I am SOOO happy and thrilled to announce that my memoir Born Both: An Intersex Life (Hachette Books, 3/14/17) has had a great reception from the mainstream press–which means widespread attention for intersex issues! It’s my personal story of learning to love and embrace myself as someone with a visibly intersex body not subjected to medically unnecessary, culturally driven, nonconsensual surgeries performed on intersex infants and minors, which also extensively explores this human rights abuse.

Born Both: An Intersex Life has received praise in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, NPR, Rolling Stone, Psychology Today, and many more, and was selected for several book lists including People magazine’s list of three “Best New Memoirs,” and School Library Journal’s list of 10 Adults Books for Teens. It was also a 2018 Lambda Literary Award (Lammy) nominee in the LGBTQ nonfiction category. Below are some of the highlights.

“…fierce, brave, and a clarion call to celebrate our differences.”
– People (4/3/17 newsstand issue, pictured above)

“Viloria does us the even greater service (it’s more of a gift, really) of showing us what it means to live not just as both a man and a woman but also as a third gender that eventually emerges as the right one.”
— The New York Times

“Viloria’s personal, positive, vibrant, and emotional work of advocacy will educate and affirm.” —Booklist

“Groundbreaking…This brave and empowering book deserves a wide audience.” – Library Journal

“Viloria’s memoir “Born Both” tells the poignant and powerful story of h/er struggle to understand and speak out about gender identity.” — The Washington Post

“Intelligent and courageous, [Born Both] chronicles one intersex person’s path to wholeness, but it also affirms the right of all intersex and nonbinary people to receive dignity and respect.”                   — Kirkus Reviews

“In an time when it’s somehow acceptable to try to meddle with which public bathroom another adult wishes to use, Viloria’s new memoir Born Both, promises a refreshing, honest and essential booster shot of empathy and insight.” — Brooklyn Based

“Even as the world learns more about people of various gender identities, the facts surrounding being intersex are still, well, alien to many. Memoirs like Viloria’s will, I hope, contribute to changing that.”
— NPR

“Born Both… sheds light on the struggles that intersex and non-binary people face.”– Bustle

“A valuable resource for those seeking first-person narratives by intersex people.” —Publishers Weekly

Advanced Praise for Born Both

“How do you discover who you are when you are born outside of what culture has decided is possible? Hida Viloria answers this question with this moving and essential memoir, a personal history that is also something of a history of America’s blind spots around gender and sex.”—Alexander Chee, bestselling author of The Queen of the Night

“Hida Viloria’s touching and generous memoir shines a beautiful light of understanding not only on what it’s like to discover, explore, and own one’s identity as an intersex person, but also on what it means to be human. Through heartbreak and humor, Viloria writes with welcome candor and insight—and shows us that there is so much more beauty, brilliance, and complexity than can ever be contained in the categories ‘male’ or ‘female.’”—Sam McConnell, producer of HBO’s The Out List and The Trans List

“Born Both is a courageous and compelling personal story that helps give us the necessary knowledge and understanding of the complex topics of intersexuality and gender fluidity. Hida Viloria has boldly brought us along on this journey of understanding and pushes us forward to become a more inclusive culture where we value everyone—not in spite of our differences, but rather because they make us perfectly and uniquely us. A must read.” —Jane Clementi, co-founder of the Tyler Clementi Foundation

“Words come alive in Born Both, which Hida Viloria has written with intellectual sophistication as well as passion for intersex activism. This book will not only captivate those interested in intersex activism and gender revolution but also those who enjoy skillful storytelling.”—Georgiann Davis, PhD, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and author of Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis