{"id":15561,"date":"2017-03-13T18:50:37","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T18:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/news\/2017\/03\/13\/transgender-author-chris-edwards-to-discuss-new-memoir-at-higgins-event\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T14:39:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T18:39:28","slug":"transgender-author-chris-edwards-to-discuss-new-memoir-at-higgins-event","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2017\/03\/13\/transgender-author-chris-edwards-to-discuss-new-memoir-at-higgins-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Transgender author Chris Edwards to discuss new memoir at Higgins event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><html><body><\/p>\n<p>Boston-area author and transgender advocate&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrisedwardsballs.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chris Edwards<\/a>&nbsp;will talk about his life-changing journey and read from his memoir,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.chrisedwardsballs.com\/memoir\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&ldquo;BALLS: It Takes Some to Get Some<\/a>,&rdquo; at Clark University at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 16,<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>in the Higgins Lounge, Dana Commons, 2nd Floor. The event is part of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www2.clarku.edu\/higgins-school-of-humanities\/\">Higgins School of Humanities<\/a>&rsquo; spring dialogue symposium&nbsp;&ldquo;What&rsquo;s so funny?&rdquo;<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>which includes lectures, community conversations, and exhibits on humor.<\/p>\n Chris Edwards\n<p>Edwards grew up in the Boston suburbs and started the process of transitioning from female to male at the age of 26 when he was a copywriter at a high profile ad agency in Boston. Edwards, who came out at a company board meeting before his white, middle-aged colleagues, endured 28 painful and extensive surgeries to become the man he is today.&nbsp;He&rsquo;ll reveal how humor helped him negotiate his gender transition and gain acceptance from his family, friends, and colleagues at a time when the word &#8220;transgender&#8221; was almost non-existent.<\/p>\n<p>Edwards has been interviewed by O Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Refinery29, Vice.com, the Improper Bostonian, New York Post, and&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.necn.com\/news\/health\/WEB-The-Take3-112916_NECN-403673586.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NECN<\/a>&nbsp;about his book, and about being young and transgender in the workplace. He was recently interviewed by The Boston Globe about his decision to attend his 10-year high school reunion while transitioning from Kristin to Chris.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;That&rsquo;s when it hit me &#8230;everyone was going to assume I didn&rsquo;t show up because I didn&rsquo;t have the, well, balls,&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/opinion\/columns\/2016\/11\/22\/hello-old-classmates-meet-new-gender\/5ifRCTwzk6IzRHcJEZbW6H\/story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Edwards told the Boston Globe<\/a>. &ldquo;And while technically that might have been true (that surgery was years away), after publicly transitioning in front of 500 coworkers I&rsquo;d developed quite a set of&nbsp;<em>cojones<\/em>. I was not about to let my former classmates think I was ashamed. I was going.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Books will be on sale and a signing will follow Edwards&rsquo; talk.<\/p>\n<p>This free, public event is sponsored by the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www2.clarku.edu\/higgins-school-of-humanities\/\">Higgins School of Humanities<\/a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www2.clarku.edu\/departments\/womensstudies\/\">Women&rsquo;s and Gender Studies Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more information, call 508-793-7479 or email&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:HigginsSchool@clarku.edu\">HigginsSchool@clarku.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A complete list of all events in the spring symposium is available at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www2.clarku.edu\/higgins-school-of-humanities\/\">https:\/\/www2.clarku.edu\/higgins-school-of-humanities\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boston-area author and transgender advocate&nbsp;Chris Edwards&nbsp;will talk about his life-changing journey and read from his memoir,&nbsp;&ldquo;BALLS: It Takes Some to Get Some,&rdquo; at Clark University at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 16,&nbsp;in the Higgins Lounge, Dana Commons, 2nd Floor. The event is part of the&nbsp;Higgins School of Humanities&rsquo; spring dialogue symposium&nbsp;&ldquo;What&rsquo;s so funny?&rdquo;&nbsp;which includes lectures, community [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"story_color":"#525250","story_headerImg":-1,"section_label":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[225],"displayed_author":[324],"featured":[],"topic":[247,196,333],"class_list":["post-15561","story","type-story","status-publish","hentry","category-arts-humanities","displayed_author-clark-news-and-media-relations","topic-books-and-publications","topic-humanities","topic-lectures-and-conferences"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Transgender author Chris Edwards to discuss new memoir at Higgins event | ClarkU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/news\/2017\/03\/13\/transgender-author-chris-edwards-to-discuss-new-memoir-at-higgins-event\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Transgender author Chris Edwards to discuss new memoir at Higgins event\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Boston-area author and transgender advocate&nbsp;Chris Edwards&nbsp;will talk about his life-changing journey and read from his memoir,&nbsp;&ldquo;BALLS: It Takes Some to Get Some,&rdquo; at Clark University at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 16,&nbsp;in the Higgins Lounge, Dana Commons, 2nd Floor. 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