Shannon T.L. Kearns is ready to talk. Ready to talk about why being a man can be confusing. To talk about masculinity, hopefully without the word “toxic” in front of it. And to talk about why, as a transgender man, he has a unique perspective on all of that.
Kearns hopes his self-help book, No One Taught Me How to Be a Man, will spark conversation about what manhood means.
He says his “big dream is that groups of men will buy it and read it and have conversations and create community around the topics and ideas”.
The book says that, yes, a lot has changed in our culture and is still changing. That can be confusing. But it also can be an opportunity to rethink what it means to be a man.
“We get to choose what our embodiment of masculinity looks like and we have the responsibility to choose well,” said Kearns, 44, a playwright, author, ordained priest and teacher who lives with his wife, Ashley Hovell, in rural Kansas in the United States.