Surely this was how I knew? If I were telling this story at a dinner party, in response to another person asking me the question yet again, I would receive full marks for this one. There are the clear signifiers that link this story to the mainstream perception of trans identity, particularly those of us assigned male at birth: the high-heeled shoe and the performative nature of the song effortlessly blends with the public imagination of how all transfeminine people discover our gender. Blended with the quirkiness of a hunky German lodger, this story, when told right, often results in a sea of smiles, unthreatened nods and a calmness washing over the room. A calmness that is specific to liberal cisgender people feeling comfortable again because they have you all figured out. I guess my way of avoiding the trap – although can you really? Who knows – is that i n this book I am interrogating myself, and I would be doing that anyway, whether or not there was a culture war happening . I still would be asking these questions even if no one else was around. TA: You could gather ten non-binary people walking down a street and they would all experience gendered violence differently depending on how they are presenting . So it’s not an effective way to talk about violence and support. I’ve also been getting frustrated with the way ‘non-binary’ is being turned into a third gender, and its cooption by the state and the media. Even fighting for a non-binary marker on a passport feels like another way to contain what was, for me, something that couldn’t be contained .

The writing in this memoir is truly remarkable and life-changing. Travis gives us room to question the society we live in where gender has been so structured up to the point that it is difficult to navigate a safe and comfortable world if you don't identify as 'male' or 'female'. Alternately wry, witty and wounded . . . Alabanza has a crisp, contemporary writing style . . . Alabanza lifts the lid on our potential for empathy, alliance and complicity * * Irish Times * * Well, when I was around three years old my mother took me to the doctor because I had not spoken my first word yet. She was worried. I was her second child and my older brother couldn’t shut up, making full sentences by the age of three … ”verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ The 20-year-old me nods, consciously agreeing with what she is saying, yet a subconscious part of me knows that something does not feel right. The 26-year‑old me both cringes and thrills at the word “traditionally” appearing next to “trans”. As if anything feels traditional about a journey into gender deviance, unless of course my friend was referring to the longstanding examples of transness within previous historical periods – yet something tells me she was not.

Or if it is a phase someone will eventually move on from, then we can sometimes afford it grace, too. Yet if there is a permanence to it – a declaration that the gender nonconformity is intentional and refuses to go away – then there is a problem. If it is not used as the gag, punchline or reveal, but is in fact here to stay, then the facade of acceptability ruptures. The younger me playing the witch in the school panto was applauded while on stage, yet I know that if I had worn that outfit on the streets I would have been punished.Both writers express the same longing to inhabit the world in a more fluid, protean and self-created way. Water, swimming, tides, sea-life and blurring physically at the edges are recurring themes in Voice of the Fish, and Alabanza employs a similar aquatic metaphor: “A body of water, potential to do so much, yet eventually bottled.” There are the plastic, trout-pout, highly-styled bio females out there who live for selfie posing, but not a large percentage. Yet those who feel a need to become a new woman-identified gender aspire to this sort of femininity, exclusively. I suppose it is the need to feel this Uber-feminine femininity makes the difference to go under the knife. And women who want to take off their shirts in public and have male privilege, or other delights.