If there is a contrast between the person you look and sound like, and the person you feel, experience, and know yourself to be, you may believe you are different from everyone else in your life, and very likely different from everyone else in your community, your country, and even the world. For transgender people, this painful dissonance is often the very fabric of their early lives. Monica P. Mulholland’s book ME!: The Gift of Being Transgender rips the silence away from that experience and fills it with truth, courage, and the hope that comes from being fully seen.
This book is not simply a memoir. It is a chorus of voices, a collection of stories told by trans women and men who reveal what it has meant to survive and to thrive in a world that so often misunderstands them. From the struggles of childhood to the tumult of adolescence, from moments of despair to the triumphs of authenticity, these narratives insist that our shared humanity is far greater than the fears that divide us.
And yet, the reality is stark. Transgender kids often grow up under a shadow of cruelty, mocked, misgendered, bullied, excluded. For far too many, that rejection curdles into hopelessness, into shame so deep it can silence a life before it has even fully begun. The statistics around trans youth suicide are not abstract numbers, they are warnings etched in grief. They remind us that when difference is punished instead of embraced, the cost is measured in lives. Monica does not flinch from these truths. She demands that we see them.
But this book is not about despair, it is about survival, about joy, about the light that breaks through when someone is allowed to live as themselves. Monica speaks of the “Common Ground of our shared Humanity,” a reminder that every one of us wants the same basic things: love, dignity, respect. When those things are extended to trans people, the world becomes richer, not poorer.
In her 2017 interview on The Heroines blog, Monica revealed this very spirit, honest, reflective, and laced with humor that shines even through the darkest moments.
Her transition, lived with the mantra “go hard or go home,” was not only an act of courage but also of connection. Courses such as The Art of Feminine Presence helped her not only to step fully into her womanhood but also to form enduring friendships with cisgender women who welcomed her. Above all, her marriage to her wife Joan has been a foundation of love, support, and gratitude, grounding her life in Queenstown, New Zealand with a strength that radiates through her writing.
ME! is not a book written just for transgender readers. It is written for families who are struggling to understand, for teachers who may not know how to support their students, for friends who want to help but don’t know how. It is written for communities that have not yet learned to listen. By inviting readers into these personal stories, Monica transforms fear into recognition, and difference into kinship.
And perhaps the most powerful aspect of this book is its purpose. All proceeds go to Lifeline Aotearoa, New Zealand’s suicide prevention hotline, ensuring that every copy sold is not only a story shared but a life potentially saved.
ME! is, in every sense, a lifeline.
In a world where transgender children are still made to feel invisible, Monica P. Mulholland offers visibility as a gift. In a society where trans people are too often reduced to caricatures, she insists on humanity. And in a culture where silence has cost too many lives, she raises her voice and calls on us to listen.
ME!: The Gift of Being Transgender is not simply a book, it is a declaration. It is proof that being transgender is not a curse but a gift. A gift of honesty, a gift of authenticity, and above all, a gift of life itself.
Available via Amazon
Photo via Heroines of My Life
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