Bo Laurent
A life, assembled in essays
I am writing a memoir about a life shaped by intersex advocacy, historical documents, friendship, and the long afterlife of memory. This site is where parts of that book first take form—alongside research, archival discoveries, and occasional notes from the present.
From the memoir
Four Hands: Between us, a whole reader
The year Tokyo discovered beef, in a bestseller almost no one can read now. Two friends decode it across an ocean.
The Self-Referential Kangaroo
A remembered joke opens into recursion, recognition, and an infinite hall of mirrors.
Looking for the students of Mary Dell Morrison
A search for the mathematics teacher who first placed a computer—and a future—in my hands.
Latest writing
Other paths through the archive
Intersex history
Personal and movement history from decades in intersex advocacy.
Japanese history
Old books, difficult handwriting, and encounters with vanished worlds.
About the writer
I spent decades in the intersex rights movement before turning more fully toward writing and historical research. The memoir grows from that public history, but also from the quieter lives surrounding it: teachers, friends, old books, difficult questions, and memories that refused to disappear.
I also maintain bolaurentpapers.org, an online archive of documents from the movement’s early years.