Their 1988 marriage weathered Boylan's 2002 sexual reassignment surgery and they are together still as loving, if not entirely intimate, partners.
Jenny Boylan is a tall, slender blonde who often gets hit on by men heedless of her wedding ring. And she is happily married, buoyed by the pleasures of parenting, teaching, and writing.
Her groundbreaking memoir, She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders (Broadway Books, 2003), was the first best-seller by a transgender American.
It landed her on Larry King Live twice, a Barbara Walters special, the Today show, the History Channel, CBS's 48 Hours, and Oprah Winfrey (four times). She played herself in two episodes of All My Children, and Will Forte played her for a skit on Saturday Night Live.
She got, still gets, tons of letters. Some from transgender individuals and some from people coping with the difficult changes or realities in their lives.
"Moms with autistic children, men who want to act on career changes. . . . "
The recognition also led to situations that might be comical if not for their outrageous nature: "I've actually had photographers ask if they can get a shot of me putting on my panty hose."
Her second memoir, I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted (Broadway Books, 2008), is set in this Devon home, originally known as the Coffin House, for the earliest owners of the land on which it was built. It was here that she looked at her reflection in a mirror one day and saw a woman standing behind her - an ethereal image, perhaps, of the woman she would become.
She also has new work to share: a young-adult novel, Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror (Katherine Tegen Books, 2010), a Harry Potteresque work written with inspiration from her boys.
