Thomas Page McBee (born 1981) ^[1] is an American transgender journalist, television writer, and amateur boxer. He was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden, ^[1] which he discusses in Amateur. His first book, Man Alive, won a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction. ^{[2] [3]}

McBee was born in Hickory, North Carolina, in 1981 ^[1] and grew up outside of Pittsburgh. ^[4]

McBee has noted that he "knew [he] wasn't a girl before [he] knew much of anything." ^[5] However, he also did not resonate with men's "jockeying power dynamics or aversion to hugs." ^[5] In his late-twenties, he realized that although he "didn't connect with the cultural expectations of Being a Man, [he] knew that [he]'d grown up and become one." ^[5] He began hormone replacement therapy when he was 30 years old and at 31, he received a new birth certificate from North Carolina Vital Records, an experience he described as feeling like he had been "born again". ^[5]

As of 2022, McBee lived in Los Angeles with his wife, Jessica Bloom. ^{[6] [7]}

Aside from writing, McBee was a senior editor at Quartz and taught at City University of New York. ^[8]

He has also served as an advisor at West Virginia University's Graduate School of Journalism. ^{[8] [7]}

McBee has written regular columns in The Rumpus ("Self-Made Man"), ^[9] Them ("Amateur"), ^[10] Bitch, ^[11] Pacific Standard ("The American Man"), ^[12] and Teen Vogue. ^[13] His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, T Magazine, Esquire, GQ, Glamour, Playboy, The Atlantic, VICE, ^[14] and other publications.

In 2019 and 2020, McBee wrote episodes for Netflix's Tales of the City and Showtime's The L Word: Generation Q. ^[15] He has also appeared on the documentary film No Ordinary Man and the mini-series The Art of Intersection. ^[15]

In 2021, McBee was a supervising producer on The Umbrella Academy, where he architected a storyline in which Elliot Page's character transitions to male, mirroring the actor's real-world transition. ^[16] In 2022, he served as a writer and co-producer on the fourth season of The Umbrella Academy.

He is currently developing several film and television projects, including a television adaptation for Amateur. ^[6]

Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man was published August 14, 2018, by Scribner.

The book received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, ^[17] as well as positive reviews from Kirkus, ^[18] The New Republic, ^[19] Buzzfeed, ^[20] Booklist, ^[21] The Rumpus, ^[22] The Guardian, ^[23] Los Angeles Review of Books, ^[24] and Shelf Awareness. ^{[25] [26]}

Amateur was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, ^[27] nominated for The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, ^[28] and shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize.

Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man was published September 9, 2014, by City Lights Publishers.

The book received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, ^[29] Kirkus Reviews, ^[30] Lambda Literary Foundation, ^[31] and Library Journal. ^[32]

Man Alive won a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction. ^{[2] [3]}

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