Mermaids
The very first image in the narrative following the title page is of a very young Jazz seated on a bed or sofa with pillows and just one single toy: a mermaid doll. Many mermaids follow this one throughout the book, both visually and textually. Mermaids are a seminal symbol of the male-to-female transgender experience and for a perfectly logical reason: conventionally “girly” from the waist up, but expressing gender ambiguity from the waist down as the tail hides all the conventional “evidence” of sexual organs as determiner.
Pink
Pink has been Jazz’s favorite color for as long as she can remember. It may make some uncomfortable, but pink is symbolically situated here as a “girly” color. This should not discomfort those complaining about gender conformity since the fact that Jazz conforms to this particular gender expectation actually serves to make that very point.
Girly Fashion
Jazz identifies strongly with her friends Samantha and Casey because all three like “high heels and princess gowns.” Clothing deemed gender-inappropriate for a child born with a penis comes to strongly symbolize femininity since Jazz joins her biologically female friends in identifying with such fashion choices.
Boy Toys
Certain specific interests are likewise situated as symbols of boyhood. Jazz clarifies the distinction between what her brothers shared an interest that completely failed to spark her own interest. Trucks, tools, superheroes are jettisoned into the domain of boys in favor of princesses and mermaids.
Boy Clothes
Jazz’s parents initially respond to her insistence that she is a girl by allowing her to wear dresses and other feminine attire around the house. In public, however, it is not just discouraged, but forbidden. The result is emotional turmoil for Jazz. The enforced wearing of boy clothing becomes the true subject of the symbolism here: it represents the wider expanse of conformity beyond the privacy of the home and serves to reveal how the true power of transphobia is forcing good people to make decisions for the benefit of strangers instead of their own children.
