Media kit for Brianna Nicole Austin — biographies at three lengths, a downloadable portrait, publication credits, and a direct line for press inquiries. Everything on this page is cleared for editorial use.
At a glance
- Name: Brianna Nicole Austin
- Role: Author, reporter, and columnist
- Beat: Transgender life, law, media, and culture
- Based: New York
- Currently: Co-founder and editor in chief, TG Life
- Writing since: the early 2000s
- Press contact: me@briannaaustin.com
Biographies
Three lengths, cleared for publication. Please use them as written rather than paraphrasing; if you need a different length, get in touch and one will be written for you.
Short — 54 words
Brianna Nicole Austin is a transgender author, reporter, and columnist who has covered transgender life since the early 2000s. She wrote the New York column “A Bite of the Big Apple” for GIRL TALK, reported for TG News and The New York Blade, and in 2004 co-founded TG Life, where she is editor in chief.
Medium — 156 words
Brianna Nicole Austin is a transgender author, reporter, and columnist who has been documenting transgender life since the early 2000s.
She spent her first career as an entrepreneur, building companies in the transportation and entertainment industries. In 2000, after thirty-five years of dressing in private, she began writing essays about the journey she was on — and found an international readership. Within a year she was the New York columnist for GIRL TALK, where “A Bite of the Big Apple” carried her from trans club shows to Broadway, and a contributing columnist for TG News.
She founded The Transgender Girls’ Club in 2001, co-hosted one of New York’s busiest monthly parties at East of Eighth, and in 2004 co-founded TG Life, the online magazine where she is editor in chief.
She writes to inform rather than argue — reporting the transgender experience plainly, and trusting readers to think for themselves.
Full — 431 words
Brianna Nicole Austin is a transgender author, reporter, and columnist who has spent more than two decades reporting on transgender life — and living it in public.
She was born a man in the baby-boomer years and, by most outward measures, played the part convincingly: an athlete, then a career entrepreneur who launched and ran a string of companies in the transportation and entertainment industries. The secret underneath it was older than any of that. Her first memory of feeling different came the afternoon her older sister dressed her up — a feeling she had no words for, only that it brought a startling sense of well-being. When her sister ran to fetch their mother, Brianna panicked and blocked the door. She went into the closet that day and stayed there, dressing in private, for another thirty-five years.
By 2000 she wanted to understand the compulsion, find its source, and — as she thought then — cure herself of it. What followed was a self-exploration she has described as pursued with almost reckless abandon. The further she came out, first inside the transgender community and later into the mainstream, the more comfortable she became. Not a girl, she says, just someone living a girl’s life, daily.
The writing began as a way of working it out, and quickly found an international following. Within a year she was the New York columnist for GIRL TALK, where her column “A Bite of the Big Apple” blended interviews, reviews, and commentary, carrying her from trans club shows and community events to mainstream Broadway. She became a contributing columnist for TG News, wrote cover articles for Transgender Community News, wrote features for LadyLike, and saw her essays republished across community resources including TG Guide.
Hearing Pauline Park speak at one of the first events she covered turned her toward advocacy. She began with an article for The New York Blade and kept going wherever she could educate. In 2001 she founded The Transgender Girls’ Club and co-hosted a monthly party at New York’s East of Eighth restaurant. In 2004 she co-founded TG Life, the online magazine by, for, and about the male-to-female transgender community, where she is editor in chief.
Her approach is reporting first: claims checked before publication, people given the chance to respond before they are characterized, opinion labeled and kept separate from reporting, and corrections made openly. She is careful with sources in a community where exposure can carry real risk.
“Is the reflection in the mirror me,” she has written, “or merely the taxi that carries ‘me’ around?”
Portrait
Download the full-resolution portrait · Download a square headshot (825 × 1024, WebP). If you need a different crop, orientation, or file format, ask and it will be sent.
As seen in
Selected credits, mostly print and web:
- GIRL TALK — New York columnist, “A Bite of the Big Apple”; cover articles
- TG News — contributing columnist
- Transgender Community News — cover articles
- LadyLike — feature articles
- The New York Blade — “Divorce and the Right”
- TG Life — co-founder and editor in chief
- TG Guide and other community resources — reprints
More of the work
For background beyond this page: the full About page covers her story, writing philosophy, and journalism ethics. News & Commentary carries current reporting, Books collects the novels and memoir, and Transgender History & Education is the reference pillar.
Press inquiries
Interview requests, review copies, speaking, and permissions. Please include your deadline.
Prefer email? Write directly to me@briannaaustin.com.