. You have done us a great service.PLEASE READ THIS. Even if you are a hetero cis person. Ellie’s life lessons and how hard she fought, HOW she came to understand herself, will make you want to be a better, more decent, compassionate person.

I randomly met a person at an author event and decided to check them out on Twitter and found out they’d also written a book. It’s called Getting to Ellen: A Memoir about Love, Honesty, and Gender Change.I’m glad I did check it out! Many memoirs I’ve read in the past feel overly flowery or filled with extra details as to what happened. Getting to Ellen had a conversational tone that made it feel like I was listening to Ellen tell her story instead of reading it. The one issue I have with the book is that she jumps around in her own timeline, but I guess that makes sense in the conversational aspect of the book. Just like any retelling of events, they have to go in the order that makes the most sense to the person telling the story, and the jumps in time did work to connect everything together.Ellen tells her story of how she grew up and knew something was different about her, but she didn’t have the words to express herself. The world was definitely not ready, as a whole, to accept the idea of transgender individuals. I feel that Ellen did a good job talking about her confusion about what she wanted and how she wanted acceptance and what that would mean. Ellen’s story isn’t just about transitioning or being honest with herself and others but about her exploration of what she needed and wanted and how that, ultimately, was more important than the opinions of others.I am non-binary and many of the internal struggles Ellen talks about in terms of trying to figure out the balance between thriving and shining rang true to me. It wasn’t until two years ago that I had the language and words to express who I really was, so I connected with Ellen early in the book when she was exploring her thoughts and trying to figure out what they meant.This book would be a great read for anyone who is struggling with themselves internally. It’s a story of loss and frustration but also of hope and acceptance. II already know the next person I’m going to pass this book along to. If you’re looking for a book about the struggles of self acceptance, you should check this book out.

I felt that I must add something to the wonderful reviews already posted about the magnificent memoir, "Getting to Ellen," which clearly holds an honored place at or near the top of a handful of other fine autobiographical works by transgender individuals.This book is so deeply touching in that it graphically describes the agonizing passage and transition of a deeply gender dysphoric, male-born person coming to grips with the true nature of her being. In so doing, the reader is provided with a vicarious and painful opportunity to face and grapple again with his or her own inner demons, be they in the form of gender variance or other pressing internal conflicts.I liken this story of lost love and one person's struggle for gender congruence and sexual identity to a "Shakespearean Tragedy" in that it clearly fits the Wikipedia definition of that phrase. To paraphrase, "The protagonist must be an admirable but flawed character, with the audience able to understand and sympathize. Such tragic protagonists are capable of both good and evil and operate under the doctrine of free will where they are always able to back out, to redeem themselves, but must move unheedingly to their doom." Perhaps "doom" is a bit strong, but "Getting to Ellen" is such a compelling read because, like the ripples from a pebble dropped into a clear pond, we witness Ed moving inexorably toward a known conclusion in his emergence as Ellen, a change that we know will surely result in deep loss, pain and the need for a total attitude readjustment for so many. This is powerful stuff indeed.Lastly, this book speaks clearly to the role of society, which in reality is a community composed of you and me, and the pressure we place on individuals to conform to a bi-gendered system. Fortunately, with the progress made in the gradual lifting of the societal stigma about being gay, perhaps some day our children, or our children's children, will feel free from birth to express themselves as who they really are, rather than conform to the harsh standards of others, ultimately bringing about such pain to themselves and their loved ones.

Refreshing to read. Honesty about oneself and the world around us. Champion of diversity and love.

If you are considering transition from male to female this book is a great placeto start and understand what it means to undergo all the stress and trauma.It is more a biography that a facts book, but still very highly recommended.