This novel is a fictional story heavily shaped by Kai’s real life as a transgender girl and activist growing up in Texas. The protagonist, 12-year-old Joy, has just moved to Texas with her divorced mother. Her family supports her identity, and she’s beginning to make friends and practice her newfound love of cheerleading with her “Sparkle Squad.” When her school principal says she can’t be on the school cheerleading team because she’s not a girl, however, she decides to challenge him, and later to speak out against anti-trans legislation in the state, inspired by her hero, Kai Shappley, who has done the same. In fact, she even ends up meeting Kai and her mother, who help Joy and her family in their fight.
Joy is “just a kid” whose life (like Kai’s) is full of friends and fun and bolstered by her Christian faith, and whose only exposure to “perversion” and “indoctrination” is when those words (which she must look up to understand) are used by those speaking against her. Joy’s mother, though supportive, wants to protect her daughter from the inevitable hateful comments that Joy’s activism will trigger online and in the media. As Joy and her mother navigate this together (as I imagine Kai and her mom have, too), they provide a model for readers and their families who may be going through something similar.
Details from Kai’s real life are woven into the tale—but a fictional protagonist gives the narrative a greater flexibility. Kai’s appearance in the story as herself, however, reminds us of the tale’s real-life roots, and her interaction with Joy and her family underscores how real trans youth and their families are building networks of information and support. And co-author Lisa Bunker, both a published novelist and one of the first two trans women to serve in the New Hampshire legislature, has clearly brought to bear her writing skills, her knowledge of the trans community, and her knowledge of state legislative processes.
Kai and her family left Texas in 2022 because of the state’s increasingly harsh anti-trans laws, but her deep familiarity with life there for trans youth makes this a resonant, empowering book that trans youth in anti-trans states may particularly appreciate. The book’s storyline of a determined young person fighting for her rights with the help of her family and friends, however, should have an even wider appeal.
