Title: Fairest

Author: Meredith Talusan

Type: Memoir

Pages: 320

Published: 2020

Put aside your beliefs of gay, lesbian, trans and just appreciate the human story that this author writes.

Talusan, an albino trans Filipino-American, doesn’t just set forth on a story of being trans or an immigrant. “I was an outcast among outcasts.” From her childhood as a boy in the Philippines to her life as a gay Harvard student to becoming gender binary and then a trans woman, she has a lot to say about determining your self-identity. 

Talusan was raised as a boy in an unstable home in the Philippines. As a person with albinism, her pale skin, blond hair and poor eyesight set her apart from her relatives, some of whom spoke Tagalog, some of whom spoke English. As she grew, she gained power through her intellect and self-awareness, earning top marks in school. Eventually she became aware that she harboured deep feelings for boys. Had Talusan stayed in the Philippines, she likely would have embraced the role of “bakla,” a playful, effeminate gay man.

Talusan’s journey of gender is also not binary, or linear from her race and skin colour. She reckons with the fact that, though she did not experience the specific traumas of girlhood that many women live through, her experiences as a young person who was not a boy, who experimented with gender expression, opened her up too much of the same dangers.

At each step of her journey, Talusan interrogates the complex intersection of who she feels herself to be and how others perceive her. Through this fearless self-awareness, Talusan demonstrates her intellect, creativity, sexuality and, most of all, a true dedication to expressing her inner self. For anyone who has wondered how their identity is impacted by the way others see them, Fairest is an extraordinary story of one woman’s self-reckoning.

Through another friendship with romantic undertones, Talusan realizes what’s missing—she wants the freedom to express her feminine gender identity—and her life changes again. She navigates what gender transition and passing mean for her, ultimately finding yet another cultural identity and means of self-expression.

It’s a beautifully written story that goes in so many directions due to the fascinating life Talusan has led so far that it should not be put on any single shelf. Born an albino male in the Philippines, Talusan made it to the US at the age of 15 and found his world changed.

Her decision to transition wasn’t made without cost but what’s key is that she never looks at herself with loathing. 

For writer and journalist Meredith Talusan, the journey to self-knowledge was long and very culturally influenced. I applaud her for being able to find her true self in a discriminatory and unaccepting world.