• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

Al Bornstein was born in 1948, into a Conservative Jewish East coast family. He went to college at the prestigious Brown University, graduated in 1969, and in the summer of 1970 stumbled onto a Scientology center in Denver, Colorado. There Bornstein began taking classes, and was swiftly recruited into the Scientologists’ elite sailing crew, the Sea Org. Al signed a “billion-year” contract to serve the organization along with the woman who would be his first wife and the mother of his only child, a daughter they named Jessica. Eleven years later Al was excommunicated from the Church and shortly thereafter gave into a lifelong desire and began transitioning to living life as a woman named Kate.

Katherine Vandam Bornstein lived much of her life on the fringes of society. She felt uncomfortable living life as a male since the age of 4. The feeling was not extinguished by her father, a proud and self-proclaimed “male chauvinist pig” so concerned with his son’s masculinity, he forced the teenage Al into a rendezvous with a prostitute. Kate continued to harbor fantasies of being a woman during the years she lived as a rising male heterosexual star within the Church of Scientology, which didn’t condone alternative sexual or gender identities. After being forced from the structured and cloistered life of a full-time Scientologist in 1982, Bornstein began anew, eventually changing her name, her body, and her entire social circle. She moved to Seattle, spent a lot of time in therapy, got tattoos, dreamed of being a star, and advocated for others like herself.

A pioneer in raising awareness of the transgender community, Kate Bornstein authored the groundbreaking 1994 book Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us, followed by a number of acclaimed books that challenge the traditional belief that there are only two genders, male, or female. Her newest work is A Queer and Pleasant Danger, a no-holds barred memoir and an open letter to her estranged daughter and grandchildren.

GUEST: Kate Bornstein, author of A Queer and Pleasant Danger

Upcoming appearances:

Friday, June 15, Big Queer Convo: An Evening with Kate Bornstein & Mara Keisling, 7:30 – 9 p.m.
Location: The L. A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s, Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place at Santa Monica Blvd. , LA, 90038
Free (Everyone is Welcome) RSVP: lagaycenter.org/katebornstein

Saturday, June 16, TransPride Los Angeles 2012 – Festival, day of activities
Festival Opens at Noon, includes at 2 p.m. there is a workshop with Kate Bornstein and more activities throughout the day
Free (Everyone is Welcome), more information can be found at, www.facebook.com/TransUnionLA

Sunday, June 17, 3pm you can see Kate at a book reading a signing at Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd. West Hollywood, CA 90069