So glad I chose this to be my queer read for June! (note to self: seek out more queer lit year round not just June)


This was NOT an easy read at all - I felt so much pain and heartbreak for Jess and I just wanted her to win so so so badly. Jess' journey navigating life as a butch lesbian and then as a transgender(?) man and grappling with gender dysphoria in rural America made me very sympathetic to everyone who has struggled with this experience. Jess felt so trapped, so lonely, so afraid and it was entirely because WE made her feel that way. We made her feel like she couldnt live freely as her true self, that it was wrong and sick and unnatural. We criminalized her existence and her right to love. She had so much hurt in her that she didn't need to have, that we gave her! I'm sorry Jess :/ The book did end on a lighter note full of hope for the future and a call to organize which I really appreciated. And the book wasn't all hurt. There were lots of sweet tender moments of free love and community building and seeing each other beyond gender, class, or race. Just seeing each other as human. I loved it.


This book made me think a lot about how I think about gender and sexuality and just how closed off I am. God I can't conceive anything outside of boy is boy and girl is girl and boy like girl and girl like boy. Like damn it's not that simple! It made me question why we insist on using labels and categorizing everything into neat little boxes. I feel like I still do that now with nonbinary folk, I've simply made it a 3rd thing that exists with our male/female binary instead of actually understanding it as breaking out of that binary, breaking out of the bounds and challenging what I know. I want to read more about gender and continue to challenge myself because this book made me realize that I am contributing to the struggle that Jess and other gender non-conforming folk feel because I keep trying to fit everyone into neat little boxes. Jess was so confused about who she was and sometimes she tried understanding it through the binary lens, but she really just wanted to live as a person as a human as just a fricking regular working class gal! Why did we make it so hard for her to do that?



I just celebrated Pride in SF and it was such a wonderful time. I got emotional at Dolores Park because everyone was happy, in community, celebrating their identities. I thought about how hard people have had to fight for that right, for the opportunity to live as themselves openly and freely. How people have actually died for that right. I thought about my place in the revolution about how I need to fight harder because the fight is no where near done. It was nice to feel the success of the revolution at pride, but I had to remind myself that I am in a little bubble in CA, that there is still tons of work to do especially for our trans friends right now. I want to be a better ally, I want to fight harder for everyones rights to live as their true selves without fear. I want to help create a better world. We are not truly free until our trans, black, queer, disabled friends are.


Anyway, I really recommend this book! RIP Leslie Feinberg.