Prologue
The opening scene of the book—in the Prologue even before Chapter 1—the situation is set through imagery. It is powerful, though clearly manipulated by withholding the vital piece of information as long as possible. One day, perhaps, this information—that the child in question who is a little boy is wearing a pink tutu (and not ironically at the will of his parents)—will no longer be vital.
“The child is mesmerized. Tapping his toes and shuffling his small sandaled feet in a kind of awkward dance, he swirls and twirls, not in front of the camera, but in front of the window in the shiny black oven door. It’s just the right height for a two-year-old. Wyatt is bare chested and wears a floppy hat on the back of his head. A string of colorful Mardi Gras beads swings around his neck. But what has really caught his attention, what has made this moment magical, are the shimmering sequins on his pink tutu.”
Ariel in the Mirror
It likely cannot be described as universal, but perhaps comes pretty close. If there is one character in all of American pop culture that most biological males suffering from gender dysphoria seem to latch onto—whether consciously or subconsciously depending on their own level of self-awareness of the issue—as a metaphor for what they feel, it is the beautiful redhead in the Disney animated film The Little Mermaid. Exactly what stimulates this near phenomenon is explained perfectly through imagery very early in the book:
“Ariel’s problem, however, is that she lives in one world, under the sea, even as she yearns to be in another, on land. As she gazes at her image in a mirror beneath the waves, she feels comforted by the top half of her reflection. It’s the bottom that doesn’t make sense. Because she yearns to be a girl, a human female, she wants nothing more than to escape her mermaid’s tail, which is why, against her father’s wishes, she swims to the surface whenever she can to watch the humans aboard passing ships.”
Judges
Between the Prologue and Chapter 1 appears an epigraph. It is a quote from the Bible and though it has to do with the subject of appearances, it is not that element of the quote that is really the focus of including it as imagery. In a way, the epigraph becomes foreshadowing. It will prove to be commentary before the fact upon the judgment toward transgender individuals—even children—specifically by those who claim to cling Biblical precepts as the guide to their sense of values and morality.
“But the Lord said to Samuel, `Do not consider his appearance or his height….The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.'
—1 SAMUEL 16:7”
A boy and a girl go to a school concert
One of the most striking examples of visual imagery in the book is so dead-on that the author is unable to resist the call to comment upon it. Whether it would have been more even more instructive to allow the reader to get to it on its own is up for argument, but that the message could have been sent without the final line is beyond question. The descriptive prose up to that point is more than enough to complete the sentence in “Subject” box above…and they were the same person:
“[Wyatt’s mother] suggested a solution, a true compromise: Wyatt could wear culottes, the baggy shorts that looked more like a skirt than pants. On the night of the concert, Wayne, in a rare moment of wanting to please Wyatt, presented him with a bouquet of roses. Wyatt stood in the girls’ section, in his black culottes and white blouse, but whether by design or accident, he also stood right on the seam where the girls’ and boys’ sides met. Wyatt was beside himself, beaming with pride and joy throughout the concert. A transition had begun and no one even seemed to notice.”
