The Sunbearer Trials

Throughout the novel, birds act as a symbol of Teo’s identity and heritage. Thomas establishes Teo’s unique relationship with birds in the novel’s opening scene, in which a group of birds helps Teo deface a promotional poster of Gold heroes. Teo’s wings act as a central symbol in the novel, representing the complex intersection of his identity as both a Jade semidios and a transgender boy. The wings mark him as the child of Quetzal, “a part of him—his identity and his heritage—given to him by his mom” (103), but their distinctly female coloration makes them feel “as though they [belong] to someone else or he’[s] been given the wrong ones” (103). The dysphoria Teo experiences as a result of his wings echoes the real-world gender dysphoria often experienced by those whose true gender identity doesn’t align with the sex assigned to them at birth.

The Golds’ reactions to Teo’s physiological connection to birds—ranging from benign curiosity to overt cruelty—reinforce his status as other and continue the parallel between Teo’s avian identity and the contemporary experiences of transgender youth. For example, when Diosa Fauna inadvertently reveals that Teo’s bones are hollow like a bird’s, Teo receives a barrage of increasingly invasive questions about his anatomy—“Were you hatched from an egg?” (216), “Do you perch?” (216), “Do you have a cloaca?” (216)—that drives him to flee the room in discomfort.