"I learned about gender through shame. In so many ways, they became inseparable for me. As I grew older, people told me to stop being so feminine and grow up. Gender non-conformity is seen as something immature, something we have to grow out of to become adults. Overnight, so many of the things that I loved not only became associated with femininity but with shame... The thing about shame is that it eats at you until it fully consumes you. Then you cannot tell the difference between their shame and your own—between a body and an apology. It’s not just that you internalize the shame; rather, it becomes you."

Incredibly impactful. Vaid-Menon covered a lot of ground in such a short book, from their own story to the history of gender, the impact of gender norms in modern Western society to the history of gender variances in indigenous cultures, this is a great starting place and gave me even more motivation to continue reading about these topics.

"The world we want is one in which all people, regardless of their appearances, are treated with dignity and respect—one in which these factors do not have a bearing on safety, employment, and opportunity. We want a world that acknowledges and appreciates the complexity of everyone and everything—one in which transformation is celebrated and not repressed. We want a world where people have an underlying worth regardless of their gender. The gender binary is hurting us all, and it is time for us to finally put it to rest."