From the outside, OLIVER RADCLYFFE spent four decades living an
immensely privileged, beautifully composed life. As the daughter of two
well-to-do British parents and the wife of a handsome, successful man from
an equally privileged family, Oliver played the parts expected of him. He
checked off every box—marriage, children (four), a white-picket fence
surrounding a stately home in Connecticut, and a golden retriever named
Biscuit.
But beneath the shiny veneer, Oliver was desperately trying to stay afloat
as he struggled to maintain a facade of normalcy—his hair was falling out in
clumps, he couldn’t eat, and his mood swings often brought him to tears.
And then, on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon in September, Oliver
Radclyffe woke up and realized the life of a trapped housewife was not one
he was ever meant to live. In fact, Oliver had spent his entire life denying
the deepest, truest parts of himself. In the wake of this realization, he began
the challenging, messy journey toward self-acceptance and living a truer life,
knowing he risked the life he’d built to do so.
That journey was fraught, as Oliver navigated leaving a marriage and
reintroducing himself to his children. And despite the challenges he faced,
Oliver realized there was no way for him to go back to the beautiful lie of his
previous life. Not if he wanted to survive.
FRIGHTEN THE HORSES is a trans man’s coming of age story, about a
housewife who comes out as a lesbian and tentatively, at first, steps into the
world of queerness. It is also a courageous dissection of Radclyffe’s own
internalized transphobia, as he deftly challenges his rigid understandings of
gender, sexuality, and societal expectation to embrace his true self alongside
the one that has always felt true: his identity as a parent. The story of a
flawed, fascinating, gorgeously queer man, FRIGHTEN THE HORSES
introduces Oliver Radclyffe as a witty, arresting, unforgettable voice.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR FRIGHTEN THE HORSES:
“Wise, generous, and fierce, FRIGHTEN THE HORSES is about more than a change of gender; it’s about the perilous
process of accepting the self, in all its gnarly, glorious complexity. Oliver Radclyffe finds more than manhood on his
inspiring journey; what he finds, in the end, is his humanity.” —Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She’s Not There
and co-author of Mad Honey
OLIVER RADCLYFFE is part of the new wave of transgender writers unafraid to address the complex
nuances of transition, examining the places where gender identity, sexual orientation, feminist allegiance,
social class, and family history overlap. His work has appeared in
The New York Times
and
Electric
Literature
, and he recently published
Adult Human Male
, a monograph with Unbound Edition Press on
the trans experience under the cisgender gaze. He currently lives on the Connecticut coast, where he is
raising his four children.