Woman I Was Not Born to Be

A Transsexual Journey

By: Aleshia Brevard

Narrated by: Emily Beresford

Told with humor and flair, this is the autobiography of one transsexual's wild ride from boyhood as Alfred Brevard ("Buddy") Crenshaw in rural Tennessee to voluptuous female entertainer in Hollywood. Aleshia Brevard, as she is now known, underwent transitional surgery in Los Angeles in 1962, one of the first such operations in the United States. (The famous sexual surgery pioneer Harry Benjamin himself broke the news to Brevard's parents.) Under the stage name Lee Shaw, Brevard worked as a drag queen at Finocchio's, a San Francisco club, doing Marilyn Monroe impersonations. (Like Marilyn, she sought romance all the time and had a string of entanglements with men.) Later, she worked as a stripper in Reno and as a Playboy Bunny at the Sunset Strip hutch. After playing opposite Don Knotts in the movie The Love God, Brevard appeared in other films and broke into TV as a regular on the Red Skelton Show. She created the role of Tex on the daytime soap opera One Life To Live. As a woman, Brevard returned to teach theater at East Tennessee State, the same university she had attended as a boy. This memoir is a rare pre-women's movement account of coming to terms with gender identity. Brevard writes frankly about the degree to which she organized her life around pleasing men, and how absurd it all seems to her now. Aleshia Brevard continues to be active in theater as an actress and director.

©2001 Aleshia Brevard (P)2016 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"This is a beautiful book, written with a glittering charm and humor and wisdom." (Jonathan Ames, author of The Extra Man)

if only I had known her sooner

sweet and bitter at times but openly refreshing. She makes no excuses when you get down to it.

By the time I was half the way into the book I found myself wishing to meet her only to find, much to my regret, that she had passed from this life long before I had ever thought to face my own truth and fears.

Finishing her story I think I have an inkling into her. Going forward I only hope I can honorably incorporate the lessons I have gleaned from her journey.

Sleep well Madame, I hope to meet you on the other side to say thank you.

"Until the river meets the almighty sea".

Well done

Intelligent, well-written, and a great time capsule of what it was like for her and the trans-women of her generation.
The narrator was okay with her acting ability, but the experience and the writing remained the same.