Vulnerability plays an important role within the narrative. Throughout the memoir, Mock is vulnerable for a variety of reasons: her burgeoning trans identity, her positionality as a person of color, and her parents’ lack of financial stability, to name a few. As a child, this vulnerability makes her an easier target for Derek, who capitalizes on these vulnerabilities in order to sexually abuse her. Mock remembers, “My inclinations made me all the more vulnerable to him, and my vulnerabilities made me easy prey” (43). Mock attributes much of her vulnerability to her identity as trans, which she does not necessarily understand as a child. Her burgeoning trans identity, unlike her racial identity and her economic status, make her different from other people; as such, she becomes an easy target for Derek’s predatory behavior:

Being or feeling different […] can result in social isolation and exclusion, which in turn leads to a child being more vulnerable to the instigation and continuation of abuse. Abusers often take advantage of a child’s uncertainties and insecurities about their identity and body (47).

Although Mock never explicitly says this, her early sexual abuse seems to have paved the way for her later sex work. It can be assumed, therefore, that many of the other girls on Merchant Street had a history of sexual abuse, as this is quite common with sex workers, especially those who have identities marginalized by society. Mock seems to link her trans identity implicitly with vulnerability, which she also conflates with isolation. This isolated vulnerability also plays off of a sense of shame that comes with being marginalized in society, which further leads her down a path of lower self-esteem, rendering her even more vulnerable to predatory male figures. Mock thereby seems to associate vulnerability with predation and creates a hardened exterior shell to protect herself from being a victim at the hands of other people.

This decision to protect herself leads Mock to shy away from exposing her vulnerabilities. As a result of her heightened vulnerability as a child and the sexual abuse that she sees as resultant from that vulnerability, Mock avoids emotional intimacy, especially regarding the intimacy that emerges as a result of disclosure. When speaking about her public disclosure, Mock states:

I was not ready for the vulnerability that comes with public openness when I spoke to Keirna at age twenty-seven. During our conversations, I withheld parts of myself and details from my journey (partly because I was unpacking my own shame; partly because I needed to save those details for my own story). As a result, the girl in the piece seemed untouchable, unscathed, a bit of an anomaly (xiv).

She has spent so much of her life protecting herself from her vulnerability that she feels isolated not only from other people, but from herself. Similarly, Mock realizes after telling parts of her story to Keirna that vulnerability is necessary to feel a sense of belonging among other people. More than anything, Mock wants to feel as though she belongs because she has spent so much of her life feeling like she does not belong. However, her hardened exterior—created due to her fear of rejection—prevents her from belonging as it isolates her from other people. Paradoxically, this isolation renders Mock more vulnerable, as she does not have a community to fall back on. In order to break this cycle of isolation, Mock realizes that she has to make herself publicly vulnerable, thus leading to her memoir.