Theresa Thorn (co-host of the excellent parenting podcast One Bad Mother and Jesse Thorn (proprietor of the excellent Maximum Fun podcasting network) have a transgender daughter; Theresa has written a beautiful, sweet picture book about gender identity based on her experiences with her trans kid: It Feels Good to Be Yourself.
Aimed at small children, It Feels Good to Be Yourself tackles what could be an overly complex subject by reducing it to the simple message at the core of the gender acceptance movement: however you feel about yourself is the right way to feel about yourself, and the people who love you still love you however you feel about yourself — and being a good person means letting other people define themselves and respecting their choices.
The book ranges over the differences between sex as assigned at birth and gender identity, covering transgender identity and several kinds of nonbinary identity, with the kind of matter-of-factness that reveals the complexity as an artefact of grownups' hang-ups, not any intrinsic thorniness.
The accompanying illustrations by Noah Grigni, a nonbinary, transgender artist, are as simple and sweet as Thorn's storytelling.
This book manages to be both modest and unassuming while simultaneously being a watershed. Highly recommended.
It Feels Good to Be Yourself [Theresa Thorn and Noah Grigni/Henry Holt and co]
(Thanks, Jesse!)
