(bluestockings, NYC, 22 Nov 2016)

Not exactly what it says on the tin, but good all the same. ( )

In this book, Coyote recounts some of their most memorable experiences as a youngster, teenager, young adult. The focus is on their trans-experience, but they also talk about moments common to all of us: growing up in a family with all its ups and downs. This is what makes Coyote's book so endearing: while there are scenes that a cis-gendered person could never understand (notably bathrooms and pronouns), there are others that are all too familiar. Coyote also alternates between pain, joy and moments of pure grace: it is sometimes disheartening to read about prejudice but also so uplifting to come across kindness, consideration and respect.
My favourite scene: the gender reveal party which is Coyote displaying their humour at its best.
A heartwarming, heartbreaking, instructive read. ( )

This memoir is how memoirs should be.

Coyote's tender craftsmanship is incredible. Their vignettes are like memories, with a message they tie into their later life, like a lifeline. Each time you read a new vignette, you can feel it building and building, until they release it like a rope, coiling at your feet. The message comes through. This is why they wrote this.

Arsenal Pulp Press published this book and they are definitely one of my favourite publishers. They've included gorgeous illustrations and etchings of usually things that you would find in instruction manuals. How to tie knots, how to cast on knitting, the component parts of a generator, how to use a hacksaw, which gives the stories such great individual texture. Each of the etchings means something to the story and it just adds another layer of polish to an already fantastic book.

A trans friend of mine read this and she said she cried on average every 23 pages, good tears and bad tears. Any time she didn't cry, she laughed.

It was the same for me.

I love Ivan. I feel like so many trans books and memoirs are ... written to help cisgender people to understand trans people. And the problem with some of those is that you begin to see only the one side of a person, the trans side.

Ivan Coyote is more than their trans-ness, and by writing moments of their lived experience, you begin to understand how they live their life as a trans person, without it ever being a spectacle. Coyote writes for everyone.

Their writing is soft in a world that tried to make them hard. They have thoughtful insights on gender and how that makes us the way we are.

Coyote often says that the world didn't make space for their trans body, but every time they write a book (and they've written 11), they make space for another trans person. And another, and another, and another.

Because I have short hair, I'm often asked by lots of people:

"Are you a boy or a girl?"

My favourite response tends to be: "Yes."

They frown, tilt their heads, try to guess. Try to ask me to confirm, but I won't budge. I shrug, smile, grin, don't say much.

I've spent 17 hour flights being called alternating titles "Sir", "Miss", and it felt liberating to have the chokehold of gender away from me for a little while.

Kids are also fun because their concepts of gender, from so young, are so rigid.

"If blue is a boy's colour and pink is a girl's colour, what's yellow?"

Oh, how they argue. How they bicker. How they defend that yellow is a girl's colour because princess' hair is blonde and ...!!

But then I got to the chapters were Coyote discussed going to a public bathroom. And as much as I like to flirt with gender, poke at it, irritate it, I've never been called out in a lady's bathroom.

I argue in favour of bathroom equality a lot. I've seen disabled bathrooms up a flight of stairs with no lift access (???), I've seen single dads hurrying into lady's bathrooms with their tiny tiny daughters because there was no parents room, all the while being judged. And I always say that if people of any gender can use your bathroom at home, then, ta da! You have yourself a gender-neutral bathroom. Congratulations.

And while I knew, of course, that using a public bathroom as a trans person was a risk for trans people, Coyote still taught me so much.

So now, any time I go anywhere, I'll look for gender-neutral bathrooms. I will make note of the ones that are less busy, I'll use my disability and allow a trans person to come into the disabled bathroom with me, if that makes them more comfortable.

My point is this: Tomboy Survival Guide made me a better ally. ( )

I really liked it… the beginning felt a bit boring, the later stories were super touching in that way that makes me cry good fluffy tears.

And while reading, I discovered just how not-butch I am, and how also not very masculine, and that I was never much of a tomboy – which shouldn't surprise me, but like, I guess I just assumed that as a transmasculine person I would be more of those things. Instead I practiced my french braid while reading. ( )

This was just so kind; you can really feel welcomed by it, and the stories are so engaging and tell so much. I appreciate Coyote's attention to care throughout, as well as the multiple responses to people asking for help. The brief interludes are also beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking. Just such a good book, and one I'd strongly recommend for both trans folks and cis people. ( )