Norah Vincent
For her book “Self-Made Man”, the lesbian journalist lived for eighteen months disguised as a man – and came back with more sympathy for men than she expected.
Norah Vincent was born in Detroit, where her father was a lawyer for Ford. She studied philosophy at Williams College and became a journalist. She wrote columns for the “Los Angeles Times”, the gay magazine “The Advocate”, “The Village Voice” and Salon, and was known as a libertarian and contrarian voice.
For her book “Self-Made Man” (2006) she lived for eighteen months as a man named Ned. She joined a bowling league, a men’s therapy group and a monastery, went to strip clubs and dated women. As a lesbian, her features had been seen as butch; as Ned they were often seen as effeminate, and people assumed he was gay. She had expected to discover male privilege, but wrote that men suffered under rigid expectations and needed sympathy. The book was compared to “Black Like Me”.
The experiment took a heavy toll. Vincent had long suffered from depression and had a breakdown afterwards, which she attributed to “the burden of deception”. She had herself admitted to psychiatric institutions and wrote about the experience in “Voluntary Madness” (2008). She later wrote two novels, including “Adeline” (2015) about Virginia Woolf. Her views on trans identity were contested.
Vincent was a lesbian and was briefly married. In July 2022, aged 53, she ended her life by assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland. If you are struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or to a crisis line in your country.