In all the debates about the lives of transgender youth, the voices of the youth themselves are often missing. Award-winning journalist Nico Lang therefore spent a year traveling the country and spending hours with eight trans youth and their families, gaining insight into the lives and dreams behind the political rhetoric. This resulting volume gives us a powerful and personal look at these young people and those who support them.
Lang weaves compelling and in-depth portraits of each youth’s life, sharing everyday details as well as broader reflections from the young people and their families: Wyatt, from Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Rhydian, from Birmingham, Alabama; Mykah, from Charleston, West Virginia; Ruby, from Houston, Texas; Clint, from Chicago, Illinois; siblings Augie and Jack, from Pensacola, Florida; and Kylie, from Torrance, California. Their lives vary widely, in their socioeconomic circumstances, racial identities, gender, relationships to their faiths (including Christianity and Islam), current interests, future plans, how they have felt the impact of anti-trans laws and sentiments, their interest (or lack thereof) in activism, and much more. Above all, though, we see that these diverse young people have many of the same joys, worries, and hopes as young people anywhere, although they also have to grapple with outside forces that are attempting to suppress who they are and constrain how they live their lives.
As Lang notes in the introduction, though, “Rather than putting forward a grand unified theory of transgender teendom or exploiting these stories to advance a polemical argument, I attempt to avoid flattening the complexity of their experiences. This book eschews sweeping statements in favor of the small moments that illuminate a life, sidesteps overgeneralizations in favor of the rich detail of human experience, and attempts to allow transgender kids to express everything they’ve never been given the chance to say.” It’s a powerful approach, and I won’t mar it by trying to come up with any grand summation here, either. The one overarching assertion Lang does make, however, is that “Transgender kids want the same things that all other kids want, and that begins with the ability to make their own decisions and choices, to find their way through trial and error, to feel validated and seen for who they are and what they desire.”
Parents, advocates, educators, policy makers, health care providers, and others should be less likely to doubt that after reading this vital volume. Highly recommended.
