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Table of Contents
About The Book
An unflinching and endearing memoir from LGBTQ+ advocate Jackson Bird about how he finally sorted things out and came out as a transgender man.
When Jackson Bird was twenty-five, he came out as transgender to his friends, family, and anyone in the world with an internet connection.
Assigned female at birth and raised as a girl, he often wondered if he should have been born a boy. Jackson didn’t share this thought with anyone because he didn’t think he could share it with anyone. Growing up in Texas in the 1990s, he had no transgender role models. He barely remembers meeting anyone who was openly gay, let alone being taught that transgender people existed outside of punchlines.
In this “soulful and heartfelt coming-of-age story” (Jamia Wilson, director and publisher of the Feminist Press), Jackson chronicles the ups and downs of growing up gender-confused. Illuminated by journal entries spanning childhood to adolescence to today, he candidly recalls the challenges and loneliness he endured as he came to terms with both his gender and his bisexual identity.
With warmth and wit, Jackson also recounts how he navigated the many obstacles and quirks of his transition––like figuring out how to have a chest binder delivered to his NYU dorm room and having an emotional breakdown at a Harry Potter fan convention. From his first shot of testosterone to his eventual top surgery, Jackson lets you in on every part of his journey—taking the time to explain trans terminology and little-known facts about gender and identity along the way.
“A compassionate, tender-hearted, and accessible book for anyone who might need a hand to hold as they walk through their own transition or the transition of a loved one” (Austin Chant, author of Peter Darling), Sorted demonstrates the power and beauty in being yourself, even when you’re not sure who “yourself” is.
When Jackson Bird was twenty-five, he came out as transgender to his friends, family, and anyone in the world with an internet connection.
Assigned female at birth and raised as a girl, he often wondered if he should have been born a boy. Jackson didn’t share this thought with anyone because he didn’t think he could share it with anyone. Growing up in Texas in the 1990s, he had no transgender role models. He barely remembers meeting anyone who was openly gay, let alone being taught that transgender people existed outside of punchlines.
In this “soulful and heartfelt coming-of-age story” (Jamia Wilson, director and publisher of the Feminist Press), Jackson chronicles the ups and downs of growing up gender-confused. Illuminated by journal entries spanning childhood to adolescence to today, he candidly recalls the challenges and loneliness he endured as he came to terms with both his gender and his bisexual identity.
With warmth and wit, Jackson also recounts how he navigated the many obstacles and quirks of his transition––like figuring out how to have a chest binder delivered to his NYU dorm room and having an emotional breakdown at a Harry Potter fan convention. From his first shot of testosterone to his eventual top surgery, Jackson lets you in on every part of his journey—taking the time to explain trans terminology and little-known facts about gender and identity along the way.
“A compassionate, tender-hearted, and accessible book for anyone who might need a hand to hold as they walk through their own transition or the transition of a loved one” (Austin Chant, author of Peter Darling), Sorted demonstrates the power and beauty in being yourself, even when you’re not sure who “yourself” is.
Excerpt
Chapter One: Sorted CHAPTER ONE sorted
It’s a testament to the all-consuming pervasiveness of gender in our society that the very first thing we do to babies is sort them into genders. In fact, for most, it’s the very first words ever spoken about you. When you’re born, the doctor or midwife shouts, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” and from color-coded hospital hats to the balloons greeting your arrival in the recovery room, your life is predetermined.
My parents didn’t want to know the genders of me or my brother before we were born. With my older brother, my mom was pretty certain throughout her pregnancy she’d be having a boy, but when he finally arrived after an agonizing thirty-six-hour labor, she didn’t ask about his gender. The very first thing she said as my newborn brother was swaddled into a blanket was, “Is the cafeteria still serving food?”
My mom, God love her, knew that getting a solid meal was way more important for her capacity of being a good mother than knowing whatever gender her baby apparently was.
Me and Mom
Still remembering how hungry she’d been after my brother’s birth, she took no chances with my labor. When her water broke on a sunny Kalamazoo afternoon about a week before my expected due date of Mother’s Day, she was in the kitchen fixing lunch for herself and my brother.
“Austin,” she calmly told the two-year-old as she chopped watermelon, “we’re going to have to go to the hospital soon to have a baby, but first we’re going to eat lunch.”
She finished with the watermelon, spread mayonnaise on their bologna sandwiches, and they sat down to enjoy their lunch while my dad sped home from work to drive them to the hospital.
As determined as she was to get one last good meal in, by the time my dad arrived, my mom admitted that things seemed to be moving fast. The three of them headed to the hospital as my mom’s contractions came closer together.
There had been a whole list of friends and family members who volunteered to watch Austin during the birth, but my unexpectedly early arrival on a Friday afternoon meant nearly everyone on the list was busy. The person able to get there the quickest was my dad’s mom, coming from a two-and-a-half-hour drive away.
So Austin joined them in the hospital room, where the nurses turned on the TV to pass the time and my mom did her best to hide her pain from the toddler—even after being told things had moved too fast for her to receive an epidural.
Her labor continued to progress rapidly, and eventually Austin was taken out to the hallway by a nurse and given some toys to play with. Shortly thereafter, our grandma arrived to keep him company, and within the hour my mom had started pushing.
The whole labor lasted less than five hours and went so quickly that the nurses didn’t even pause to switch off the TV. I entered the world at 5:25 P.M. on May 4, 1990, to the static murmurings of The Oprah Winfrey Show playing in the corner.
My mom says that throughout the entire pregnancy she wasn’t sure what gender I was. While she’d had a preternatural knowing that her first child would be a boy, she insists she never had a clue about me. She was so stumped, she even considered asking the doctor at her ultrasound appointment, despite her and my dad agreeing they didn’t want to know. (She didn’t, though.)
It wasn’t until she was admitted to the hospital to give birth that she finally got the definitive sense I was going to be a girl—at least as far as we were all concerned for the time being.
Assigned Female at Birth?
Assigned Female at Birth, or AFAB, and Assigned Male at Birth, or AMAB, are the preferred terms to use instead of “biological male/female,” “born male/female,” “natal male/female,” “male/female bodied,” “genetic male/female,” etc.
When you break it down, it’s a lot more difficult to distinguish what a male or female body actually is, or what it means to be “biologically male/female” or “born male/female.” Is a male body one with a penis? What about men who lose their penises due to injury or illness—are they no longer men? Does “biologically female” mean someone with XX chromosomes? Not to be presumptive, but have you had your chromosomes analyzed? Most people haven’t. And what about the one in one hundred intersex people in the world? Many of their chromosomes, reproductive organs, or external anatomy don’t match with our cultural expectations of male or female. There are countless examples of men and women not lining up with the typical definitions of male and female—even before we get into discussions of transgender people.
The terms AMAB and AFAB are also useful because lots of trans people bristle at the phrase “born male/female.” We were born as ourselves. Just because we didn’t realize we were the gender we are right at the beginning doesn’t mean we weren’t this gender all along. Additionally, the “assigned” part of these terms emphasizes that we were sorted into a particular gender before we had any say in the matter.
One last note: Knowing this accepted term, some people might be tempted to ask trans or nonbinary people what sex they were assigned at birth. This can quickly turn into a faux-polite way of asking what’s in their pants. Consider why you need to know. Even when you’re using the “accepted” language, your question can still be rude and invasive.
Prior to having kids, my mom had promised herself she would raise her children as free from the binds of gender stereotypes as possible. She’d grown up with the strict gender roles of the 1960s and ’70s and was fed up. Especially if she had daughters, she wanted to make sure they knew they could be tough and self-reliant, and that they had more choices for their futures than just being wives and mothers.
So when I showed signs of boyishness even from the beginning, it wasn’t immediately a cause for alarm. My mom was happy to see that I was an independent spirit. Her first inkling that maybe there was something more going on, however, took place when I was just over two years old.
We were swimming in a kiddie pool she’d set up for us in the backyard on a hot summer’s day when my brother Austin got out to pee in the bushes. I toddled behind him, trying to do the same. When it wasn’t working, I got upset and my mom gently explained how girls’ bodies are shaped differently than boys’.
This in and of itself is not a unique moment. All toddlers have to be taught at some point that girls’ and boys’ bodies are different. And I think plenty of toddlers would be upset to find out they can’t do something as cool as peeing in the bushes like their big brother can. But I wasn’t just throwing a normal toddler tantrum, my mom says. I was telling her, very soberly, that it was wrong. It was wrong that my body couldn’t do that.
She tells me now that she had a brief moment of thinking maybe there was something more to my words then, but again, I was a toddler, and toddlers say all kinds of weird things. So she let it go.
But moments like that kept happening. My mom, a talented seamstress, often sewed my brother and me custom outfits, especially for special occasions. One Easter when I was three, she made me what she thought was an absolutely darling dress (it even had pockets!), but when she dressed me in it and pulled out the family’s camera to mark the occasion, I gave her the dirtiest look she’d ever seen. She was taken aback, but got the message loud and clear. “I’m not spending any more time on dresses this girl isn’t going to enjoy,” she thought to herself.
Easter 1994.
So instead, she sewed me vests. A themed vest for every holiday. Little waistcoats with snaps down the front and printed designs all over them for Easter, Valentine’s Day, and Fourth of July. Unlike the dresses, I loved those vests. I even made her remake a couple of them when I outgrew them on subsequent holidays.
My Fourth of July vest.
The vests weren’t the only part of my wardrobe that changed when I started preschool, around the time I started throwing a fit anytime my parents tried to put anything remotely girly on me. Gone were the pink dresses and ruffled blouses. From three years old onward, my day-to-day wardrobe consisted of my brother’s hand-me-downs and clothing from the discount rack at Bugle Boy.
While my parents allowed me to run around in ripped blue jeans and polo shirts on most days and even to school, there were still a few occasions on which I was made to dress like a girl, namely school picture days, piano recitals, and church.
One of them would come at me with a dress bunched up in their hands, trying to force the neck hole over my head as I screamed bloody murder. The whole affair would last several exasperating minutes and end up either with me in some type of semi-androgynous wardrobe compromise or with me wearing the dress paired with a face that was tomato-red from tears and embarrassment.
Neither outcome made me too happy. Even at a young age, I knew that the wardrobe compromises, which usually consisted of shorts or pants instead of a dress and some type of shirt with flowers on it, looked dopey and out-of-place. Meanwhile, wearing a dress made me intolerably uncomfortable. I felt so naked wearing only one article of clothing over my underpants and extremely, extremely embarrassed. I felt the eyes of everyone on me wherever we went. Surely someone would notice how wrong I looked, how wrong it had been of my parents to make me dress this way. But of course no one ever did. Instead, strangers usually told me I looked “sweet” or “cute as a button.” Until I scowled at them.
On one memorable occasion, I placidly told my mom that I wished God didn’t exist so I wouldn’t have to wear dresses to church. She was, understandably, shocked to hear her three-year-old sharing such aggressive atheist convictions, and I’m sure said something about how God was wonderful and we should be grateful to him. I don’t really remember what she said. I just remember realizing that I had offended her, so I switched course: “Well, then I just wish church didn’t exist.”
Unlike church, which I was probably never going to enjoy as a toddler, there were many other events in my young life that I think I would’ve looked forward to much more if they hadn’t come with a dress code I couldn’t wiggle out of.
A good example is the Daddy–Daughter Dance when I was seven years old. I was excited to attend a special night for just me and my dad, but resolutely told my mom I wouldn’t wear a dress. I wanted to wear a suit. Knowing me, I probably even tried to convince her that the point of the dance was to dress like our dads. To compromise, my mom sewed me a bright blue skirt suit, complete with big gold buttons and shoulder pads. I looked like a baby Hillary Clinton.
Ready to hit the dance floor… or run for office.
Like the holiday-themed vests and so many other questionable fashion decisions of my childhood, my insistence on wearing a suit to the Daddy–Daughter Dance didn’t faze my mom. Maybe if I had been growing up now, with so much more awareness of and resources for gender-nonconforming kids, she would have thought to question some of my behavior. But back then, she just thought I was being myself—unabashed, independent, tomboyish, and a bit of a weirdo.
In many ways, these early revelations about my gender may make it seem like I experienced the most stereotypical transgender narrative—the kind you often hear on daytime talk shows: I knew from my earliest memories that I should’ve been born a boy. I felt trapped in my own body. My life was nothing but misery until I transitioned.
This is not one of those stories. While there may be some incidents my family and I can point to in hindsight as clues about my gender, none of it was so clear when it was happening. Yes, I felt different growing up, but as far as I knew it could’ve been just as much because I was a total dork as it was because I was kind of boyish. Maybe I looked at the boys in my class with envy, but I never felt for certain like I should have been one of them, only that I sometimes wished I were.
This is not a story about a lifetime of hating my body or knowing with absolute certainty that I needed to transition. Those stories exist and those people’s experiences are valid, but they aren’t everyone’s. Some people don’t have any inkling that they’re transgender until later in life. Some people have a much more fluid or back-and-forth relationship with their gender. Some people are very much aware of who they are, but have no desire to transition. All of these and more are true, valid transgender experiences.
If you’ve met one transgender person, you’ve met one transgender person and that is your basis for transgender fact until you meet another, with a possibly different story. The trouble is, many people haven’t even met one transgender person. So that leaves much of the world, trans and cis alike, believing the few stereotypical narratives about transgender people we see in the media, from an overemphasis on medical procedures and an obsession with shocking before-and-after photos to even more damaging language about us, especially transgender women, being villainous figures out to trick poor, unassuming cisgender people. Transgender people are rarely shown in a positive, accurate light or as having vibrant, fulfilling lives outside of being transgender.
For cisgender people, the danger of hearing only the same narratives is not affording transgender people with different stories the dignity of respecting a most basic part of their being. But for transgender people, the danger of hearing only the same narratives, when theirs differs from those, is not knowing there’s anyone else like them in the world—not knowing they could be transgender, and not knowing what they can do to ease the feelings of gender dysphoria they may be experiencing.
That was the case for me. My story is not the one the media was peddling in the ’90s, which consisted mostly of hyper-sensationalized and demeaning representations of trans women and almost none of trans men, especially not queer trans men. So I believed myself to be all alone in my struggle. While media coverage of transgender people has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years (in large part thanks to the agency social media platforms provide trans people themselves), it has only underscored just how many different ways there are to be trans and how important it is that those stories are told. So here’s one story. It might not be the most unusual or the most incredible, but it’s mine.
It’s a testament to the all-consuming pervasiveness of gender in our society that the very first thing we do to babies is sort them into genders. In fact, for most, it’s the very first words ever spoken about you. When you’re born, the doctor or midwife shouts, “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” and from color-coded hospital hats to the balloons greeting your arrival in the recovery room, your life is predetermined.
My parents didn’t want to know the genders of me or my brother before we were born. With my older brother, my mom was pretty certain throughout her pregnancy she’d be having a boy, but when he finally arrived after an agonizing thirty-six-hour labor, she didn’t ask about his gender. The very first thing she said as my newborn brother was swaddled into a blanket was, “Is the cafeteria still serving food?”
My mom, God love her, knew that getting a solid meal was way more important for her capacity of being a good mother than knowing whatever gender her baby apparently was.
Me and Mom
Still remembering how hungry she’d been after my brother’s birth, she took no chances with my labor. When her water broke on a sunny Kalamazoo afternoon about a week before my expected due date of Mother’s Day, she was in the kitchen fixing lunch for herself and my brother.
“Austin,” she calmly told the two-year-old as she chopped watermelon, “we’re going to have to go to the hospital soon to have a baby, but first we’re going to eat lunch.”
She finished with the watermelon, spread mayonnaise on their bologna sandwiches, and they sat down to enjoy their lunch while my dad sped home from work to drive them to the hospital.
As determined as she was to get one last good meal in, by the time my dad arrived, my mom admitted that things seemed to be moving fast. The three of them headed to the hospital as my mom’s contractions came closer together.
There had been a whole list of friends and family members who volunteered to watch Austin during the birth, but my unexpectedly early arrival on a Friday afternoon meant nearly everyone on the list was busy. The person able to get there the quickest was my dad’s mom, coming from a two-and-a-half-hour drive away.
So Austin joined them in the hospital room, where the nurses turned on the TV to pass the time and my mom did her best to hide her pain from the toddler—even after being told things had moved too fast for her to receive an epidural.
Her labor continued to progress rapidly, and eventually Austin was taken out to the hallway by a nurse and given some toys to play with. Shortly thereafter, our grandma arrived to keep him company, and within the hour my mom had started pushing.
The whole labor lasted less than five hours and went so quickly that the nurses didn’t even pause to switch off the TV. I entered the world at 5:25 P.M. on May 4, 1990, to the static murmurings of The Oprah Winfrey Show playing in the corner.
My mom says that throughout the entire pregnancy she wasn’t sure what gender I was. While she’d had a preternatural knowing that her first child would be a boy, she insists she never had a clue about me. She was so stumped, she even considered asking the doctor at her ultrasound appointment, despite her and my dad agreeing they didn’t want to know. (She didn’t, though.)
It wasn’t until she was admitted to the hospital to give birth that she finally got the definitive sense I was going to be a girl—at least as far as we were all concerned for the time being.
Assigned Female at Birth?
Assigned Female at Birth, or AFAB, and Assigned Male at Birth, or AMAB, are the preferred terms to use instead of “biological male/female,” “born male/female,” “natal male/female,” “male/female bodied,” “genetic male/female,” etc.
When you break it down, it’s a lot more difficult to distinguish what a male or female body actually is, or what it means to be “biologically male/female” or “born male/female.” Is a male body one with a penis? What about men who lose their penises due to injury or illness—are they no longer men? Does “biologically female” mean someone with XX chromosomes? Not to be presumptive, but have you had your chromosomes analyzed? Most people haven’t. And what about the one in one hundred intersex people in the world? Many of their chromosomes, reproductive organs, or external anatomy don’t match with our cultural expectations of male or female. There are countless examples of men and women not lining up with the typical definitions of male and female—even before we get into discussions of transgender people.
The terms AMAB and AFAB are also useful because lots of trans people bristle at the phrase “born male/female.” We were born as ourselves. Just because we didn’t realize we were the gender we are right at the beginning doesn’t mean we weren’t this gender all along. Additionally, the “assigned” part of these terms emphasizes that we were sorted into a particular gender before we had any say in the matter.
One last note: Knowing this accepted term, some people might be tempted to ask trans or nonbinary people what sex they were assigned at birth. This can quickly turn into a faux-polite way of asking what’s in their pants. Consider why you need to know. Even when you’re using the “accepted” language, your question can still be rude and invasive.
Prior to having kids, my mom had promised herself she would raise her children as free from the binds of gender stereotypes as possible. She’d grown up with the strict gender roles of the 1960s and ’70s and was fed up. Especially if she had daughters, she wanted to make sure they knew they could be tough and self-reliant, and that they had more choices for their futures than just being wives and mothers.
So when I showed signs of boyishness even from the beginning, it wasn’t immediately a cause for alarm. My mom was happy to see that I was an independent spirit. Her first inkling that maybe there was something more going on, however, took place when I was just over two years old.
We were swimming in a kiddie pool she’d set up for us in the backyard on a hot summer’s day when my brother Austin got out to pee in the bushes. I toddled behind him, trying to do the same. When it wasn’t working, I got upset and my mom gently explained how girls’ bodies are shaped differently than boys’.
This in and of itself is not a unique moment. All toddlers have to be taught at some point that girls’ and boys’ bodies are different. And I think plenty of toddlers would be upset to find out they can’t do something as cool as peeing in the bushes like their big brother can. But I wasn’t just throwing a normal toddler tantrum, my mom says. I was telling her, very soberly, that it was wrong. It was wrong that my body couldn’t do that.
She tells me now that she had a brief moment of thinking maybe there was something more to my words then, but again, I was a toddler, and toddlers say all kinds of weird things. So she let it go.
But moments like that kept happening. My mom, a talented seamstress, often sewed my brother and me custom outfits, especially for special occasions. One Easter when I was three, she made me what she thought was an absolutely darling dress (it even had pockets!), but when she dressed me in it and pulled out the family’s camera to mark the occasion, I gave her the dirtiest look she’d ever seen. She was taken aback, but got the message loud and clear. “I’m not spending any more time on dresses this girl isn’t going to enjoy,” she thought to herself.
Easter 1994.
So instead, she sewed me vests. A themed vest for every holiday. Little waistcoats with snaps down the front and printed designs all over them for Easter, Valentine’s Day, and Fourth of July. Unlike the dresses, I loved those vests. I even made her remake a couple of them when I outgrew them on subsequent holidays.
My Fourth of July vest.
The vests weren’t the only part of my wardrobe that changed when I started preschool, around the time I started throwing a fit anytime my parents tried to put anything remotely girly on me. Gone were the pink dresses and ruffled blouses. From three years old onward, my day-to-day wardrobe consisted of my brother’s hand-me-downs and clothing from the discount rack at Bugle Boy.
While my parents allowed me to run around in ripped blue jeans and polo shirts on most days and even to school, there were still a few occasions on which I was made to dress like a girl, namely school picture days, piano recitals, and church.
One of them would come at me with a dress bunched up in their hands, trying to force the neck hole over my head as I screamed bloody murder. The whole affair would last several exasperating minutes and end up either with me in some type of semi-androgynous wardrobe compromise or with me wearing the dress paired with a face that was tomato-red from tears and embarrassment.
Neither outcome made me too happy. Even at a young age, I knew that the wardrobe compromises, which usually consisted of shorts or pants instead of a dress and some type of shirt with flowers on it, looked dopey and out-of-place. Meanwhile, wearing a dress made me intolerably uncomfortable. I felt so naked wearing only one article of clothing over my underpants and extremely, extremely embarrassed. I felt the eyes of everyone on me wherever we went. Surely someone would notice how wrong I looked, how wrong it had been of my parents to make me dress this way. But of course no one ever did. Instead, strangers usually told me I looked “sweet” or “cute as a button.” Until I scowled at them.
On one memorable occasion, I placidly told my mom that I wished God didn’t exist so I wouldn’t have to wear dresses to church. She was, understandably, shocked to hear her three-year-old sharing such aggressive atheist convictions, and I’m sure said something about how God was wonderful and we should be grateful to him. I don’t really remember what she said. I just remember realizing that I had offended her, so I switched course: “Well, then I just wish church didn’t exist.”
Unlike church, which I was probably never going to enjoy as a toddler, there were many other events in my young life that I think I would’ve looked forward to much more if they hadn’t come with a dress code I couldn’t wiggle out of.
A good example is the Daddy–Daughter Dance when I was seven years old. I was excited to attend a special night for just me and my dad, but resolutely told my mom I wouldn’t wear a dress. I wanted to wear a suit. Knowing me, I probably even tried to convince her that the point of the dance was to dress like our dads. To compromise, my mom sewed me a bright blue skirt suit, complete with big gold buttons and shoulder pads. I looked like a baby Hillary Clinton.
Ready to hit the dance floor… or run for office.
Like the holiday-themed vests and so many other questionable fashion decisions of my childhood, my insistence on wearing a suit to the Daddy–Daughter Dance didn’t faze my mom. Maybe if I had been growing up now, with so much more awareness of and resources for gender-nonconforming kids, she would have thought to question some of my behavior. But back then, she just thought I was being myself—unabashed, independent, tomboyish, and a bit of a weirdo.
In many ways, these early revelations about my gender may make it seem like I experienced the most stereotypical transgender narrative—the kind you often hear on daytime talk shows: I knew from my earliest memories that I should’ve been born a boy. I felt trapped in my own body. My life was nothing but misery until I transitioned.
This is not one of those stories. While there may be some incidents my family and I can point to in hindsight as clues about my gender, none of it was so clear when it was happening. Yes, I felt different growing up, but as far as I knew it could’ve been just as much because I was a total dork as it was because I was kind of boyish. Maybe I looked at the boys in my class with envy, but I never felt for certain like I should have been one of them, only that I sometimes wished I were.
This is not a story about a lifetime of hating my body or knowing with absolute certainty that I needed to transition. Those stories exist and those people’s experiences are valid, but they aren’t everyone’s. Some people don’t have any inkling that they’re transgender until later in life. Some people have a much more fluid or back-and-forth relationship with their gender. Some people are very much aware of who they are, but have no desire to transition. All of these and more are true, valid transgender experiences.
If you’ve met one transgender person, you’ve met one transgender person and that is your basis for transgender fact until you meet another, with a possibly different story. The trouble is, many people haven’t even met one transgender person. So that leaves much of the world, trans and cis alike, believing the few stereotypical narratives about transgender people we see in the media, from an overemphasis on medical procedures and an obsession with shocking before-and-after photos to even more damaging language about us, especially transgender women, being villainous figures out to trick poor, unassuming cisgender people. Transgender people are rarely shown in a positive, accurate light or as having vibrant, fulfilling lives outside of being transgender.
For cisgender people, the danger of hearing only the same narratives is not affording transgender people with different stories the dignity of respecting a most basic part of their being. But for transgender people, the danger of hearing only the same narratives, when theirs differs from those, is not knowing there’s anyone else like them in the world—not knowing they could be transgender, and not knowing what they can do to ease the feelings of gender dysphoria they may be experiencing.
That was the case for me. My story is not the one the media was peddling in the ’90s, which consisted mostly of hyper-sensationalized and demeaning representations of trans women and almost none of trans men, especially not queer trans men. So I believed myself to be all alone in my struggle. While media coverage of transgender people has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years (in large part thanks to the agency social media platforms provide trans people themselves), it has only underscored just how many different ways there are to be trans and how important it is that those stories are told. So here’s one story. It might not be the most unusual or the most incredible, but it’s mine.
Reading Group Guide
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This reading group guide for Sorted includes discussion questions and extension activities for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Questions for Group Discussion
1. Before beginning the book, lead a general discussion about gender. Ask students to offer ideas about what the word means to them, and also what they know (or think they know) about the general topic. Given the prevalence of misinformation, misconceptions, stereotypes, and confusion around gender-related language, having a preliminary discussion will activate prior knowledge and create a baseline from which to form new and accurate meaning and understanding.
2. In the introduction to Sorted, the author writes, “Growing up as someone who felt different but didn’t have the words to describe or understand that difference, I was drawn to labels that could define me in other ways” (p. xxiii). What does it mean to be given, or to take on, a label? How is labeling a form of sorting? Think about yourself in the context of your family, school, social, and personal life. What labels have you acquired or have been applied to you? What labels are self-imposed? Are these labels helpful or important or, as the author writes, “oppressive and limiting” (p. xxiv)?
3. The author recounts a memory from an early childhood tantrum after trying to urinate standing up: “But I wasn’t just throwing a normal toddler tantrum, my mom says. I was telling her, very soberly, that it was wrong. It was wrong that my body couldn’t do that” (p. 5). He goes on to share additional examples from childhood “moments,” such as wardrobe “compromises,” but makes clear that “these early revelations about my gender may make it seem like I experienced the most stereotypical transgender narrative . . . I knew from my earliest memories that I should’ve been born a boy. I felt trapped in my own body. My life was nothing but misery until I transitioned. This is not one of those stories” (p. 8). Discuss the importance of looking beyond the often prepackaged media narratives about transgender people. Why do you think that “transgender people are rarely shown in a positive, accurate light or as having vibrant, fulfilling lives outside of being transgender” (p. 9)? How is this beginning to change?
4. Discuss the events the author describes in chapters two and three that led to his decision to “give being a proper girl a shot” (p. 27). How did family and societal pressures, shame, and the desire to be perceived as a “normal” person contribute to the author’s prepubescent phase of presenting as a girl?
5. In chapters four and five the author describes his unease with the physical onset of puberty. How did the rite of passage of wearing a training bra lead the author to create untrue reasons for not wanting to wear it? How did wearing a bra make him feel “marked” as “one of the girls” (p. 33)? By eighth grade, the author’s “motivation to fit in as a societally accepted image of a girl was steadily waning” (p. 43); in your opinion, what is a societally accepted image of a girl? Of a boy? How can deviations from these “acceptable” images lead to anxiety and other negative feelings in people who can’t or won’t strive to achieve them? Discuss the author’s statement on page 50: “I want to believe that kids are born without judgment and that gender variance seems natural to them, but I suppose the prejudice of the world can seep in at a very early age.” What are examples of prejudices and attitudes that “seep” into young children as they develop their early worldviews?
6. Discuss the mixed emotions the author experienced after watching the Oprah Winfrey special on transgender kids. By asking the older boy if he liked girls, how did Winfrey conflate sexuality and gender? How did this inaccurate association between gender and sexual preference lead the author to feel like “some extra-special kind of freak” (p. 53)? Reread the boxed section “Where Are All the Trans Guys?” on pages 55–59 and discuss some of the reasons why “Western society writ large is much more willing to accept what they see as a woman being masculine than what they see as a man being feminine” (p. 56).
7. What is meant by “body image”? In puberty, all adolescents, regardless of gender, grapple with physical changes, and often the emotional challenges that go with them. Bird recounts how in high school he strove to be a “perfect girl. The kind of girl boys would be tripping over themselves to date” (p. 62). Discuss and cite examples of how his struggles with body image contributed to his sense of gender dysphoria, and how ultimately, by transitioning, he began to feel at home in his body. On page 67, the author describes a decision he made during a game of Truth or Dare: “In an unexpected way, being sexualized gave me the permission I needed to be proud of my body. . . . My brain’s jury is still out on whether it was actually empowering or just objectifying” (p. 67). Discuss the difference between empowerment and objectification.
8. Cognitive dissonance—a psychological term—is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as related to behavioral decisions and attitude changes. Reread chapter 8 and discuss the examples of cognitive dissonance described therein. How did Bird’s repression of his true gender and his “playing the game so well as a girl” (p. 77) lead to mental health issues toward the end of high school and into college?
9. The author writes that while in college, his “gender dysphoria . . . manifested in a steady contemplation of my sexuality” (p. 82). Discuss the difference between sexuality and gender, and how uncertainty around one’s sexuality could compound feelings of confusion and, in Bird’s case, the repression of his true gender and sexual preference. Consider and discuss the following question that Bird posed to himself while trying to make sense of the “nuances between the terms sex and gender”: “If all these things—sex, gender, and sexual orientation—were disparate parts of a person’s whole, could it be true that it was possible to be a person who was assigned female at birth, who was mostly attracted to guys, but who also felt more like a guy herself?” (p. 101) Reread the Ace bandage scene on page 105. Why did this experience cause Bird to feel “as though the world was exactly how it always should have been”? Why did this experience and others that affirmed his authentic gender produce euphoria?
10. Discuss Bird’s friend’s reaction after the author’s disclosure that he was “probably a trans guy” (p. 117). How was coming out to his friend, in retrospect, a major step in his transition journey? How did the friend’s acceptance and support bolster the author’s confidence and help him move forward in his transition? Reread pages 133–36. Discuss what Bird risked by coming out to his mother, and the immensity of her love and acceptance.
11. How did the author’s need for “social capital” lead to feelings of doubt and self-denial? Discuss the statement “Even though I’ve never wanted to fit in as far as my personality and interests go, I have always felt a strong desire to pass as ordinary” (p. 161). What does “passing as ordinary” mean in your life? How did this desire further Bird’s feelings of gender dysphoria? Why was getting his first short haircut such a daunting and emotional step for the author? Discuss how advertising and media representations of female hairstyles reinforce notions of stereotypical femininity. How was making the decision to cut his long hair an empowering act?
12. A “stigma” is a mark of shame or discredit (merriam-webster.com). In chapter 17, Bird writes: “I still hadn’t really accepted that I was transgender, that all my desperate attempts to live a normal, successful life would now be marred by this stigma. I had fully internalized the world’s shame surrounding trans people and was embarrassed by the thought of people knowing this part of me I had kept so deeply hidden for so long” (p. 173). What does he mean by the “world’s shame”? How did this feeling of potential stigmatization delay his eventual transition?
13. Spend some time discussing the use of pronouns as part of one’s gender expression. How was the author’s consideration of using the gender-neutral pronouns “they” and “them” a “good experiment to see if, perhaps, I was not a man or a woman but maybe nonbinary” (p. 174)? How was the author’s deeply felt negative reaction to wearing a dress to the Esther Earl Charity Ball the catalyst to his realization that “transitioning was no longer a choice. It was a necessity” (p. 179)?
14. How did developing an honest relationship with a gender therapist set the author on the road to “real progress” (p. 183)? In addition to the loss of important relationships as a result of coming out as trans, what other risks did Bird consider during this phase of his transition? Discuss the author’s brother’s reaction on page 198. Do you think this is a common reaction? Why or why not? How are trans celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox “cultural reference points” (p. 200), and why are these reference points so important to societal acceptance of transgender people?
15. Even after the author had come out to his brother, he experienced “a fair amount of doubt” (p. 202). Discuss his statement “We feel like we’re not man enough. Not woman enough. Even not trans enough” (p. 202). And on page 203: “The process can be so daunting, so all-consuming, and the reactions from people so severe that it’s no wonder over 40 percent of transgender people attempt suicide. It has nothing to do with transition being a mistake, but rather—in part—because of the prejudice and stigma still attached to being transgender and the emotional toll it takes to be yourself in a world that pushes you down at every turn.” What do you think the author means by “the complexities and blurs and nuances of brain soup and lived experiences” (p. 203)?
16. What is meant by “male privilege”? Is all male privilege equal? After taking testosterone and beginning to look and feel more physically male, what discoveries did Bird make about being a man in society? Discuss the following statement on pages 208–9: “Even if I didn’t get read as male all the time, just knowing I was a man made people listen to me more than they had in the exact same situations when I had been presenting as a woman.” How is this an implicit example of male privilege?
17. Why was it so important for Bird to come out publicly on his social platforms? Why is it imperative for young people questioning their gender to have representation and healthy role models?
18. Going to a public restroom presented new challenges for the author, as it does for many transgender people. Discuss some of these challenges, including safety, shaming, and discrimination. Discuss how your state has or has not tackled the issue of public restrooms in regard to trans rights.
19. Early in the book, the author felt uncomfortable having to wear dresses, feeling pressured to conform to societal norms and expectations around femininity. After coming out, he describes an event where he was finally wearing—indeed, was expected to wear—a suit: “I can’t begin to explain the relief I felt to have that certainty and to want to conform to the social custom being imposed on me” (p. 227). Discuss examples of social customs, gender-related and otherwise, that young people are expected to conform to.
20. Reread the opening paragraph of chapter 23. How does this description challenge or affirm your beliefs and ideas about transgender people? On page 242, Bird explains why he was so dysphoric about his chest: “Because breasts are so sexualized in our culture. I didn’t like having giant gender markers attached to my torso, both because I didn’t identify with the gender they were associated with and because I didn’t like that they were associated with gender at all!” How is the female body sexualized in our culture? The male body? How do images of the “perfect” sexy body, either male or female, reinforce stereotypes and, in some cases, lead to body dysmorphic disorder (also called body dysmorphia)?
21. Discuss the author’s statement on page 255: “So much of existing as a trans person in this world feels like a fight that other things in life start paling next to in comparison.” How is this an example of perspective gained by years of experiencing adversity and overcoming challenges?
22. Jackson Bird uses his voice and social media platform to “break stereotypes, one episode at a time” (p. 264). Consider the following: “It was clear how even the most well-intentioned cisgender people could trip up due to their lack of exposure to trans people. People needed to understand how to talk to us, how to listen to us, and how to support us” (p. 265). After reading Sorted, discuss how you can be an ally to transgender people.
23. On the last page of Sorted, the author writes, “I refuse to live my life in fear” (p. 284). Discuss examples of the courage it took for Bird to attend his high school reunion. What examples from his journey can you apply to help you live a fearless life?
Extension Activities
1. Given the attention to transgender issues in media, one might think that transgender people are a phenomenon of the twenty-first century. Conduct research about transgender history, as Jackson Bird wrote, “across time and cultures” (p. 102). Begin by consulting the Further Learning section at the back of Sorted. Choose a specific time period, person, or culture to focus on. Report your findings to the class.
2. Jackson Bird references “cultural competency” in relation to trans people and health care (pages 126–27). According to apa.org, cultural competence is “loosely defined as the ability to understand, appreciate, and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one’s own.” Work in pairs or small groups to research the components of cultural competency. Create a presentation to introduce the principles of cultural competency and how they can be applied to support the transgender community.
3. On page 203 of Sorted, Bird cites a startling statistic: over 40 percent of transgender people attempt suicide. Dig deeper into this statistic as it relates to the transgender community. Use the information you find as a basis for a public-service advocacy campaign.
4. Issues important to the transgender community have recently been more visible in the mainstream news media than ever before. Gender-specific or nonspecific restrooms, transgender people in the US military, and trans rights are just a few of these issues. Dive into the national and international news for timely articles pertaining to the transgender community. Create a current-event space to display the articles and provide summaries.
5. On pages 255 and 256, Bird describes how he decided to have a small dagger image tattooed on his Achilles tendon, symbolizing how he faced his fears and, in so doing, became “invincible.” Create a tattoo that symbolizes a fear you’ve conquered or something you’ve achieved that makes you feel proud.
This reading group guide was created by Colleen Carroll, literacy specialist and author of the twelve-volume series How Artists See (Abbeville Press). Contact Colleen at www.colleencarroll.us.
Questions for Group Discussion
1. Before beginning the book, lead a general discussion about gender. Ask students to offer ideas about what the word means to them, and also what they know (or think they know) about the general topic. Given the prevalence of misinformation, misconceptions, stereotypes, and confusion around gender-related language, having a preliminary discussion will activate prior knowledge and create a baseline from which to form new and accurate meaning and understanding.
2. In the introduction to Sorted, the author writes, “Growing up as someone who felt different but didn’t have the words to describe or understand that difference, I was drawn to labels that could define me in other ways” (p. xxiii). What does it mean to be given, or to take on, a label? How is labeling a form of sorting? Think about yourself in the context of your family, school, social, and personal life. What labels have you acquired or have been applied to you? What labels are self-imposed? Are these labels helpful or important or, as the author writes, “oppressive and limiting” (p. xxiv)?
3. The author recounts a memory from an early childhood tantrum after trying to urinate standing up: “But I wasn’t just throwing a normal toddler tantrum, my mom says. I was telling her, very soberly, that it was wrong. It was wrong that my body couldn’t do that” (p. 5). He goes on to share additional examples from childhood “moments,” such as wardrobe “compromises,” but makes clear that “these early revelations about my gender may make it seem like I experienced the most stereotypical transgender narrative . . . I knew from my earliest memories that I should’ve been born a boy. I felt trapped in my own body. My life was nothing but misery until I transitioned. This is not one of those stories” (p. 8). Discuss the importance of looking beyond the often prepackaged media narratives about transgender people. Why do you think that “transgender people are rarely shown in a positive, accurate light or as having vibrant, fulfilling lives outside of being transgender” (p. 9)? How is this beginning to change?
4. Discuss the events the author describes in chapters two and three that led to his decision to “give being a proper girl a shot” (p. 27). How did family and societal pressures, shame, and the desire to be perceived as a “normal” person contribute to the author’s prepubescent phase of presenting as a girl?
5. In chapters four and five the author describes his unease with the physical onset of puberty. How did the rite of passage of wearing a training bra lead the author to create untrue reasons for not wanting to wear it? How did wearing a bra make him feel “marked” as “one of the girls” (p. 33)? By eighth grade, the author’s “motivation to fit in as a societally accepted image of a girl was steadily waning” (p. 43); in your opinion, what is a societally accepted image of a girl? Of a boy? How can deviations from these “acceptable” images lead to anxiety and other negative feelings in people who can’t or won’t strive to achieve them? Discuss the author’s statement on page 50: “I want to believe that kids are born without judgment and that gender variance seems natural to them, but I suppose the prejudice of the world can seep in at a very early age.” What are examples of prejudices and attitudes that “seep” into young children as they develop their early worldviews?
6. Discuss the mixed emotions the author experienced after watching the Oprah Winfrey special on transgender kids. By asking the older boy if he liked girls, how did Winfrey conflate sexuality and gender? How did this inaccurate association between gender and sexual preference lead the author to feel like “some extra-special kind of freak” (p. 53)? Reread the boxed section “Where Are All the Trans Guys?” on pages 55–59 and discuss some of the reasons why “Western society writ large is much more willing to accept what they see as a woman being masculine than what they see as a man being feminine” (p. 56).
7. What is meant by “body image”? In puberty, all adolescents, regardless of gender, grapple with physical changes, and often the emotional challenges that go with them. Bird recounts how in high school he strove to be a “perfect girl. The kind of girl boys would be tripping over themselves to date” (p. 62). Discuss and cite examples of how his struggles with body image contributed to his sense of gender dysphoria, and how ultimately, by transitioning, he began to feel at home in his body. On page 67, the author describes a decision he made during a game of Truth or Dare: “In an unexpected way, being sexualized gave me the permission I needed to be proud of my body. . . . My brain’s jury is still out on whether it was actually empowering or just objectifying” (p. 67). Discuss the difference between empowerment and objectification.
8. Cognitive dissonance—a psychological term—is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as related to behavioral decisions and attitude changes. Reread chapter 8 and discuss the examples of cognitive dissonance described therein. How did Bird’s repression of his true gender and his “playing the game so well as a girl” (p. 77) lead to mental health issues toward the end of high school and into college?
9. The author writes that while in college, his “gender dysphoria . . . manifested in a steady contemplation of my sexuality” (p. 82). Discuss the difference between sexuality and gender, and how uncertainty around one’s sexuality could compound feelings of confusion and, in Bird’s case, the repression of his true gender and sexual preference. Consider and discuss the following question that Bird posed to himself while trying to make sense of the “nuances between the terms sex and gender”: “If all these things—sex, gender, and sexual orientation—were disparate parts of a person’s whole, could it be true that it was possible to be a person who was assigned female at birth, who was mostly attracted to guys, but who also felt more like a guy herself?” (p. 101) Reread the Ace bandage scene on page 105. Why did this experience cause Bird to feel “as though the world was exactly how it always should have been”? Why did this experience and others that affirmed his authentic gender produce euphoria?
10. Discuss Bird’s friend’s reaction after the author’s disclosure that he was “probably a trans guy” (p. 117). How was coming out to his friend, in retrospect, a major step in his transition journey? How did the friend’s acceptance and support bolster the author’s confidence and help him move forward in his transition? Reread pages 133–36. Discuss what Bird risked by coming out to his mother, and the immensity of her love and acceptance.
11. How did the author’s need for “social capital” lead to feelings of doubt and self-denial? Discuss the statement “Even though I’ve never wanted to fit in as far as my personality and interests go, I have always felt a strong desire to pass as ordinary” (p. 161). What does “passing as ordinary” mean in your life? How did this desire further Bird’s feelings of gender dysphoria? Why was getting his first short haircut such a daunting and emotional step for the author? Discuss how advertising and media representations of female hairstyles reinforce notions of stereotypical femininity. How was making the decision to cut his long hair an empowering act?
12. A “stigma” is a mark of shame or discredit (merriam-webster.com). In chapter 17, Bird writes: “I still hadn’t really accepted that I was transgender, that all my desperate attempts to live a normal, successful life would now be marred by this stigma. I had fully internalized the world’s shame surrounding trans people and was embarrassed by the thought of people knowing this part of me I had kept so deeply hidden for so long” (p. 173). What does he mean by the “world’s shame”? How did this feeling of potential stigmatization delay his eventual transition?
13. Spend some time discussing the use of pronouns as part of one’s gender expression. How was the author’s consideration of using the gender-neutral pronouns “they” and “them” a “good experiment to see if, perhaps, I was not a man or a woman but maybe nonbinary” (p. 174)? How was the author’s deeply felt negative reaction to wearing a dress to the Esther Earl Charity Ball the catalyst to his realization that “transitioning was no longer a choice. It was a necessity” (p. 179)?
14. How did developing an honest relationship with a gender therapist set the author on the road to “real progress” (p. 183)? In addition to the loss of important relationships as a result of coming out as trans, what other risks did Bird consider during this phase of his transition? Discuss the author’s brother’s reaction on page 198. Do you think this is a common reaction? Why or why not? How are trans celebrities such as Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox “cultural reference points” (p. 200), and why are these reference points so important to societal acceptance of transgender people?
15. Even after the author had come out to his brother, he experienced “a fair amount of doubt” (p. 202). Discuss his statement “We feel like we’re not man enough. Not woman enough. Even not trans enough” (p. 202). And on page 203: “The process can be so daunting, so all-consuming, and the reactions from people so severe that it’s no wonder over 40 percent of transgender people attempt suicide. It has nothing to do with transition being a mistake, but rather—in part—because of the prejudice and stigma still attached to being transgender and the emotional toll it takes to be yourself in a world that pushes you down at every turn.” What do you think the author means by “the complexities and blurs and nuances of brain soup and lived experiences” (p. 203)?
16. What is meant by “male privilege”? Is all male privilege equal? After taking testosterone and beginning to look and feel more physically male, what discoveries did Bird make about being a man in society? Discuss the following statement on pages 208–9: “Even if I didn’t get read as male all the time, just knowing I was a man made people listen to me more than they had in the exact same situations when I had been presenting as a woman.” How is this an implicit example of male privilege?
17. Why was it so important for Bird to come out publicly on his social platforms? Why is it imperative for young people questioning their gender to have representation and healthy role models?
18. Going to a public restroom presented new challenges for the author, as it does for many transgender people. Discuss some of these challenges, including safety, shaming, and discrimination. Discuss how your state has or has not tackled the issue of public restrooms in regard to trans rights.
19. Early in the book, the author felt uncomfortable having to wear dresses, feeling pressured to conform to societal norms and expectations around femininity. After coming out, he describes an event where he was finally wearing—indeed, was expected to wear—a suit: “I can’t begin to explain the relief I felt to have that certainty and to want to conform to the social custom being imposed on me” (p. 227). Discuss examples of social customs, gender-related and otherwise, that young people are expected to conform to.
20. Reread the opening paragraph of chapter 23. How does this description challenge or affirm your beliefs and ideas about transgender people? On page 242, Bird explains why he was so dysphoric about his chest: “Because breasts are so sexualized in our culture. I didn’t like having giant gender markers attached to my torso, both because I didn’t identify with the gender they were associated with and because I didn’t like that they were associated with gender at all!” How is the female body sexualized in our culture? The male body? How do images of the “perfect” sexy body, either male or female, reinforce stereotypes and, in some cases, lead to body dysmorphic disorder (also called body dysmorphia)?
21. Discuss the author’s statement on page 255: “So much of existing as a trans person in this world feels like a fight that other things in life start paling next to in comparison.” How is this an example of perspective gained by years of experiencing adversity and overcoming challenges?
22. Jackson Bird uses his voice and social media platform to “break stereotypes, one episode at a time” (p. 264). Consider the following: “It was clear how even the most well-intentioned cisgender people could trip up due to their lack of exposure to trans people. People needed to understand how to talk to us, how to listen to us, and how to support us” (p. 265). After reading Sorted, discuss how you can be an ally to transgender people.
23. On the last page of Sorted, the author writes, “I refuse to live my life in fear” (p. 284). Discuss examples of the courage it took for Bird to attend his high school reunion. What examples from his journey can you apply to help you live a fearless life?
Extension Activities
1. Given the attention to transgender issues in media, one might think that transgender people are a phenomenon of the twenty-first century. Conduct research about transgender history, as Jackson Bird wrote, “across time and cultures” (p. 102). Begin by consulting the Further Learning section at the back of Sorted. Choose a specific time period, person, or culture to focus on. Report your findings to the class.
2. Jackson Bird references “cultural competency” in relation to trans people and health care (pages 126–27). According to apa.org, cultural competence is “loosely defined as the ability to understand, appreciate, and interact with people from cultures or belief systems different from one’s own.” Work in pairs or small groups to research the components of cultural competency. Create a presentation to introduce the principles of cultural competency and how they can be applied to support the transgender community.
3. On page 203 of Sorted, Bird cites a startling statistic: over 40 percent of transgender people attempt suicide. Dig deeper into this statistic as it relates to the transgender community. Use the information you find as a basis for a public-service advocacy campaign.
4. Issues important to the transgender community have recently been more visible in the mainstream news media than ever before. Gender-specific or nonspecific restrooms, transgender people in the US military, and trans rights are just a few of these issues. Dive into the national and international news for timely articles pertaining to the transgender community. Create a current-event space to display the articles and provide summaries.
5. On pages 255 and 256, Bird describes how he decided to have a small dagger image tattooed on his Achilles tendon, symbolizing how he faced his fears and, in so doing, became “invincible.” Create a tattoo that symbolizes a fear you’ve conquered or something you’ve achieved that makes you feel proud.
This reading group guide was created by Colleen Carroll, literacy specialist and author of the twelve-volume series How Artists See (Abbeville Press). Contact Colleen at www.colleencarroll.us.
About The Author
Photograph By Sloane Taylor
Jackson Bird is a YouTube creator and LGBTQ+ advocate dedicated to demystifying the transgender experience. His TED Talk “How to talk (and listen) to transgender people” has been viewed over a million times. Jackson is a recipient of the GLAAD Rising Star Digital Innovator Award and lives in New York City. You can follow him online @JackIsNotABird.
Product Details
- Publisher: S&S/Simon Element (November 1, 2019)
- Length: 320 pages
- ISBN13: 9781982130756
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Raves and Reviews
“A soulful and heartfelt coming-of-age story that celebrates the enduring power of self-determination and dignity.”
—Jamia Wilson, Director and Publisher of the Feminist Press
“Jackson Bird doesn’t have to share his life or any details about his transition with us, but we are so fortunate that he has. He’s an incredible educator in the field of gender and sexuality where his patience and good-humor make everyone feel included in the conversation. This book is a particularly valuable resource for anyone looking for insights into the trans experience in order to support their loved ones.” —Paul DeGeorge, Harry and the Potters
"[Bird's] tale of self-realization is one he fearlessly and relentlessly shares with the world—and the world is better for it. So it's no surprise that Sorted is as fresh, clear, funny, and essential as the man himself." —Melissa Anelli, New York Times bestselling author of Harry, A History
“I wish I had read this book ten years ago–or, better yet, I wish everyone around me had read it. Bird is a gentle and charming narrator, weaving the story of his own life together with enough educational asides to ensure that all of his readers can follow along. Sorted is thoughtful and affirming in its examination of evolving trans narratives and terminology, honoring both the past and present of trans identity. A compassionate, tender-hearted, and accessible book for anyone who might need a hand to hold as they walk through their own transition or the transition of a loved one.” —Austin Chant, author of Peter Darling
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