For two decades, Robie H. Harris’ It’s Perfectly Normal has been a bestselling book for tweens on puberty, sex, gender, and growing up. The last edition was LGBTQ inclusive—to a point. The latest edition, out today, is even more so. But has it done enough? I explore in detail.
Changes to a Classic
The new edition of It’s Perfectly Normal retains many of the things that made earlier editions a hit (and also made it one of the most challenged books of the last decade): Harris’ frank and informative tone (lightened by a cartoon bird and bee who provide humorous commentary in the margins), and the explicit but not prurient illustrations by Michael Emberley. It covers sex and gender, puberty, masturbation, reproduction (including a chapter on assisted insemination, surrogacy, and adoption), birth control, abortion, sexual health, sexual abuse, staying safe online, and making responsible choices.
The publisher, Candlewick Press, is touting changes to this edition that include:
- A shift to gender-neutral vocabulary throughout
- An expansion on LGBTQIA topics, gender identity, sex, and sexuality—making this a sexual health book for all readers
- Coverage of recent advances in methods of sexual safety and contraception with corresponding illustrations
- A revised section on abortion, including developments in the shifting politics and legislation as well as an accurate, honest overview
- A sensitive and detailed expansion on the topics of sexual abuse, the importance of consent, and destigmatizing HIV/AIDS
- A modern understanding of social media and the internet that tackles rapidly changing technology to highlight its benefits and pitfalls and ways to stay safe online
Notable Improvements
The greater inclusion of LGBTQ identities is clear from the start. Just compare the first section of the first chapter, which in the 2014 edition was titled, “Girl or Boy, Female or Male. Sex and Gender.” In the new edition, it’s “Babies, Kids, Preteens, Teens. Sex and Gender.” The new chapter also describes the difference between sex (body parts) and gender (internal feelings). It even notes that some cities and states now allow people or their parents to change the gender on their birth certificates.
The chapter on genes, instead of “Instructions from Mom and Dad,” is now “Instructions—Information.” In the chapter on “Making Babies,” instead of “Certain parts of our bodies make it possible for a male and a female, when their bodies have grown up, to reproduce—to make babies,” the new edition says, “When our bodies have grown up and become adult bodies, certain parts of our bodies make it possible to reproduce—to make babies.”
In the chapter on queer identities, the new edition expands beyond the old one’s focus on just L, G. B, and T. The Q is added for Queer and Questioning, and there’s also information on pansexual, asexual, genderfluid, pangender, nonbinary, and other queer identities, as well as on respectful pronoun use. The text has also been updated to convey changes in society and law, like the legalization of marriage for all same-sex couples in 2015, and the use of bathroom signage that says “All Genders.” (Though it feels weak to say, “several schools and public places” have such signs. Better might have been: “many schools and public places.”)
Still Falling Short
The extra attention to updating the LGBTQ content of the book and being inclusive of all genders is welcome. I applaud the intent. Despite this, the book still has numerous ways in which it falls short in its inclusion of LGBTQ identities. First, it sometimes uses the terms “male” and “female” to refer to gender—but because it also refers to a “female body” and a “male body,” young readers may be confused about whether a trans man has a “male body” or a trans woman has a “female body.” (At one point it says that “most” girls have female sex organs and “most” boys have male ones, which is true—but if not all of them do, then it seems it shouldn’t use the terms “female body” and “male body” as if they were definitive. And in any case, this all seems to oversimplify the many physical, hormonal, and genetic variations that comprise one’s sex.) Contrast the recent Puberty Is Gross but Also Really Awesome, by Gina Loveless, which uses “assigned male” and “assigned female” to refer to sex and bodies—a little clunkier, maybe, but also clearer, IMHO. (See my review of that book for more.)
Despite the claim of “gender-neutral vocabulary throughout,” there are a number of instances where gendered terms still remain. The chapter on puberty uses “girls” and “boys” several times in reference to menstruation and erections/ejaculation, respectively, and in noting when puberty starts for the different sexes. While many references to someone who is pregnant say “pregnant person,” there’s at least one reference to “pregnant women.” There are also numerous mentions of “the mother” in the chapter on birth (including at least once with the pronoun “her”) that would have been more gender inclusive as “the pregnant person” or “the person giving birth.” Finally, the chapter on abortion law, although it refers to “people who are pregnant,” also says things like, “People have very strong feelings about whether or not a woman or a girl has the right to decide to have an abortion.” It would have been more inclusive to again use “pregnant person” here and to note that laws related to abortion apply to pregnant people of any gender.
The new edition acknowledges intersex identities, which is good, but its definition seems weak. It explains, “Most babies are born with either a vagina or a penis. Some babies are born with a mixture of male body parts and female body parts. If a person is born with that mixture, their sex is ‘intersex,’ which is the word that is often used to describe that mixture.” That’s only one aspect of what it can mean to be intersex, however; sometimes there are only hormonal or chromosomal differences without physical manifestations. As Planned Parenthood notes, some intersex people “have genitals or internal sex organs that fall outside the male/female categories,” but others “are born with external genitals that fall into the typical male/female categories, but their internal organs or hormones don’t.” (See also InterACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth.)
Also, significantly, there are no obviously transgender or intersex people depicted in the book. (One person in the section on LGBTQ identities reads as nonbinary. A couple of other people throughout might be, but it’s hard to tell.) The lack of trans and intersex bodies is particularly noticeable on a two-page spread titled “All Kinds of Bodies,” showing naked bodies of various shapes, sizes, and abilities. All read as cisgender. Yes, it’s not always obvious when someone is trans or intersex, but how hard would it have been to include an image of, say, a pregnant trans man? Or a person whose face and hair reads as a woman’s but who has a penis, or someone whose face and hair reads as man’s but who has a vulva? Perhaps, though, not depicting any naked transgender bodies is a respectful move, given the intrusive and inappropriate questions many people have about transgender people’s genitalia—or conversely, perhaps not including them in an image of “All Kinds of Bodies” makes people wonder more about them and offers trans youth no mirrors of themselves. I leave it to transgender readers (and parents of trans kids) to opine on which approach they prefer here. In any case, though, I think the book could have at least shown clothed trans people—heck, give one of them a trans flag-colored scarf or a shirt that says “Trans Lives Matter” if nothing else.
I’ll also note that despite all the information on bodies, hormones, and trans identities, the book doesn’t mention the idea of gender-affirming surgery or hormones. Even leaving gender-affirming surgery and hormones aside, it also doesn’t mention any ways that trans youth can feel more comfortable with their bodies as they go through puberty. The most we learn is that “Transgender people may change the way they dress or their name to match the gender they believe they really are.” Again contrast Puberty Is Gross but Also Really Awesome, which discusses binders (for trans boys) and padded bras and tucking (for trans girls) as ways that they may do so.
It’s Perfectly Normal is aimed at children 10 years old and up. Harris’ book on similar topics for children 7 to 10 years old, It’s So Amazing!, which was also last published in 2014, is scheduled for a revised edition as well, tentatively set for 2022. The publisher was not able to provide any information about an update to her book for children 4 to 8, It’s Not the Stork.
Luckily, we seem to be in a mini-renaissance of LGBTQ-inclusive books for kids about gender, bodies, and sex ed, including ones for younger children as well as tweens and teens. (See the bottom of my review of Puberty Is Gross for a comparison of several for the same tween age group as It’s Perfectly Normal.)
Overall, the new edition of It’s Perfectly Normal improves upon the last in terms of LGBTQ inclusiveness, but still falls short in some areas and is inconsistent in others. Diversity in other ways is evident: images are of people with various racial and ethnic identities, body types, and physical abilities. If you like Harris’ style from her earlier books, then this one is worth picking up as a step forward, but you may want to supplement it with some other books that more fully discuss and depict LGBTQ lives and bodies.