Interview with Sevastian Winters About His Upcoming Novel, the TroubleMaker

In Sevastian Winter's newest novel, The TroubleMaker, he writes about a woman trapped in a man's body and the perils she faces becoming the person she was born, not physically, but emotionally, to be. Sevastian's take on this subject is sure to be compelling because of his personal journey through the landmines of self in search of the real "him."

I want to thank Sevastian for doing this interview and giving us a sneak peek into "The TroubleMaker." Let's see just what makes the book one we should read, and what makes the author one we should keep our eyes on.

Angel: Tell us a little about your overall views on transsexuality.

Sevastian: I actually think, (and many would disagree with me) that though I use the term for the sake of communication, that transsexuality is a bit of a myth and that gender, much like sexual preference (which is different) exist on a continuum rather than on opposite sides of a fence. There are hundreds of known biological conditions that are considered to be, by the medical community, hermaphrodism. That is to say that some element of a person's biology is ambiguous on the subject of gender.

I think that we all fall in our own unique place along the gender continuum and some of us fall closer to center than others. While we can test chromosomes and genitalia, most of the biological aspects of gender are located in a portion of the brain we can't get to when a person is alive...the hypothalamus. It is my contention that if the brain is the executive branch of the body and it is capable of sending signals that create visible, hormonal, or chromosomal types of ambiguity that it is also capable of being ambiguous internally. That is to say, that gender happens between the ears... not in between the legs and hermaphrodism is a clear signal that sometimes the brain sends unexpected signals to the developing body.

The truth of gender is that the things that confuse us and make us uneasy when it comes to gender, those being sexuality and genitalia, are poor indicators of the truth of our gender. The things men like about being men have almost nothing to do with sex or genitalia and the things that women like about being women have nearly nothing to do with sex or genitalia...and in fact our own genitalia is a source of incredible anxiety and confusion regardless of where we fall along the gender continuum. Is it too big? Too small? Shaped right? How does it compare? Will our potential partners think it's okay? We are left with far more uncertainty than certainty. For these reasons, I tend to believe we need, as a society, to leave it to individuals to figure out for themselves what gender fits them most comfortably and then we need to respect what they determine. It doesn't actually matter how the plumbing works or what the person looks like. I consider myself heterosexual, but that doesn't mean that I am somehow bound to want to sleep with every woman with whom I come in contact. In fact, I find some women that others find attractive to be quite repulsive... and vice versa. In the end, we are all just people and we should be free to explore ourselves regardless of presumed genders vs. True genders.

Angel: Why should we read The TroubleMaker?

Sevastian: The heart of "The TroubleMaker" is found discovering a character that, despite a struggle to understand personal gender, is also very much like all of us...and all too common among a specific generation of people that grew up in the 1970's and 1980's as part of the first generation of kids in history in which there were more broken homes and blended families than not. The support structures of many families in America broke down when, at the end of the 1960's, these kids' parents largely disavowed their own parents. When these young people, mainly mothers, found themselves single parents, many were left with no support system and they were forced to find a way to cope in a world that had gone haywire. The story's protagonist, Tyler, is an angry kid who suffers all sorts of abuse at the hands of adults who never have to pay the consequences of the actions...and that only serves to add to Tyler's angriness. The fact that Tyler is transsexual is almost superfluous to the real story of the book... a journey to find healing from some of the sorts of abuses that were more prevalent during the 1970's and 1980's than ever before.

There is a whole generation of Americans who are still imprisoned by the events of their past. In a sense, we are just now learning the true ramifications felt by a generation that is now starting to take over the reins of the world. I wanted to write a story that my generation could identify with. I was inspired by a hope that maybe my words could provide part of a path to finding healing and freedom from the prisons that so many of us construct for ourselves.

Angel: What makes your take on this subject different from others?

Sevastian: This is a really hard story for any author to tell. Hemingway was right when he said that writing is a matter of sitting at a keyboard and cutting open your veins. It is impossible to write this sort of story with any sort of credibility or effectiveness without a willingness to really "go there." There were times in the course of writing this book that I had to phone my shrink to talk about what I was feeling. There were times when I could not write for weeks on end because of the whirlwind of emotion I suffered after writing certain scenes. I think maybe my take is unique in that there are very few fiction stories out there that deal with this sort of subject matter at all, and among those, there are precious few authors who are willing or able to suffer through the process of feeling the events of a book like this. The reader reads the end product... just what they need to see to get the story... but the author has to find a way to put themselves there. While I recommend the book to everyone, I don't recommend the process I went through to write it. It was a tremendously emotional experience for me that I don't think I will ever "get over".

Angel: How much of your personal journey seeped into the pages of The TroubleMaker?

Sevastian: This is a book of fiction. There are some people who have existed in my life and even some situations from my life that I took from to create the story, but in all cases, I used embellishment, fabrication, and artistic license to weave the story that best imparts the various messages of this book. This story is life laid bare, but it is not my life laid bare.

Angel: Will the book appeal to certain people more than others or do you believe it has universal appeal and, if so, why?

Sevastian: Well I hope it has universal appeal, but it was written with a certain generation in mind for sure. I know from the outset that the book will appeal to transpeople, for whom there is very little fiction that accurately portrays the trans experience, and I think that women tend to be more open to the idea of the trans experience, so there is a sense in which women will appreciate this book and it's emotions too. Sadly, the reader I most want for this book may be a bit more elusive and that is the male reader who is now between 35 and 45 years old. We grew up in a world where we had to learn for ourselves what it means to be husbands and fathers...and in a sense, because so many of us were hurt in our youth due to increased vulnerability when the family structure collapsed, we have a generation of men trying to do our best to be good fathers and good husbands but we are far too often trapped in the prisons of our past. It is hard to be good husbands and good fathers when vulnerability scares us as badly as it does. The message of this book is universal. It is my hope that so too will be its appeal.

Angel: Tell us the one thing you hope everyone takes away after reading The TroubleMaker.

Sevastian: A path to the sort of strength it requires to free ourselves from emotional prisons.

Angel: Is there anything else you would like to share with your future readers?

Sevastian: This is a good story, but it is also a hard story. Most of what I write is more frivolous and fun, but this is likely the most important thing I will ever write. I really went there, and I am honored by each and every person who decides to share with me the experience of this story which I poured so much of my soul into. Thank you in advance for supporting me by reading it.