For Today I Am a Boy by Kim Fu

File under: Trans Joy (hard-won)

If you’re reading this blog, I’m guessing you’ve already agreed that what we call gender identity, expression, and ways of being are not situated or otherwise linked to the biological configuration of our body parts. Seems simple enough, right? If only we could be liberated by the simple act of naming the absurdity of it all.

For Today I Am a Boy is a story of Peter Huang, a girly boy who makes it deep into adulthood strapped into his place by gender roles enforced by the cultural gravity that occurs in the behaviors, expectations, and assumptions played on his body by others. Some people know his (her) truth, others refuse or otherwise cannot see it. No one speaks of it. The violent oppression of prescribed gender, in this case, compulsory toxic masculinity, is exposed through the shapes of Peter’s relationships. Thankfully, Peter does arrive at the conscious cost/benefit analysis of choosing herself, and the story ends in a celebratory tone. Trans joy For The Win.

While its true my experience is that of a non-binary person, and FTIAAB deals with what I’m going to dangerously call the simpler subject of binary transness, the author depicts the experience of prescribed-gender-non-conformity with the kind of dimension that made me feel as if I were exploring a diorama of my own life while I devoured all 242 pages in a single sitting. 

Fu’s approachable storytelling is pitch perfect. She hits all the notes. 

Had I read Kim Fu’s brilliant debut novel sooner, I wonder if I would have sat down to write my memoir? The act of trying to articulate it all feels a little silly today in light of FTIAAB, published eleven years ago. But even as I begin to think my story is redundant in light of this genius book, I remember just how many cowboy movies there are, and I want to flood the scene with ever more hard-won trans joy.