Audre Lorde, a Caribbean-American writer, faced many hardships throughout her life, especially growing up in the 1950s as an African-American lesbian. He takes the reader through the obstacles in his life and shares his feelings of isolation and longing in his biomythography Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Kate Bornstein, American author and playwright, shares her personal experience of undergoing a sex change. She also discusses the gender system and the problems she encountered as a trans woman. In Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, author Audre Lorde exposes the difficulties of growing up in a society that was racist and unaccepting of her lifestyle. Lorde's various relationships throughout her life have certainly played a role in shaping the individual she has become. Her mother was very protective and tried to hide the racism that surrounded her. For example, her mother told her that white people have a bad habit of spitting into the wind while spitting directly at Audre because of her color. With aging comes Audre's realization of how s...