Helen Boyd is the pen name of Gail Helen Kramer (born May 13, 1969), an American author and activist. Her spouse is actor Rachel E. Crowl. Boyd is a prominent activist for spouses of transgender people.
Background
Boyd grew up in Oceanside, New York with working class social justice Catholics parents, graduating high school in 1987. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English and Masters in Writing from City College of New York in 1995.
Boyd and Crowl began dating around 1998 and were married in 2001.
I interviewed Boyd for our video series on Coming Out.
Books
My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser (2004)
In that book’s criticism of The Man Who Would Be Queen by J. Michael Bailey, Boyd inadvertently reified the concept of “autogynephilia” despite criticizing its key proponents:
In the crossdressing community, the man who admits he is turned on by his dressing is still considered a pervert. The autogynephilic transsexual will not receive the same sympathy for her transsexualism as the non-autogynephilic transsexual. That’s exactly what makes Bailey’s book so dangerous: it allows transsexual women to be condemned by our society for having “perverse” sexual arousal patterns.
She’s Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband (2007)
Resources
Helen Boyd (helenboydbooks.com)
(en)gender (myhusbandbetty.com)
Patreon: Helen Boyd (patreon.com/hbkramer)