"It may come as a surprise that there are hundreds of thousands of teens, young adults and kids throughout the world who experience their lives in just the way you do. Some of us are born gifted, creative, or disabled - but all of us share something in common: we were all born Transgender girls and boys. Despite this evolving understanding, most of us have lived fearfully and have suffered without reason, because those who have come to know us at school, or who have encountered us
socially, have misunderstood us, and have disliked us because we seemed different when they compared each of us to themselves.
As a direct result of such misunderstanding, far too many Transgender kids know other kids who have teased, bullied, shamed and excluded them for a very long time. As Transgender kids like us grow into teenagers and young adults, far too many die - either from physical assault which results in death, or from shame, anxiety, depression and hopelessness which lead to thoughts and acts of suicide.
I talked to Monica P Mulholland in 2017, and this is what she told me when asked about what triggered the book: "What triggered it was my musings on the fact that 41% of TG people attempt suicide, that is not they just think about suicide, that is they actually do something about carrying it out! That got me thinking about why TG people do this and, in a blinding flash of the obvious, it struck me that it was because that TG people and their friends and family, saw being TG as a curse. I wondered about this and thought that there must be some positive aspects to being TG and that if people were able to focus on the positives then they would be less likely to be abandoned by their friends and family... and as a consequence, less likely to commit suicide."
Available via Amazon
Photo via Heroines of My Life
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