Mariah is a 19-year-old transgender woman. She asked not to have her picture included in the book because she experiences body image issues. Mariah’s mother died when Mariah was young, and her father is not in her life. As a child, Mariah lived in a rough neighborhood with her mother and grandmother. After Child Protective Services (CPS) removed from her grandmother’s care, Mariah entered placement homes, which is where she feels she was raised.

Mariah, who was AMAB, wore feminine clothes as a child. At this age, she “didn’t know the difference between a boy and a girl” (98), so she had no reason to question her gender identity: “You may hear transgender people say that when they were little, they felt different; they were born a boy but felt like a girl. When I was little, I believed I actually was a girl” (98). However, the social repercussions for her manner of dressing were severe. Neighbors and strangers yelled at her mother and grandmother for letting Mariah wear dresses. Her special education teacher harassed her, and Mariah was eventually reported to social services.

At home, Mariah yelled and eventually started issuing threats to get what she wanted. A doctor diagnosed her with ADD and prescribed Ritalin. When asked about her home life at this time, Mariah reports, “My mother had nothing to do with me […] She was living in the house, but she’d go in and out. She didn’t pay attention to me” (103). She recalls her mother attacking her, throwing beer bottles at her head. When Mariah was around seven, she started going to a new school, but the adults in her predominantly Black community were particularly intolerant of her appearance: “In my low-income community, people had no education and no jobs. They were grown-ups acting like children. The adults, not the children, made fun of me when I wore my wigs” (105).

Mariah frequently had sexual experiences with other children: “From six up, I used to kiss other guys in my neighborhood, make out with them, and perform oral sex on them. I liked it. I used to love oral […] I was making out with girls too” (105). However, she thought of herself as an adult and spent most of her time with adults. The Department of Social Services (DSS), concerned in part about an eight-year-old socializing with adults, placed Mariah in a series of foster homes, followed by a residential treatment center called ANDRUS. Mariah recalls her constant moving as a traumatizing experience. However, ANDRUS proved pleasant enough. At ANDRUS, Mariah was not allowed to wear feminine clothes, and for a time, she “actually accepted being a boy” (106). Reflecting now, though, she grasps that even then she “always had these urges” (107) that reflected her true gender identity: “Did my body, my soul, know what I was supposed to be?” (107). While at ANDRUS, she developed a close relationship with her roommate, Michael, who was eventually discharged before her. Around that time, she learned that her mother died.

Although Mariah got in trouble for expressing gender-nonconforming ideas at ANDRUS, she missed the institution terribly when she was returned to her grandmother at age 11. At school, she became the target of bullying. Mariah got into an altercation at school wherein she pushed her pregnant teacher to the ground and threatened to blow up the school. Because of this, she was diagnosed as a “bipolar, clinical psychopath with narcissistic tendencies” (111); her DSS file also wrongly reported that she had set the school on fire. She was placed in Nassau University Medical Center, where she was heavily medicated. At the age of 12, she was moved to Sagamore State Hospital, followed by a series of placement centers. Mariah was also in and out of juvenile detention.

When Mariah hit puberty, she began to resemble a woman more than a man, something she attributes to her many medications. Her voice grew higher pitched, and she developed breasts. Simultaneously, her male characteristics did not develop; she notes being bothered by her penis not growing larger. She also gained weight. In response, she tried to become more masculine. She joined football and track. She started smoking at the age of 13 in the hopes that it would deepen her voice. While at St. Mary’s Children’s Center (later named MercyFirst), weakened by the effects of her medications, Mariah was sexually abused by a fellow patient who coerced her on multiple occasions into performing oral sex on him; the staff covered up the incident, eventually pressuring her into agreeing that it was consensual. It was not.

Once Mariah turned 14, despite the institution requiring her to present as male, her peers unanimously regarded her as female. She felt happy at this point in her life, and her crush on an older boy, followed by hearing Mariah Carey’s music, helped her realize she was bisexual. At age 15, Mariah stopped taking her medications and got into a fight that landed her back at St. Mary’s.

Around this time, Mariah learned the term “trans.” Initially, she was frustrated that her experience was not as entirely unique as she had assumed. At a new placement center, this time in Pennsylvania, she began working with a good therapist, but she continued to struggle: “As I learned more, it made me feel sad, like I had a disorder. Transsexual. […] It was like I’m not born who I am; I have to transition to be who I am” (117). Just as she started to make strides, at age 16, Mariah then began going through male puberty, which distressed her: “When I wanted to be a man, I looked like a woman. Now, when I want to be a woman, I’m turning into a man” (118).

Mariah has now been on hormones for seven months. She wears masculine clothes, as she lives in a “not too accepting” neighborhood; most people think she’s a lesbian. She says she’s taking her transition “step by step” (119).