KB Brookins was struggling to know who they really were. And even though their quest for authenticity felt isolating, it couldn't happen in complete isolation. It took seeing someone else living more freely for KB to imagine new and better possibilities. That’s the paradox at the heart of becoming ourselves: We can’t do it alone.

KB is a Black, queer, trans writer and visual artist from Texas. Their award-winning memoir is called Pretty. It traces how race, gender, queerness, and masculinity are deeply entangled, not just in theory, but in the body and in everyday life with other people. In this episode, KB invites us to break through our rigid ideas about gender roles, and to feel the liberating power of seeing—and being seen.

Complete transcript available at relationscapes.org.

ABOUT THE GUEST

KB Brookins is a Black, queer, and trans writer, educator, and cultural worker from Texas. Their debut memoir Pretty (2024) won the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Dorothy Allison/Felice Picano Emerging Writer Award. Their writing has also appeared in HuffPost, Teen Vogue, Oxford American, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, and elsewhere. KB’s poetry chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound (2022) won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writer’s League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their poetry collection Freedom House (2023), described as “urgent and timely” by Vogue, won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for the Best First Book of Poetry. They adapted Freedom House into a solo art exhibit, displayed at various museums.