Growing up, Zisin identified more closely as male than female, but their understanding of themselves shifts and deepens as they age. For much of their teenage years they identified as lesbian, by the end of high school they identified as trans, and at eighteen they started taking testosterone, which offered a new sense of their body and helped ease the experience that is referred to, often inappropriately, as gender dysphoria. Later, their self-identity becomes more complex than either/or. Nevo was fortunate in attending a high school that was part of the Safe Schools Coalition, which also offered Nevo’s peers insights still unavailable to the majority of Australian school students.

The memoir closely follows Zisin’s navigation of family dynamics, school, and their Jewish culture. Its strength lies in its ability to interrogate social constructs through both feminist and queer theoretical lenses. At times the memoir becomes bogged down in recollections of teenage angst, common to most young people, but Zisin is an assured writer and the memoir is a welcome addition to a growing body of literature on gender diversity.

Crusader Hillis