Great book. Very emotional. Also inspiring. Makes you learn more and see more day to day humanity & struggles of trans people. She's in the good fight and we should all be participating. Heartbreaking but she manages to stay positive. 

A wonderfully written memoir! And the history intertwined as part of the storytelling was entertaining. I did have a hard time connecting with a few chapters, where I almost felt detached. However, overall, I would definitely recommend it. 

I picked up this book as a part of a genre challenge StoryGraph posted. I'm very glad I did so. I knew nothing about this, except that it was written by a trans author. I was not expecting the unique and interesting perspective that Sarah offers as a trans woman in politics, active during the times in our recent history that have been most impactful on the LGBTQ community. Reading her story was truly an experience and her way with words easily swept me into her life. As her spirits lifted, so did mine, and when she described the loss of her husband, I'd been crying since her wedding ceremony, and when she told of the progress she and Andy helped make in politics, I got chills. I think this is partly because I identify with Sarah, but also because she's a great author and makes even boring politics stuff interesting. Over the last couple of years, I've been feeling more and more pessimistic about the US and the progress it has and largely hasn't made. Reading this book gave me some hope that there are people out there like Sarah in politics, fighting for people's rights. I really hope she runs for president when she turns 35, because I'd vote for her in a heartbeat. 

Reading a book from a trans author and reading the sections in which they reference themselves before transition was really eye opening for me and I think everyone should have this experience. Sarah never once referred to her gender as anything other than a woman, because she's always known that's what she was, even before she was out. When describing other trans people, she didn't use pronouns or didn't mention their gender until the moment that they came out. I'll admit that I was of the mindset of thinking of someone as a boy before they transition, when, in reality, they were a girl all along, they just didn't express it prior to coming out. Sarah's book helped me see that my previous mindset was wrong. 

This is just an amazing book, I highly recommend it. 

"There's a saying that goes, 'If you're not at the table, then you're on the menu.' That helps to explain the substantive need for diverse representation... A government cannot be 'of the people, by the people, and for the people' if wide swaths of the people have no seat at the table, if large parts of the country feel like there is literally no one in their government who can understand what they are going through."

"Just knowing my surgery was successful helped me feel better. The homesickness that I'd been carrying around for so long was gone. And as was the case when I first started transitioning, the absence of a negative was more noticeable than any presence of a positive."

"Vulnerability is often the first step on the path toward justice. Vulnerability breeds empathy; empathy fosters support; support leads to action."