Title & author
Fairest by Meredith Talusan
Synopsis
In Meredith Talusan’s memoir Fairest (Viking, 2020), Talusan lays bare the importance of intersectionality. Her* story is one of discovering and embracing identity, particularly as a disabled, trans, immigrant in the U.S. And as Talusan narrates where she experiences privilege and where she might “pass” for being white, straight, cis, abled, etc., it becomes clear that she can never exist without experiencing her identity as a whole.
Who should read this book
Fans of Love, Loss, and What We Ate and You Exist Too Much
What we’re thinking about
Where our own reading needs to expand to further encompass intersectionality
Trigger warning(s)
Physical violence, abandonment, mental health, racism, transphobia, homophobia, fatphobia
When Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality, she noted that “intersectional experience is greater than the sum of racism and sexism,” or, in other words, that multiple identities compound and create an entirely separate experience. In Meredith Talusan’s memoir Fairest (Viking, 2020), Talusan lays bare the importance of intersectionality. Her* story is one of discovering and embracing identity, particularly as a disabled, trans, immigrant in the U.S. And as Talusan narrates where she experiences privilege and where she might “pass” for being white, straight, cis, abled, etc., it becomes clear that she can never exist without experiencing her identity as a whole.
As a young child in the Philippines, Talusan is told that she “wouldn’t grow up like any member of [her] family or community, because [she] was white and would someday live in America” (Talusan, 34). Talusan is a child with albinism from a family trying to immigrate, the former which allows her to pass for white, unlike those around her, and the latter which her community believes will set her up for automatic success. Yet she imagines herself as “a golden-haired American woman,” a woman who can “entice whatever man she wanted” (40, 60). When she immigrates, she passes for a white man, her Harvard classmates not realizing she is Filipina. Her appearance as a white man gives her a sense of protection, preferring “to behave like the white kids at school who were too rich to care about money and had the freedom to major in the humanities, expend their energy on activities like theatre and dance, which had no practical value” (145). Talusan enjoys a form of privilege in her passing, but “even as the world began to affirm [her] body as a masculine gay man, this only made [her] mind flow further into the fantasy of being someone else” (150).
And this is where Talusan really begins to experience the complexities of her identity, noting the various ways in which her albinism, immigration status, sexual orientation, race, and gender identities all compound and intersect with one another. As a child, Talusan had received a role in a TV show partially because “most of the kids [auditioning] were darker” than her (54). But she must bring the script “close to [her] eyes while [she] did the scene” (57). Talusan passes as white, leading her to land a role in the show over those that do not, but her albinism sets her apart. And at Harvard, she goes out on Drag Night “‘too convincing’” for her peers (15). At a party, Talusan passes for a woman, but to her peers, it’s too much, too queer for them. And then, years later, she realizes that she and her boyfriend “could not continue as a couple if [her] gender shift became in any way permanent” (280). Talusan comes to understand that being a woman will change her boyfriend’s perception of her as a gay man.
In all of these experiences, despite passing as white or abled or cis, Talusan’s identity is not singular. And she experiences them all at once. Disability reads, LGBTQIA+ reads, BIPOC reads… already publishers and readers do not acknowledge nearly enough the importance of these titles. And to see Fairest as a title that identifies the intersectionality of numerous identities is also incredibly important. But that also begs us to question: when are publishers promoting this title? When are bookstores bringing it to their front shelves? Fairest is seen by them as an LGBTQIA+ “anthem,” the title being on numerous Pride Month reading lists across the industry. But when will the industry stop promoting it as “the” story, and rather a story to read on any day of the year?
*We will be using she/her/hers pronouns throughout this piece, although it wasn’t until after college that Talusan formally began to use them.
“I knew my fascination with women, from their art to their plight, wasn’t just a part of me I could parcel off, but that womanhood itself might be the vessel that best contained my being.”
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How did Talusan’s interweaving of childhood and adulthood stories shape your reading?
What intersectional conversations on gender identity or sexuality have stayed with you the most? Why?
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