“Girl. Who are you hiding from?" Sami means well. He means to include me in that sisterhood of femmes, a sacred circle to which Reem belongs. But it's a place I've never been at home. "Please don't call me that.” GenderFemininityTransTransmasc Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night
“We are seated across from a couple of pregnant women and their partners, who glance at us over their magazines. I can imagine that we make a strange pair, but it's the way they glare at me that makes me pause, as though I'm rude for appearing this way, with my square jaw and unreadable face, in a space where they had expected someone legible.” GenderMasculinityFemininityTransTransmasc Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night
“I've tried to block out the awkward years of my puberty, but we've played this same what-if game before, you and me—what if it's just a matter of finding the right haircut, the right outfit, the right boyfriend, the right femininity. Maybe you were right in some way; you never gave in to expectations of what a woman should be.” FemininityTransTransmasc Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night
“My body came with borders. I've lost count of the times I wished I could share in sisterhood, could lay my head on an auntie's lap and know we bore the same weight. But I've borne a different burden, and I've borne it so long that, as I turn the barrette over in my hand, I don't yet have the heart to tell Aisha that I have tried all the ways I can think of to make myself fit in.” GenderFemininityTransTransmasc Book:The Thirty Names of Night Source: The Thirty Names of Night