Many Gendered Mothers
by eatonhamilton
I edit for many gendered mothers, a project on literary influence featuring short essays by writers (of any/all genders) on the women, femme, trans, and non-binary writers who have influenced them, as a direct or indirect literary forebear.
This project is directly inspired by the American website Literary Mothers, created by editor Nadxieli Nieto and managing editor Nina Puro. While we hope that Literary Mothers might eventually return to posting new pieces, our site was created as an extension and furthering of their project (in homage, if you will), and not meant as any kind of replacement.
Even though we’re new, a lot of terrific pieces have already appeared. Catch up with the essays we’ve published so far:
- Jennifer LoveGrove on Libby Scheier
- Jane Eaton Hamilton on Ntozake Shange
- Elee Kraljii Gardiner on Betsy Warland
- Robin Richardson on Anne Frank
- Laura Mars on Daphne Marlatt
- Evelyn Deshane on Angela Carter
- Emily Izsak on Mina Loy
- Susan Rudy on Nicole Brossard
- Amanda Earl on Sandra Ridley
- Nam-Chi Tran on Trinh T. Minh-ha
- Leslie Stark on Tori Amos, Elizabeth Smart, Jeanette Winterson and Sylvia Plath
- Aimee Herman on Kathy Acker
Eaton Hamilton 
Jane, this is brilliant. So glad you shared this. My first encounter with the idea of non binary gender was when I read The Well Of Loneliness at 16. I only bought it because the publisher was Virago and I was a passionate feminist, I had no idea it was the ‘lesbians bible’ but moreover, the inverts experience. To this day (having read it three times in total) I find it influences me in my understanding of this subject. When I was a kid there was little said of non binary gender aside the obvious, I didn’t know anyone who was wishing to be a different gender or no gender that I was aware of. I was very much a tom boy wishing to be a girly girl and the thing I found hardest to understand was why all the lesbians I met looked like men. Now that I”m older I appreciate the candor of discourse on the subject and how many I knew probably suffered in silence. A publication like this makes a big difference. I feel lucky that I never questioned my assigned gender or being gay, it felt natural and I went with it, but if it had not, I would hope for less judgement and more compassion. The world loves to outcast people and point at them. When I think of Radcliffe Hall and how she must have felt it breaks my heart.