Summary
Slater begins by describing the scene on the bus that fateful day, November 4, 2013, when a young man named Richard, a stranger to Sasha, set the hem of their dress on fire with a lighter. She then zooms out, so to speak, establishing a wide shot of the city of Oakland. She describes the paradoxical of Oakland being proudly diverse while, at the same time, being the seventh-most unequal American cities with regard to income inequality. The 57 bus, on which the narrative's fateful event takes place, runs through all strata of status in Oakland, from the wealthy Bayside neighborhoods to East Oakland.
Part 1 focuses on Sasha, establishing their journey from early childhood through high school. Slater explores their friendships, struggles, and victories, all the while exploring what it means to identify as genderqueer. Slater adapts the first section of Part 1 from a primary source of Sasha's, her Tumblr, which is arranged like a free verse poem. Slater goes on to document Sasha's long-standing fascination with language since early childhood, and Sasha's interest in the shapes of letters and the sounds of words rather than simple issues of spelling and definition. Sasha develops their own language and imagines entire extra-terrestrial societies to go along with it. They find solace in an online community of fellow "conlangers," or "people who construct languages of their own" (14).
Slater doesn't organize the narrative linearly, and in the section titled 1001 Blank White Cards, she takes the reader through Sasha's high-school years at Maybeck High School, where they enjoy a tightly knit friend group with an abundance of inside jokes and a culture of their own.
Then, Slater jumps back in time to Sasha's middle-school years; she describes Sasha as "brainy, shy, and introverted, the kind of kid who is easy to overlook" (21). (During this time in their life, Sasha goes by Luke and uses male pronouns.) Sasha has lived with a diagnosis of Asperger's from an early age. They are mostly content with spending time alone and being distant from other kids at school, because they say they have enough going on in their own mind to keep themself entertained. That all changes when a girl named Samantha joins their Montessori school. Samantha sees a kindred spirit in Sasha and before long, they're inseparable. Other students take notice and wonder if Samantha and Sasha are "boyfriend and girlfriend," but neither see their relationship as such. Neither of them even identify themselves within the gender binary "boy-girl." When Samantha begins puberty, she realizes how uncomfortable she is in her body. Slater writes of Samantha's experience, "now being a girl was like being stuffed into a heavy, constricting costume. She could barely breathe in it" (24). When Samantha confides in her therapist that she thinks she is transgender, her therapist dismisses her, saying she doesn't know what the word "transgender" means.
A year later, after keeping her feelings bottled, Samantha tells Sasha what she told her therapist. Sasha fully validates Samantha without skipping a beat. Slater fast forwards five years later, writing that, "a handsome, apple-cheeked young man named Andrew would look back at that conversation as one of the most validating moments of his life" (26). In those five years, Samantha embarks on a gender transition, and by the time he is attending high school, he goes by Andrew.
By their sophomore year in high school, Sasha is questioning their own gender. They ask Andrew one day, already in the process of his own transition, “I don’t know if this is rude or not, but I was wondering how you realized you were a guy?” (28). Andrew responds that he just knew. He didn't feel right in a girl's body, identifying as a girl. Sasha tells him that they, too, are questioning their gender, and Andrew feels an overwhelming sense of relief. Shortly after their conversation with Andrew, Sasha brings up the topic of gender queerness and their own gender questioning to their parents, who are accepting, while still being confused about what the term "genderqueer" even means.
After providing an extensive glossary of gender-identity related terms, Slater outlines Sasha's preferred terms, which are as follows: "Agender. / Gray-cupiosexual. / Quoiromantic. / Also: Vegan." (36) Slater describes the process of Sasha choosing their new name and coming out to their school community with new, gender-neutral pronouns, no longer going by Luke, but Sasha.
Slater describes Sasha's mother Debbie's bouts of frustration as she watched her child having to resist the ubiquitous representations of the gender binary, particularly regarding bathrooms. Slater describes a family trip one Thanksgiving, when Sasha refused to use public bathrooms on the road because there was no bathroom for their gender identity. Over time, Sasha grew comfortable being flexible about the bathrooms they used. Whatever bathroom afforded them the most privacy and expedience became a fine option.
Sasha begins wearing skirts and feminine-associated clothes during their sophomore year of high school. Their mother worries that by outwardly displaying their gender nonconformity, Sasha opens themself up to the often-violent discrimination that trans people face. In the section, "Running," Slater documents a memory of Karl's from 1987, when he was assaulted while out for a jog by a truck full of men who assumed he was gay. Slater also includes a short section, presented similarly to a free-verse poem with line breaks, that describes Sasha's mother Debbie's advocacy for a change in uniform policy when she was in high school in the '60s. She chanted "Pants! Pants! / Let Girls Wear Pants!"
In the section, "Petition," Slater demonstrates how Sasha begins to advocate for changes to the way society views gender. They create a petition for the US government to recognize genders outside of the Male/Female binary on official government documents that gains 27,000 signatures. And, on a smaller scale, they convince their dad to organize his kindergarten class lineup routine alphabetically, rather than dividing his students up on a boy/girl basis.
The section concludes by introducing Sasha's relationship with a fellow Maybeck High student, Nemo, who identifies as gender fluid. They describe, together, the complexities of their relationship, which Sasha describes as platonic, "but with elements other people might consider romantic" (56).
Analysis
In the introductory and first sections of The 57 Bus, Slater sets the scene for an extensive study of gender identity, class, and justice. It becomes clear that Slater's work will not adopt the typical, voyeuristic true-crime style, but will rather dwell and ruminate on the human beings involved in the attack that is the central event of the narrative. Two major themes emerge in the sections before Part 1. The first section, titled "MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2013," describes in minute, imagistic detail, the scene on the bus immediately before Richard set Sasha's skirt on fire. Slater's reporting tone portrays the scene as normal, quotidian, even mundane. But in the last passage, a so-called "prank" transforms the everday scene into one of horror. "In a moment," writes Slater, "Sasha will wake inside a ball of flame and begin to scream" (4). So much can change in a moment. Sasha will be rushed to the hospital with severe burns up her legs, and Richard will face up to life in prison. Slater stays in that moment preceding the attack. She writes, "Surely it’s not too late to stop things from going wrong. There must be some way to wake Sasha. Divert Richard. Get the driver to stop the bus. / There must be something you can do" (5).
This switch into the second person marks the first occurrence of a recurring theme: Slater's continual deference to her readers' ability to act. Similarly, in a later section entitled "Pronouns," Slater writes, "Sasha, like many gender-nonconforming people, wants to be referred to with the pronoun they. It might feel awkward at first, but you’ll get used to it" (15). Slater's switch into the second person could be interpreted as a command to her readers—a command to act with compassion and respect for all people—but the understated style also suggests a trust in her readers, a trust that they will comply. The theme of calling people to action and advocacy continues when Slater documents Sasha's efforts to get a petition through to the White House, urging the US government to recognize genders outside of the binary on official documents. 27,000 people signed Sasha's petition. They are quoted as saying, “That was 27,000 people reading and agreeing with my words—words that I had written. ... That felt pretty great" (49).
The second theme that emerges early on in the text shows up first in the section, "OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA," when Slater describes the city's identity as one of both diversity and inequality. Oakland is a city that prides itself on its diversity while at the same time it suffers one of the highest rates of income inequality in the nation, trailing just behind New York City. Slater describes the way the city's wealth is distributed geographically, its highest concentration residing near the Bay, and dwindling as one moves further inland. She writes, "The 57 bus travels through both kinds of neighborhoods, traversing an eleven-mile path from one end of the city to the other," (7) thus turning the 57 bus into a cross-section of the city, a sample of anyone and everyone who could live in Oakland, rich or poor, of any ethnicity, of any identity. It's clear from this section that Slater is interested in the sociological factors at play, and how they inform the trial that results from the attack.
Part 1 illustrates Sasha's journey, beginning in early childhood and continuing through their teenage years, identifying the language with which they feel most comfortable describing themselves. Slater addresses how questions of identity are often so intertwined with linguistics. She cites several languages in the world that don't make gender a focus of pronouns, which in turn make agender identification a less cumbersome linguistic task. For example, if a Finnish person wishes to question their given gender identity, they need not ask everyone they know to rethink the way they identify themselves in everyday conversation, because there is no concept of "his" or "her"; pronouns are not gendered. In English, though, this isn't true. Sasha's early fascination with language and early efforts at constructing their own language may foretell their questioning, later in life, of what it means to identify as male or female.
