Summary

Jackson was attracted to boys from a young age. Due to a lack of representation in the media as well as in his surrounding community, Jackson internalized the mistaken idea that a person could not be both transgender and homosexual. This belief made Jackson think that he couldn't possibly be transgender because of his attraction to boys. Even when he was finally introduced to a queer transgender man in a film, that character was ridiculed and stereotyped as a freak. In a sidebar, Jackson writes about how trans women are more commonly portrayed in the media, though they are often thoughtlessly fetishized, and notes that there is a lack of representation of trans men in society.

While on a high school trip, Jackson wore a tank top in front of some boys in her class without realizing that the shirt accentuated his larger...