In Transit by Brigid Brophy

"Was I, perhaps, castrato/a? Was the truth behind my oblivion that I had no sex?"

At the airport, Pat – an Anglo-Irish character of undetermined gender at the heart of In Transit – is called to a heroic quest. Adrift within the confines of the airport’s physical space and time zones, they undergo a journey of self-discovery that embraces tangents, digressions, and undecidability.

As supersonic Concordes soar in the skies outside, inside the airport Pat is uprooted: they savour a trendy cappuccino, walk through magazine stalls, engross themselves in the operatic melodies at the airline lounge.

They hop on a baggage conveyor leading to an underground feminist movement, engage in a lively trivia game show and witness the sparks of a socialist revolution. 

After they become a character in an erotic thriller and detective novel, Pat encounters death, and emerges reborn—all while navigating sudden shifts in gender due to the onset of ‘sexual amnesia’. 

Brophy’s experimental non-binary 1969 anti-novel was decades ahead of its time. At once a refusal to be identified, and irreverent celebration of identity's undoing.