Gavin Grimm successfully fought his high school in federal court for the right to use the boy’s bathroom like the boy he is. To write a picture book about his experience, he teamed up with Kyle Lukoff, a two-time Stonewall Award winner, Newbery honoree, former children’s librarian, and also a trans man. I can think of no better pairing. Together with illustrator J Yang, they’ve given us a must-read book for readers of all identities.
Grimm and Lukoff frame If You’re a Kid Like Gavin: The True Story of a Young Trans Activist (Katherine Tegen Books) around choices and power that kids do—and don’t—have. Using present tense and a direct address to readers, they immediately set up a resonance with Grimm’s experience. “If you’re a kid like Gavin,” they tell us, you share many similarities with other kids. You can choose, like Gavin, to eat worms on a dare or to sneak a pet frog into your room. You don’t, however, get to choose your parents, or skin color, or where you grow up. And “If you’re a kid like Gavin Grimm, you don’t choose if you’re a boy or a girl”—an important reminder that transgender kids aren’t just “choosing” their gender, they are the gender that they know themselves to be. If you’re transgender like Gavin, however, the book continues, “you might choose to talk about it.”
That’s the segue into showing how Grimm came out to his family and attended high school as the boy that he is. We also see that, although he knew he should use the boys’ bathroom, he also wanted to be safe “from stares, from whispers, from rumors, or worse,” so he used the nurse’s bathroom. When “no one seemed to mind” that he was coming to school as his true self, he eventually decided he didn’t want to use the nurse’s bathroom “like someone who was sick,” but rather the boys’ room. The principal agreed to this.
If you know anything of Grimm’s story, you’ll know what happened next. A teacher began agitating against him, telling parents that he was really a girl and should use the girls’ room. He began to be bullied and harassed. “If you’re a kid like Gavin, you’ll be terrified,” we read. Grimm chose to fight back, however, speaking out locally and reaching out to the ACLU for help. He also spoke with other trans kids and tried to help them, too.
Grimm and Lukoff do not get into the details of Grimm’s years-long legal battle for the right to use the restroom that matched his gender, but that feels appropriate for the picture-book age group. Instead, they focus on Grimm’s feelings and his broad desire to live as his true self. The choice to be oneself and use the bathroom as oneself “aren’t choices that any kid should have to make,” they tell us, but for Grimm and kids like him, “it’s the most important choice of all.” Furthermore, they tell readers, “Since you’re a kid like Gavin,” you can always choose to “believe in yourself and fight for what you believe in.” The book ends with two full, affirming spreads of Grimm at rallies in support of trans people.
For trans children, the phrase “if you’re a kid like Gavin” may have a particular meaning related to trans identities; for others, it may evoke how Grimm stood up for himself or simply the many ways in which he was like so many other kids: going to school, celebrating birthdays with family, and having lunch with friends. Readers of all identities will have a way into the story—a way that prepares them to sympathize with Grimm’s perspective on who he is and why he fights for that. As Grimm himself says in an Authors’ Note, “I hope that children are able to identify with my story whether or not they are trans.”
J Yang’s illustrations are bold and expressive, showing us details of Grimm’s everyday life at home and at school as well as in the media spotlight. End papers in swirling pink, white, and blue echo the trans flag in a lovely touch, while the rainbow-hued cover is both beautiful and makes it easy for librarians and booksellers to identify the book as a title for LGBTQ-themed displays.
Although I have long said that we need more LGBTQ kids’ books that aren’t “about” being LGBTQ, I will also be the first to say that there are exceptions, particularly when it comes to historical events and biographies of LGBTQ-rights heroes. The story of Grimm’s choices, resilience, and commitment to being himself, told powerfully by him and one of the best children’s book authors around, bar none, should be on everyone’s bookshelf.