Some Assembly Required - The Secret Life Of A Transgender Teen

When transgender college student Arin Andrews, named Emerald at birth and raised in "the buckle of the Bible Belt," was seven years old, he wanted to be a nun. At that point Arin knew he was interested in girls but, being raised as a girl himself, he didn't know if there was even a word to describe the way he felt, let alone what connotations and consequences associating himself with it would bring.

"Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen," Arin's new memoir, relays the challenges of trying to grow up and understand yourself in a closed-minded place where those around you recoil from anything new.

At his private Christian school (from which he was eventually expelled due to the suspicion that he was a lesbian), Arin was bullied and singled out by students and faculty alike. At home, Arin's mother read his text messages, gossiped with his friend's parents, and wouldn't even let him decide how to cut his own hair until he was well into his teens. Because of such suppressions of his self expression, Arin was not even able to access the vocabulary he needed to define his identity until he had already been driven nearly to the point of suicide.

Finally managing to search the internet without supervision at his grandparents' house, Arin found videos of other trans guys who had started transitioning. A girlfriend of his (with whom, because of his mother's disapproval, he was forced to communicate by means of passed notes, burner phones, and hand signals) then managed to slip him an article about another trans teen in his area, Katie Rain Hill, with whom Arin identified immediately. Within a year, Arin had convinced his mom to come around, was passing as male in public, receiving regular testosterone injections, and dating Katie herself.

Arin's story is a successful one. He has even been fortunate enough to have increased trans visibility by giving talks, going on TV, and starring in an ad campaign for Barney's. However, "Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen" is cautionary as well: in it, Arin shows us how ignorance can muzzle identity, and just how bad things can get when people don't allow their children to explore their feelings in privacy, keep their minds open, or educate themselves.

"Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen"
Arin Andrews
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
$17.99