A Body Made Home: They Black Trans Love

A memoir and mythography of a Black trans man’s journey from Baby Girl to Black Boi, through gender, race, and trans theory made personal

In a country built on the daily oppression and incarceration of Black people, on the rejection of queer and trans rights, how does a Black trans man become himself or find home? “Home is commonly understood as a place of bodily safety, a place where one can find themselves a resting place, but for me and for many Black queer folk, our bodies most often preclude any home-making with those kinds of securities.” It is this reality that spurred Kai Marshall Green's investigation into bodies—and the love between them—discounted by the mainstream as deviant, deficient, and defective.

In his powerful debut memoir, Green recounts his lifelong transition from “Baby Girl" to “Black Boi,” his current and future self. Laced through his accounts of traversing discrimination, misunderstanding, and abuse from family, society, and academia are experiments in letter writing and biomythography, continuing in the literary tradition of Audre Lorde. Through A Body Made Home, Green explores the long, stuttering arc of transition as a Black queer person in America, recasting visions of home, narratives of metamorphosis, and dreams of freedom.