Books
Former Obama admin. appointee releases ‘SELF-ish’ memoir
Trans activist Chloe Schwenke shares life story of balancing academia and family


Chloe Schwenke says coming out wreaked havoc on her professional career. Despite a stellar resume and Ph.D. she was repeatedly fired. (Photo by Carl Cox Photography; courtesy Schwenke)
About a decade ago when Chloe Schwenke and her then-wife Christine Lucas were ready to share the news with their two children (then 8 and 13) that their dad was going to start living as a woman, Schwenke knew she needed to get out in front with some damage control.
Schwenke and her wife met with 12 different couples whose kids were friends with theirs.
“We knew the first time the kids saw me as Chloe, they would go screaming back home to their parents,” Schwenke says. “The experts told us everything depends on how those parents react. Once the parents were on board with it, the kids came through just fine.”
It’s one of many stories relayed in “SELF-ish: a Transgender Awakening,” Schwenke’s new memoir. It’s out today as a trade paperback from Red Hen Press, a California-based publisher.
Schwenke, who holds a Ph.D in public policy, is a former Obama administration appointee who worked for years in international development. Coming out as trans in 2008 wreaked havoc on her professional career — she recounts being fired four different times and long periods of unemployment. Schwenke, who doesn’t want to get specific but says she’s “in her 60s,” now works in the Association for Writers & Writing Programs, a literary support group at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The book didn’t start out being a book at all. Schwenke enjoys writing and blogging for relaxation and started with journaling, exploring her journey through transitioning and unpacking “why it took me 50-some years to get around to it.”
“It seemed sort of all over the place,” Schwenke, who is no longer married but still lives with Lucas in Olney, Md., says. “It had integrity, but it didn’t seem to me that these stories related to one another until suddenly they did. … I started to see it as something that cohered as a way to be myself in the world in a way I thought might be helpful to other people.”
Exploring all that took work but was an illuminating process, she says. Incidents from childhood came roaring back to her consciousness with “remarkable clarity.” She spent a year writing it, then after securing a deal with Red Hen, one of three publishers she contacted (the other two weren’t interested but Red Hen bit immediately), she spent another two years working with two editors to glean the work into something publishable. The 260-page paperback retails for $17.95 and is available at all the usual online book channels or via chloemaryland.net.
Schwenke on:
• how the book evolved: “They wanted to hear more about my explorations of dating men and a bit less about my being a Quaker. … I’d had some dating experiences end really badly and though I hadn’t initially planned to include much of that, though it was in my journal, they said, ‘Just sit with that awhile,’ because they thought that would be of interest to readers.”
• her concerns with going public with her life: “My real concern is whether people are gonna sue me. I’ve been fired four times just for being trans, arrested, beaten up, called every name you can think of. I did name names but just first names. I thought, ‘To hell with it, these are important interactions and people need to know how people behave toward trans people.’”
• the title: “When I came out to family, some people were really angry with me. Two of my three brothers didn’t speak to me for eight years. A recurring response was, ‘How could you be so selfish?’ There was this wave of anger. … I decided to put the hyphen in and reclaim that word.”
• how she feels anti-trans bias is part of broader toxic patriarchy: “I think there are lots of unreconciled feelings hetero men have about sexuality because they’ve never had to think through it or deal with it because they’ve just always been the boss, they’ve called the shots. When somebody goes in the opposite direction, it raises a lot of profound questions. They think, ‘Why would anybody want to do that,’ and they have a very deep-rooted gut reaction to the operation itself. … Every time we told other couples, the men immediately crossed their legs. They have a very strong, protective reaction.”
• working with the State Department and monthly visits to the Obama White House: “Don Steinberg (former deputy administrator at the United States Agency for International Development) was a huge ally and really pushed me and the LGBT community to be verbal and outspoken though we didn’t get much support from the administration at the time, though they also didn’t stand in our way. … The White House was fantastic. They looked at us and said, “What can we do for you?” That was their mantra every month and that really started with (former deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement) Brian Bond.
• Gens. Y and Z’s comfort with gender fluidity: “They’re asking questions and not just defaulting to the binary, which is great. They’re just really sitting with their gender identity for awhile before they declare anything and that’s such a healthy thing. My daughter is 18 and all her friends just think it’s cool.”
• trans visibility in the age of Caitlyn Jenner: “She’s a really canny person. She knows how to play the media and I really admire that in these exchanges we see, she never seems to be the victim. I couldn’t disagree with her politics more, though. She’s a stalwart Republican and with a president and especially vice president as transphobic as we have now, how she reconciles that, I don’t know.”
• her relationship with her ex-wife: “We are no longer married but we still share the same house and jointly raise our daughter. Christine is my best friend and strongest ally.”
Books
New book goes behind the scenes of ‘A League of Their Own’
‘No Crying in Baseball’ offers tears, laughs, and more

‘No Crying in Baseball: The Inside Story of ‘A League of Their Own’
By Erin Carlson
c.2023, Hachette Books
$29/320 pages
You don’t usually think of Madonna as complaining of being “dirty all day” from playing baseball. But that’s what the legendary diva did during the shooting of “A League of Their Own,” the 1992 movie, beloved by queers.
“No Crying in Baseball,” the fascinating story behind “A League of Their Own,” has arrived in time for the World Series. Nothing could be more welcome after Amazon has cancelled season 2 of its reboot (with the same name) of this classic film.

In this era, people don’t agree on much. Yet, “A League of Their Own” is loved by everyone from eight-year-old kids to 80-year-old grandparents.
The movie has strikes, home runs and outs for sports fans; period ambience for history buffs; and tears, laughs and a washed-up, drunk, but lovable coach for dramady fans.
The same is true for “No Crying in Baseball.” This “making of” story will appeal to history, sports and Hollywood aficionados. Like “All About Eve” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “A League of Their Own” is Holy queer Writ.
Carlson, a culture and entertainment journalist who lives in San Francisco, is skilled at distilling Hollywood history into an informative, compelling narrative. As with her previous books, “I’ll Have What She’s Having: How Nora Ephron’s three Iconic Films Saved the Romantic Comedy” and “Queen Meryl: The Iconic Roles, Heroic Deeds, and Legendary Life of Meryl Streep,” “No Crying in Baseball,” isn’t too “educational.” It’s filled with gossip to enliven coffee dates and cocktail parties.
“A League of Their Own” is based on the true story of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). From 1943 to 1954, more than 600 women played in the league in the Midwest. The league’s players were all white because the racism of the time prohibited Black women from playing. In the film, the characters are fictional. But the team the main characters play for – the Rockford Peaches – was real.
While many male Major and Minor League Baseball players were fighting in World War II, chewing gum magnate Philip K. Wrigley, who owned the Chicago Cubs, founded the league. He started the AAGPBL, “To keep spectators in the bleachers,” Carlson reports, “and a storied American sport–more important: his business afloat.”
In 1943, the Office of War Information warned that the baseball season could be “scrapped” “due to a lack of men,” Carlson adds.
“A League of Their Own” was an ensemble of women’s performances (including Rosie O’Donnell as Doris, Megan Cavanagh as Marla, Madonna as Mae, Lori Petty as Kit and Geena Davis as Dottie) that would become legendary.
Girls and women still dress up as Rockford Peaches on Halloween.
Tom Hanks’s indelible portrayal of coach Jimmy Dugan, Gary Marshall’s depiction of (fictional) league owner Walter Harvey and Jon Lovitz’s portrayal of Ernie have also become part of film history.
Filming “A League of Their Own,” Carlson vividly makes clear, was a gargantuan effort. There were “actresses who can’t play baseball” and “baseball players who can’t act,” Penny Marshall said.
The stadium in Evansville, Ind., was rebuilt to look like it was in the 1940s “when the players and extras were in costume,” Carlson writes, “it was easy to lose track of what year it was.”
“No Crying in Baseball” isn’t written for a queer audience. But, Carlson doesn’t pull any punches.
Many of the real-life AAGPBL players who O’Donnell met had same-sex partners, O’Donnell told Carlson.
“When Penny, angling for a broad box-office hit chose to ignore the AAGPGL’s queer history,” Carlson writes, “she perpetuated a cycle of silence that muzzled athletes and actresses alike from coming out on the wider stage.”
“It was, as they say, a different time,” she adds.
Fortunately, Carlson’s book isn’t preachy. Marshall nicknames O’Donnell and Madonna (who become buddies) “Ro” and “Mo.” Kodak is so grateful for the one million feet of film that Marshall shot that it brings in a high school marching band. Along with a lobster lunch. One day, an assistant director “streaked the set to lighten the mood,” Carlson writes.
“No Crying in Baseball,” is slow-going at first. Marshall, who died in 2018, became famous as Laverne in “Laverne & Shirley.” It’s interesting to read about her. But Carlson devotes so much time to Marshall’s bio that you wonder when she’ll get to “A League of Their Own.”
Thankfully, after a couple of innings, the intriguing story of one of the best movies ever is told.
You’ll turn the pages of “No Crying in Baseball” even if you don’t know a center fielder from a short stop.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.

Shorter days, cooler temps, and longer nights can send you skittering inside, right? Don’t forget to bring one of these great books with you when you settle in for the fall.
Releasing in September, look for “Between the Head and the Hands” by James Chaarani, a novel about a young Muslim man whose family turns him away for being gay, and the teacher who takes him in (ECW Press, Sept. 10). Also reach for “Cleat Cute: A Novel,” by Meryl Wilsner (St. Martin’s Griffin, Sept. 19), a fun YA novel of soccer, competition, and playing hard (to get).
You may want something light and fun for now, so find “The Out Side: Trans and Nonbinary Comics,” compiled by The Kao, Min Christiansen, and Daniel Daneman (Andrews McMeel Publishing). It’s a collection of comics by nonbinary and trans artists, and you can find it Sept. 26.
The serious romantic will want to find “Daddies of a Different Kind: Sex and Romance Between Older and Younger Gay Men” by Tony Silva (NYU Press), a book about new possibilities in love; it’s available Sept. 12. Historians will want “Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City” by Elyssa Maxx Goodman (Hanover Square Press, Sept. 12); and “Queer Blues: The Hidden Figures of Early Blues Music” by Darryl W. Bullock (Omnibus Press, Sept. 14).
In October, you’ll want to find “Blackouts: A Novel” by Justin Torres (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), a somewhat-fantasy novel about a dying man who passes a powerful book on to his caretaker. Look for it Oct. 10. Also on Oct. 10, grab “Love at 350º” by Lisa Peers (Dial Press Trade Paperback), a novel about love at a chance meeting at a baking-show contest and “The Christmas Swap: A Novel” by Talia Samuels (Alcove Press), a holiday rom-com.
You’re just warming up for the fall. Look for “Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date” by Ashley Herring Blake (Berkley, Oct. 24) and “Let Me Out,” a queer horror novel by Emmett Nahil and George Williams (Oni Press, Oct. 3).
Nonfiction lovers will want to find “Dis… Miss Gender?” by Anne Bray (MIT Press, Oct. 24), a wide, long look at gender and fluidity; “Friends of Dorothy: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Icons” by Anthony Uzarowski and Alejandro Mogollo Diez (Imagine, Oct. 10); and “300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World” by Sean Hewitt and Luke Edward Hall (Clarkson Potter, Oct. 10).
For November, look for “Underburn: A Novel” by Bill Gaythwaite (Delphinium), a layered novel about Hollywood, family, and second chances. It comes out Nov. 14. For something you can really sink your teeth into, find “The Bars are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After” by Lucas Hilderbrand (Duke University Press, Nov 21). It’s a huge look at the spaces that played strong roles in LGBTQ history.
And if you’re looking for yourself or for a special gift in December, check out “Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects” by David Evans Frantz, Christina Linden, and Chris E. Vargas. It’s an arty coffee table book from Hirmer Publishers of Munich. You can find it Dec. 20. Also look for “Second Chances in New Port Stephen: A Novel” by T.J. Alexander (Atria / Emily Bestler, Dec. 5) and if all else fails, ask for or give a gift certificate.
Season’s readings!
Books
Intriguing historical novel based on the true story of 1800s lesbian couple
‘Learned by Heart’ by Emma Donoghue a moving read

‘Learned by Heart’
By Emma Donoghue
C. 2023, Little Brown
$28/324 pages
English landowner, diarist and businesswoman Anne Lister (1791-1840) married her last partner Ann Walker in a marriage ceremony at Holy Trinity Church in Goodramgate, York. This is considered by many to be the first lesbian marriage in England, and likely, the world.
Lister, born in a landowning family at Shibden in Calderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire, who’s been called “the first modern lesbian,” is having a moment. In two seasons in 2019 and 2022, “Gentleman Jack,” a riveting series, based on Lister’s diaries, co-produced by the BBC and HBO (streaming on Max), dramatized Lister’s relationship with Walker.
“Learned by Heart,” an intriguing historical novel by Emma Donoghue is based on the true story of the queer relationship of Lister and Eliza Raine. Raine is believed to have been Lister’s first lover.

Much of the novel takes place in 1805-1806, when, at age 14 and 15, Lister and Raine were students at Miss Hargrave’s Manor School, a boarding school for girls in York.
Raine was born in Madras (now Chennai) in India. Her father, who was English, was a surgeon with the East India Company. He and an Indian woman, whom he did not legally marry, had Raine.
In an author’s note, Donoghue writes of a letter of Raine’s that refers to her as having “sprung from an illicit connection.” Another letter calls Raine a “lady of colour.”
Raine is sent to England at age 6. After her father and mother die, she’s left an orphan with a small inheritance.
Through “Gentleman Jack” and her diaries (which are being digitalized), Lister, with her brilliance and charismatic personality, has become a queer culture icon.
Raine is comparatively unknown. Perhaps, for this reason, “Learned by Hand” focuses on Raine’s point of view.
Raine arrives at the Manor School before Lister. Prior to Lister’s arrival, Raine is mousy, rule abiding.
Because Raine’s from India, she sleeps alone in a small room. Aware of unspoken racial bias (against people who are part Indian and part English), she wants to blend in – to stay out of trouble in this school with its many rules. “She’s trained herself to wake at seven,” Donoghue writes, “just before the bell.”
When Lister arrives at the school, Raine’s world and personality are transformed. Lister, known even at this young age for being too smart for her own good, is assigned to room with Raine — isolated from the other girls — in the tiny room they call “the Slope.” Donoghue skillfully illuminates how the girls’ friendship becomes sexual, passionate first love.
One day, Lister and Raine, who call each other by their last names, alone in a church, conduct a marriage ceremony for themselves.
“Learned by Heart” is heartbreaking because its chapters are intertwined with letters that Raine writes to Lister in 1815.
It’s clear from this correspondence that Lister has (and will have) other lovers than Raine. And, that, sadly, Raine is writing from what is then called an “insane asylum.”
As is evident from “The Pull of The Stars,” and her other historical novels, Donoghue has an unerring talent for creating fascinating tales out of true stories.
Unfortunately, as so often happens, Lister, the bad, outrageous girl, is far more interesting than Raine. Raine frequently comes across as loyal, passionate, but too needy and clingy. As Lister’s Barbara Stanwyck to Raine’s June Cleaver.
“There’s nothing noble about Anne Lister…,” Donoghue wrote of Lister in “The Guardian.”
Lister had the sexual ethics of a bonobo, Donoghue continued, “lying to every lover as a matter of policy.”
Yet, Lister is Donoghue’s hero. “Because she looked into her heart and wrote about what she found there with unflinching precision,” Donoghue wrote in her “Guardian” essay.
“I love and only love the fairer sex and thus beloved by them in turn, my heart revolts from any love but theirs,” Lister wrote in a coded entry in her diary on Oct. 29, 1820. (Lister wrote one-sixth of her diaries in code to hide from homophobic eyes.)
“Learned by Heart” is a moving, entertaining read. Raine’s story along with Lister’s should be told. Even the clingy can be unsung heroes.
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
-
U.S. Federal Courts3 days ago
Federal judge: drag is ‘vulgar and lewd,’ ‘sexualized conduct’
-
Opinions5 days ago
Speaker Kevin McUseless calls for Biden impeachment inquiry
-
Music & Concerts5 days ago
New dance single pays tribute to Town Danceboutique
-
Real Estate3 days ago
D.C. rentals: DIY or seek professional help?