LGBTQ+ Paperback History Panther Edition of Geoff Brown’s Early Transgender Novel I Want What I Want 1972

Geoff Brown Transgender History

Ephemera and pamphlets

Brown, Geoff. I Want What I Want, 1972 Panther edition of Brown’s 1966 novel, follows Wendy Ross as she leaves her father’s home and attempts to live independently as a woman in working-class Britain. Brown depicts experiences that were unusual subjects for mainstream British fiction of the period: wearing women’s clothing in secret, violence from a disapproving father, encounters with psychiatry, living publicly as a woman, relationships, and the desire for gender-affirming surgery. First published in 1966, the novel preceded a period of greater transgender visibility in British film and television and was adapted for cinema in 1972; the British Film Institute has identified the resulting film as an early example of a transgender storyline in British cinema.

Brown, Geoff. I Want What I Want. London: Panther Books, Ltd., 1972. Mass-market paperback. 224 pages. Pictorial wrappers show a man facing a mirror in which a woman appears as his reflection, visually rendering the division between the identity assigned to the protagonist and Wendy’s life as a woman. The front-cover tagline states, “Roy was different from most boys---he was a girl...” Panther’s rear-wrapper copy further centers Wendy’s desire to determine her own life, including her wish to dress as a woman and obtain surgery. The paperback appeared the same year as John Dexter’s film adaptation, starring Anne Heywood as Roy/Wendy, Harry Andrews, and Jill Bennett.

Originally published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1966, I Want What I Want belongs to a comparatively small body of mid-twentieth-century British fiction centered on a transgender protagonist rather than introducing gender variance only as a comic or incidental device. Brown’s narrative gives sustained attention to Wendy’s attempts to establish a female identity despite paternal violence, psychiatric intervention, and the practical difficulties of transition. The 1972 film brought the story to a wider medium; contemporary and later responses have differed sharply over its treatment, with the Monthly Film Bulletin criticizing the adaptation as exploitative while the BFI has subsequently emphasized the compassion shown toward Wendy. Pages clean and bright. Overall very good condition. A 1972 paperback edition preserving Panther’s explicit transgender marketing of Brown’s 1966 novel in the year of its film adaptation.

Item #19211

Price: $225.00