Sincerely, Katherine.
Life, Gender, Inclusivity, and Leadership for the Future
Speaking to the importance of self-awareness and self-acceptance when it comes to weathering challenges, Sincerely, Katherine. is an empathetic LGBTQ+ memoir.
Katherine Dudtschak’s affirming memoir Sincerely, Katherine. is about her major midlife shift to embrace her true self.
Although Dudtschak was aware of feeling unsettled throughout her early life, it wasn’t until she was fifty and dropping one of her children off at college that she glimpsed a poster advocating gender inclusivity and came to the life-changing personal realization that she was “a woman who affirmed her gender,” someone who “found and embraced [their] essence.” Having come of age in the 1970s on a mink farm in rural Canada, her decision to transition was fraught. She had a family and a public-facing career as a bank executive; though she was wary to come out, she knew that she “still had to face the world”; she says, “You can retreat or you can put yourself out there.” She ended up receiving a touching amount of support at home and at work, though, despite her misgivings.
The book extends beyond Dudtschak’s own story to touch upon related topics and concerns, including the stories of her parents and grandparents, who had traumatic experiences in Europe during World War II and later struggled as immigrants with little to their names. These backstories fold into the book’s examination of generational trauma, for example, which is most pronounced in its later sections. Also broadening the book’s perspective are its treatments of mental health challenges in the LGBTQ+ community and its coverage of Dudtschak’s initiative to share business leaders’ personal stories in the workplace through a series of streamed interviews.
The prose is direct, empathetic, and unflinching, both in the course of sharing affirming stories and with difficult details, as about experiencing depression and Dudtschak’s eventual divorce. Even in relaying such hardships, though, the book is marked by positivity, speaking to the importance of self-awareness and self-acceptance when it comes to weathering challenges. Human spirituality suffuses the book, whose language is often inspirational: Dudtschak writes about choosing her new name, for instance, as a chance to “experience alignment, love, joy, peace, and bliss.” However, the full pages devoted to quotes from the text are visually distracting, breaking up the book’s otherwise diverse and rich progression—in particular because the chosen quotes don’t work as well out of context and end up being more of a interruption than an enhancement.
A moving memoir, Sincerely, Katherine. chronicles a gender transition later in life.
Reviewed by
Carolyn Wilson-Scott
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
