I found the first story solid. But it is nonfiction and built off interviews so they control the narrative and how things happened. Not all of it is true, clearly, but some of it is exaggerated or not portrayed completely appropriately.

But Christina...

There's a distinct impression that if you write or draw a certain type of character it must be a reflection of who you are. As a person who edits and writes I can confirm that most people are not their characters. They write people who are entirely different from them and have nothing in common with them even. But this goes on to say that basically if you draw nothing but woman you might be a woman. Which doesn't really make sense, and feels very Freud.

I don't think I have a single character that I could confirm is entirely me except for a sona, so I don't know where they got this idea but the story feels very Freud and written badly. It has bad implications and Christina even names herself after a girl she wanted to be like. Like, just becoming someone else is not the solution. Being trans and being yourself is one thing but you can't just steal somebody else's name and become that person. That's a changeling not a human.

Christina's story shames people late into the hormonal treatment and carries a lot of internalized phobia. It also suggests that you should react with violence and get in fights and hurt everyone around you if they don't respect you. Which is a way to become a offender not a person to society. Fight for your rights, but don't just attack random people or anybody who won't say your pronouns. That's not going to fix the issue at all.

"Sex with me is the same as sex with a woman except I don't have the lady parts." Correction. It's the same as anal sex with a woman. Heterosexual anal sex and homosexual anal sex are no different.
The better sentence should be. "Sex with me is like having sex with a woman except I can't get pregnant as a consequence." That would have been so much better.

Story three...

Mariah's story involves a lot of child sexual abuse and sexualization for no reason other than it's part of her life but the problem is that it's not promoted as a bad thing that happened to her, she brags about kissing boys and knowing what sex is a lot but that's not a good thing. It treats the molestation and the sexualization of a young child as just a normal part of life. This book should be calling it out and saying if any of these things happen to you you should contact an adult or something along that line.

This book being in school should alert kids that certain behavior or treatment is not normal and it should get them to speak out about home abuse or sexual touching at a young age. But instead it normalizes it and makes it just part of the process of being a trans person or an LGBT person.

While LGBT people do suffer worse abuse statistically then heterosexuals, it should not be normalized that part of being LGBT is being abused or hurt by other people.

Mariah is now eleven in the story and has had sex for the first time. What? She's a kid!

She then meets an older teenager at the age of fourteen...

This is not normal, and this should not be normalized.

Cameron's story.

Cameron experience is not dysphoria and instead just sort of changes gender and acts better than other people for doing it. Cameron also expresses opinions that are negative towards others. And acts better than people just because they found their gender.

Much like the rest of these stories it really puts down being a female and looks down on feminine traits and being feminine. I'm not sure why this is a running trend. But they're controlling the narratives so everything is up to their words. Basically any of this sexism is on them.

Cameron story is just a bunch of I do this because men don't do it. I so because men don't sell, I quilt because men don't quilt, I put makeup on because men don't wear makeup, sadly they fall into all the gender stereotypes and believe those. Actions don't have gender. Jobs don't have gender. And hobbies do not have a gender. The idea of giving gender roles to these hobbies is outdated information that Cameron falls into. I definitely did not enjoy that.

Cameron also wants to start a gender revolution and fight people which likely would get people killed but obviously this is a young child having fantastical ideas.

Nat believes that because they have PCOS they are a third gender. I have family members with this condition and they do not see it as a gender but just a health problem. PCOS is not a gender identity it is a medical condition that is very concerning and can be life-threatening.

This one also continues the female hatred and the very sharp bias of negativity towards females. It's very icky.

Luke is final for the book. I skipped most of the good ones but here's what we end on. He plays a trans character in an acting play. The adult sounds like a groomer who had way too much interest in Luke. The teacher hand selected a twelve year old to be trans. He gets Luke alone and encourages him that he's trans when he's thinking he's a lesbian.

His home life is terrible and likely abusive. It somehow works out perfectly.

Nothing in this book helps trans and LGBT kids. It's shallow and lacking advice or heart on what to do or the risks. Multiple grooming situations are played off as no big deal. This story would have messed me up more than helped me and it's extremely sexist.

I don't recommend it at all.

2 stars.

Harmful to the LGBT and trans community. ( )

audiosync free title 2023 (various narrators, 4h35m)

nonfiction, queer pride - personal interviews with several teens/young adults (and sometimes their loved ones or acquaintances) representing different backgrounds and different identities on the gender spectrum (trans-male, trans-female, and nonbinary, including an intersex/nonbinary person). Helpful as a sort of starting place for people who may already be questioning their own gender identities, as well as the people who want to support them, with information about transition processes and other experiences. It's relatively short and not the most comprehensive resource in terms of representation of the (much vaster) spectrum of people and experiences, but I think it can still help uninformed people (esp. cis-people) become better informed. ( )

In Kuklin's book, the reader is introduced to six transgender teens who are willing to share their journey and struggles in being a transgender person. Kuklin lets each teen tell their own story in their own words and interjects what she has observed or questions she may have asked along the way. There are also beautiful pictures that adjoin (almost) every experience.

This book really pushed me to the edge of my comfort zone. The first three teens were very hard for me to empathize with. Some of their opinions did not fit what I expected to hear in this book. The last three teens were much easier to identify with and I think that's because their interviews didn't seem forced, they seemed so natural and honest. After reading the book, I reflected on all six teens and I think that though what they said and possibly what they were doing didn't fit my view, it was their life, it was their story, and it was true for them. It made me look at them a little different than I had when I originally read the book. I don't know that this book is for everyone. There will always be people who will be against a certain lifestyle, who will think that what they're doing is a choice. To some extent, it is a choice, but it's a choice for them to live their most genuine, authentic life. After all, that's all we can ask of anyone. To be happy with who they are, regardless of what anyone else might think or expect of them. ( )

Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a really difficult book to rate. Kuklin gathers together stories of different transgender teenagers at various stages in their coming out process and talks with them about their lives up until this point. It's heartbreaking to read about the challenges each individual has faced and see the hate and discrimination they deal with everyday. Yet at the same time, I found myself wanting to scream at some of the things the teens were saying about the world, gender, and just life in general. Overall, I just took a few deep breaths and remembered that I was a teenager once as well and I said some pretty silly things too.

Definitely worth the read to gain perspective into what it's like to grow up in a body that feels wrong around people who don't understand. And really, that right there is worth many more than just 3 stars. ( )

This really was a great book. Reading about Transgender teens and how things went in their own words really helps to understand the community more. ( )