Katherine (Kate) Vandam Bornstein was born in Asbury Park, New Jersey on March 15, 1948 as Albert Herman Bornstein. Bornstein's parents, Mildred Vandam Bornstein and Paul Bornstein met while Mildred was attending Pembroke College in Brown University where she graduated in the class of 1939. Mildred and Paul married shortly thereafter and had a first child, Alan Bornstein, in approximately 1941. Paul Bornstein, a physician, served in North Africa during World War II as a medical administrator with the United States Army and the American Red Cross. Upon returning home, Mildred and Paul had a second son named Albert.
Interested in acting, the performing arts and writing from a young age, Albert attended Pennington School in New Jersey where he became the editor of the school yearbook. After high school, Albert chose to attend Brown University where a number of his relatives, including his mother, had also attended.
While at Brown, Bornstein intended to follow in his father's footsteps and study premed but quickly switched concentrations to English and theatre studies. Bornstein joined the Brownbrokers and Sock and Buskin organizations for performing arts and acted in various plays while on campus. Brown theater director, John Emigh, and Professor of Theatre Arts and Perfomrance Studies, James O. Barnhill, mentored Bornstein during Albert's tenure at Brown.
During childhood and Bornstein's college years, Bornstein acknowledged struggling less with sexuality but always with gender identity. Bornstein dated women throughout college and soon after graduation in 1968, Bornstein married for the first of three times, all of which ended in divorce. Bornstein is now partnered Barbara Carrellas, a notable sexologist and author of Urban Tantra (2007). The two have been partnered for over 20 years.
By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Albert Bornstein was struggling significantly with his gender identity. Married at the time to a woman named Molly and father to one daughter, Jessica Leah Bornstein (later Jessica Baxter), Albert followed Scientology while he and his family were living in New York. Albert Bornstein ascended throughout the ranks of the Church of Scientology notably becoming First Mate aboard L. Ron Hubbard's personal yacht, Apollo.
In 1981, Bornstein went to church elders to discuss his gender identity concerns, the church was unwelcoming. Bornstein left Scientology as a result of this discrimination. Around this time, Bornstein and his wife divorced while Molly and Jessica remained within the religion. Due in part to Scientology's restrictions on communications between past and current members, Bornstein has not seen Jessica in over 30 years.
In 1985, Albert Bornstein began the process of gender transition, including legally changing names from Albert Herman to Katherine Vandam Bornstein. Bornstein underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1986.
Bornstein worked in sales during this era and lived in various locations from Philadelphia to San Francisco to Seattle and later New York City. At the time, Bornstein was also writing about gender identity, both in fiction and non-fiction genres, speaking publicly, and participating in activism about transgenderism and being a trans person.
In 1995, Bornstein published the groundbreaking book, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us. The book became widely popular and propelled Kate to fame enabling her to begin performing and speaking professionally about gender identity issues, in theaters across the United States and often on college campuses. At the time, the United States was experiencing a post-Stonewall wave of civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. Gender Outlaw and Bornstein's performance pieces gave voice to marginalized people at a flashpoint for that community.
Bornstein went on to publish other books, articles, and essays, including Nearly Roadkill with Caitlin Sullivan (1996), My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely (1997), and Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws (2006). In 2012, Bornstein published A Queer and Pleasant Danger: A Memoir, where Bornstein wrote about personal family history, physical and mental health issues including disordered eating and bipolar disorder, and about being gender fluid and identifying neither as a man nor as a woman.
Exploring the constructs of gender and braking down binary gender barriers has been Bornstein's life work. As of 2018, Bornstein continues write and act, recently performing in Young Jean Lee's Broadway play, Straight White Male – the first Broadway play to be written by an Asian-American woman. Bornstein currently lives in East Harlem with Barbara Carrellas along with their two cats, a pug, and a turtle.
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This series contains born-digital records harvested from Bornstein's personal laptop and linked iPhone in 2019. Records include photographs, chat room discussions, draft writings, presentations, and text messages. The content of these records are accessible in the John Hay Library Reading Room.
Kate Bornstein Twitter account
Web Archived with Archive-It
Kate Bornstein website
Web archived with Archive-It
Kate Bornstein Instagram account
This collection consists of the papers of Kate Bornstein, performer, playwright, author, and transgender activist who graduated from Brown University as Albert Bornstein in 1969. The collection documents Bornstein's personal and professional life and trans activism, and includes biographical information, correspondence, diaries, conference material, draft writings, writings by other authors, subject files, print material, ephemera, photographs, and electronic records dating from 1910-2018. The collection is arranged into 14 series.
Series 1, BIOGRPAHICAL, 1910-2017, highlights Bornstein's biography and personal life. Materials include awards and honors, clippings about Kate Bornstein, Albert's Bornstein's birth certificate, Kate Bornstein's drivers licenses and identification cards, information regarding Bornstein's daughter, Jessica Leah Bornstein, interviews, and Bornstein's official name-change decree from Albert Herman Bornstein to Katherine Vandam Bornstein. Other materials of interest include an employment dispute file between Bornstein and Satellite Business Systems regarding Bornstein's transition and dress code in the workplace. There is also an extensive set of family letters that Bornstein's father, Paul Bornstein, wrote to Mildred Vandam Bornstein '39 [Bornstein's mother] while stationed in North Africa during World War II. This series is arranged alphabetically by record type then by topic.
Series 2, CORRESPONDENCE, 1977-2018, contains personal and professional correspondence, arranged alphabetically by provenance then by first name or subject. Scattered throughout the correspondence series are letters from family, friends, colleagues, and other trans artists, activists, students, and the general public thanking Kate for her leadership and advocacy on behalf of the trans community. Of particular interest are letters from Albert Bornstein to his mother, daughter, ex-wife, and a college friend from Brown University regarding his transgenderism dating from 1985-1986 (#3.1, 3.3-3.4).
Series 3, DIARIES AND NOTES, 1983-2015, contains bound diaries and a small set of loose personal notes. The diaries contain reflections, ideas for plays and scripts, notes for other writings, and personal lists and jottings. Series 3 is arranged alphabetically then chronologically.
Series 4, CONFERENCES, 1991-2017, includes programs, conference schedules, participant lists, and other related material regarding conferences that Bornstein attended or at which she spoke, often as a keynote speaker. Conferences include the Athe91 conference regarding theater studies in higher education; the 2000 Y2 Genders conference at Smith College, and the 2007 Queer Texas Conference, among many others. This series is arranged chronologically then alphabetically by the conference name.
Series 5, WRITINGS BY KATE BORNSTEIN, 1970-2013, includes drafts, some related correspondence, contracts, and promotional material regarding essays, manuscripts, plays, scripts, and talks written or co-written by Bornstein. Draft works of note include Hidden: A Gender (1989), Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws (2009), and A Queer and Pleasant Danger: A Memoir (2012). Essays include "Another American Legacy" regarding Condoleeza Rice, "Dixie Belle: The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," and "Sex, Bullies and You: How American Bully Culture Is Messing with Your Sex Life." Researchers seeking talks by Bornstein should see the folders labeled "Various titles: talks, [dates]" (#9.7-9.16). Given the number of lectures Bornstein wrote and presented across the United States, they have been arranged chronologically within this series under the general heading noted here. Overall, Series 5 is arranged alphabetically by title then alphabetically by record type.
Series 6, WRITINGS BY OTHER AUTHORS (UNPUBLISHED), 1986-2014, includes drafts and correspondence related to essays, manuscripts, poems, scripts and various creative writing by other authors. Many of these writers are notable trans people and friends of Bornstein who sent their works to Bornstein for advice and review. Works of note include Butch Is a Noun by Sharon Jill Bear Bergman; Transgender MANifesto by Michael M Hernandez; poems by Cheryl Lynne Oropal; and scripts from the television series Transparent written by Jill Soloway, among many other items. This series is arranged alphabetically by author then alphabetically by title.
Series 7, SUBJECT FILES, 1988-2011, includes a small set of clippings, reports, notes, and other items collected by Bornstein on the following subjects: ACT Theatre Company, LGBT centers, sadomasochism, spirtuality/health, suicide, and transgenderism. This series is arranged alphabetically by subject.
Series 8, PRINT MATERIALS, 1980-2017, contains published books, calendars, catalogs, journals, magazine, reports, and a large collection of self-published zines by various artists and writers. Topics include comics, feminism, LGBTQ rights and religion, poetry, queer identity, queer critique of same sex marriage, sexuality, sex work, transgenderism, teens and teen girlhood, among many other topics. This subseries is arranged alphabetically by record type then title.
Series 9, EPHEMERA, 1991-2005, includes a small collection of items including buttons, drawings and illustrations, postcards, and stickers, many of which relate to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues and activist causes. This series is arranged alphabetically by object type.
Series 10, PHOTOGRAPHS, 1910-2017, consists of one carton of black and white, color, and polaroid photographs documenting Albert and Kate Bornstein's family, relatives, friends, romantic partners, and events, dating from 1910-2017. Of particular interest are images of Albert Bornstein with mother, Mildred Vandam Bornstein, and brother, Alan Bornstein; Albert Bornstein and friends at Brown University; photographs from Albert Bornstein's weddings; photographs of Albert Bornstein with daughter, Jessica Leah Bornstein; photographs of Kate Bornstein shortly after gender reassignment surgery; and candid images of Kate alone and with friends and family. Series 10 is arranged alphabetically by subject.
Series 11, OVERSIZE MATERIALS, 1940-2006, includes posters documenting Bornstein's lectures and performances, get-well posters created for Bornstein while undergoing cancer treatment, an oversize book of photography by Jane Marcus, and fragile scrapbook pages containing Bornstein family photographs from 1940. Series 11 is arranged alphabetically by record type.
Series 12, ELECTRONIC RECORDS, 1977-2011, contains film, disks, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes. Records include book and talk drafts, performances, photographs, and television appearances by Bornstein. Of particular interest are VHS tapes documenting Bornstein's early appearances on television shows such as 20/20 with Barbara Walters, the Joan Rivers Show, and the Phil Donahue Show where Bornstein discussed her experiences as a trans person. Bornstein's original carrier titles are written in quotations. The processor created all other folder titles. This series is arranged alphabetically by record type then by title on carrier.
Series 13, BORN-DIGITAL RECORDS, contains born-digital records harvested from Bornstein's personal laptop and linked IPhone in 2019. Records include photographs, chat room discussions, draft writings, presentations, and text messages. The content of these records will be accessible in the John Hay Library Reading Room soon. Please email pembroke_archives@brown.edu for more information.
Series 14, RESTRICTED, 1990-1995, contains a small set of files removed from throughout the collection, which are closed until January 1, 2039.
Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights. It is up to the researcher to determine the owners of the literary rights and to obtain any necessary permissions from them.
Kate Bornstein papers, Ms.2018.010, Box [#], Folder [#], Pembroke Center Archives, John Hay Library, Brown University.
This collection is arranged into 14 series.
There are some restrictions on access, though most of the collection is open for research use. Series 14, Restricted, is closed until January 1, 2039 after which date the files will be open without restriction. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested. Advance notice is required to view any audiovisual media or born-digital records that may exist in this collection. Audiovisual media and born-digital records in this collection may not have been reformatted yet. Researchers may request access to copies by contacting the John Hay Library with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. Access to original physical audiovisual or born-digital media is restricted.
Acquired from Kate Bornstein in 2018.
This collection was part of the Pembroke Center's Christine Dunlap Farnham Archive until 2024 when collections were recataloged. All collections previously grouped under that title are now searchable under the subject headings "Women and Gender at Brown University" or "Feminist Activism in Rhode Island."