For as long as I can remember, my favorite color has been pink. (My second favorite color is silver and my third-favorite color is green.)
With the exception of introducing Jazz herself by name, these are the opening lines of the book. It is kind of a strange way to kick off a book celebrating non-normative gender advancements. Jazz if transgender, of course, and that is a thing worth celebrating, but this introduction almost verges into an uncomfortable realm of stereotyping. Pink is a color that has been distinctly aligned with gender conventions in America for the past century and though it definitely serves to engender the idea that Jazz is a girl through and through despite the sex organs she was born with, it also cannot help but reinforce certain other gender expectations. Aside from that, the accompanying drawing of young Jazz is so adorable that only the most committed transphobe could find something to hate.
I have a girl brain, but a boy body. This is called transgender. I was born this way!
There may quite possibly be no better definition of the reality of being transgender to be found anywhere. The brain of one gender accidentally fitted into the body of another. Some people with no college degrees, education, or the slightest knowledge at all about what they are talking about insist that gender is cut and dried because it is all determined by sexual organs. Penis equals boy, end of story. The rest of the human mind is a vast unexplored galaxy, but for these people they have got the biology all figured out. Jazz along is proof enough that they do not. It is unfortunate for a great many people in this world that a human being is way more complicated than the Lego Death Star set. And most people in this world probably couldn’t even handle constructing that.
Sometimes my parents let me wear my sister’s dresses around the house. But whenever we went out, I had to put on my boy clothes again. This made me mad!
This is a common element to the transgender timeline. Depending on how early the biological boy begins feeling comfortable with everything their brain is telling them that stands in opposition to what society demands. A lot of transgender girls make it through their entire childhood without saying anything to their parents and only engaging in secretive cross-dressing that often produces shame. Jazz’s story of a very early and defiant acceptance of her girlhood is therefore not to be understand as the norm. Regardless of the timeline, however, in the vast majority of instances, the initial response from parents is usually total resistance followed by giving into private inside-the-house access to female clothing followed by—for the lucky ones with supportive families—approval of gender-appropriate clothing in public. Unfortunately, a great many transgender girls will never reach the age at which such decisions are theirs alone without ever receiving support or approval from their parents.
