My cheeks burned. He scratched his chin. He assumed I had a boyfriend. He assumed I was a girl. Under different circumstances, that would have thrilled me.
Page two of the book, about halfway down the page. This is the first indication of what the subject of this book will be about. Under typical circumstances, a title like the one this title bears would be strictly metaphorical in its literal quality. This book adds a secondary layer to the literal with its suggestiveness of if Amanda was a girl. In the biological sense: born with ovaries and stuff. We live in a different time now, thank goodness, where the question of what qualifies as gender is finally recognized as a far more complicated issue than merely whether one is born with a vagina or penis. Of course, the true point of this excerpt is the end there. Why is it not thrilling?
“I know you’re one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen…I already know you’ve got a good heart. I know when we kissed I felt warm all over, like when you sit too close to a campfire, and I know no girl’s made me feel that way before.”
Not all male-to-female transgender women are what would be determined as “homosexual” by those who refuse to accept the gender transformation. The way some look at it would be a man sexually desiring another man. But that is only half the issue. Because some male-to-female transgender women remain firmly heterosexual within this construct. In other words, when they looked like a guy they desired women and when they look like a woman they still desire females. Obviously, this is a complicated issue. But in sticking with the sexual desire with men side of things, the really tricky part comes when a heterosexual guy finds a transgender girl attractive without knowing that person is trans. Those utterly resistant to gender fluidity will insist this nothing more than nor less nor anything other than homosexuality. Grant is here talking about girls he has kissed who were born with the all the necessary equipment to make it easy to identity which is which. This admission by Grant is part of a conversation in which Amanda has just confessed to being “complicated.”
“Hell, even the straight people have enough skeletons in their closet to fill a tomb. Everybody’s too afraid of going to hell or getting made fun of to be honest about what they want and who they are, so they can’t even really admit what they want to themselves. It’s sad.”
This is not just a story about a transgender high school girl, it is a story about a transgender high school girl in the southern United States. There probably are not that all that many places in America where it is great to be a transgender teenager. Let’s just admit that there may be some places less hellish than others. Bee puts her finger on a big reason for this: religious fundamentalism. If Christian denominations that are actively reaching out to bring in transgender worshippers without the intent to “cure” them exist, one thing is almost guaranteed: those denominations do comprise the majority of churches deep in the heart of Dixie. Amanda is in the lion’s den. But she was raised going to Calvary Baptist, so her friend Bee isn’t telling her anything she doesn’t already know.
