Beyond Magenta:
Transgender Teens Speak Out
by Susan Kuklin
High School Candlewick 182 pp.
2/14 978-0-7636-5611-9 $22.99
e-book ed. 978-0-7636-7035-1 $22.99
Rather than attempting to convey the spectrum of transgender experience through a multitude of voices, Kuklin tries something different here, focusing on just six young people whose gender identity is something other than what it was labeled at birth. All six take gender-altering hormones; four were birth-designated male and two female, but in all cases there is no confusion about who they are now. Christina, born Matthew, looks forward to a complete transition (“It would be so great if I could get an operation, if I could get my vagina”), while Cameron says, “I like to be recognized as not a boy and not a girl. I’m gender queer, gender fluid, and gender other.” In her edited transcriptions of the interviews, Kuklin lets her subjects speak wholly for themselves, and while their bravery is heartening, their bravado can be heartbreaking. But who expects teenagers to be tentative? Photographs (of most of the subjects) are candid and winning; and appended material, including Kuklin’s explanation of her interview process, a Q&A with the director of a clinic for transgendered teens, and a great resource list, is valuable.
From the March/April 2014 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.
For more in The Horn Book’s Pride Month series, click on the tag LGBT Pride 2016.
About Roger Sutton
Man, do I love this book. Excellent review, Roger!