Becoming Nicole
This is a factual book about someone born male (Wyatt) but who knows at an extremely early age the he is really a she. What makes this particularly interesting is that the boy is a twin, both adopted, yet the other twin is a regular boy without any tg inclinations at all. Wayne is the father and has a hard time accepting his son's tg status while his mother, Kelly, is totally supporting and does a lot of research on the topic of transgenderism.
Wyatt, who eventually becomes Nicole, is bullied serious at school and the school won't back up a counselor who tries to help (no surprise there.) Even worse there's a group that calls themselves Christian but sets out to cause as much trouble for Nicole and the family as possible. (Judge not lest ye be judged. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Two points such Christian groups conveniently ignore.)
There's even an attempt to kill Nicole by one of the students (and again, as expected, nothing is done.) The family has to move. There's a ton of legal problems they are faced with along with Nicole's anger
(from what she's going through and her own feelings about herself), Wayne's attempt to just ignore things and get away when he can and a host of other problems.
The book shows just how much difficulty a tg youth faces in our society and how the hatred of the person becomes so intense that outright violence is used against her. There is absolutely no excuse for the way the school white-washed what all happened and no excuse for bullies not being punished strongly. Schools are more interested in internal politics and not 'rocking the boat' before the Boards of Education that they would willingly sacrifice the well-being of students who just don't fit the accepted 'norm' of appearance and behavior.
It's a well-written book but may very well cause some readers to become totally disgusted at the way some people act, especially people in positions of authority who choose to do nothing to help.
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