🟢 Book Review: It Feels Good to Be Yourself: A Book About Gender Identity by Theresa Thorn and Noah Grigni

RATING: 🟢 Recommended

REVIEWER: Justice Johnson

REVIEW METHODOLOGY: Louise Derman-Spark's Guide for Selecting Anti-Bias Children's Books from the Social Justice Books Project, Teaching for Change

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“Your feelings about your gender are real. Listen to your heart. No matter what your gender identity is, you are okay exactly the way you are. And you are loved.”

This is a colorfully illustrated book that introduces a subject some parents struggle to approach, whether it be from a lack of understanding or an inability to articulate such a broad subject. Full of diverse characters with a wide range of disabilities, skin tone, and gender identities, It Feels Good to be Yourself is meant to help both children and parents talk about the difference between sex, gender identity, pronouns, and gender expression. The audience is shown how to be not just tolerant but understanding and accepting of people whose gender differs from the binary idea of “man” and “woman” that many people are still taught to strictly believe. Full of love and community, this book is a wonderful addition to any classroom or household bookshelf.

Here we follow the lives of three children—Ruthie, a POC transgender girl; Alex, a bigender child; and JJ, a nonbinary disabled person of color. Using concise and easy to understand language, the reader is able to navigate through the many different ways to express gender differently, from hairstyle and color to makeup choice or choice of clothing. We even get a chance to see Ruthie’s family and explore how others approached, understood, and ultimately accepted Ruthie’s gender change and transition. I especially appreciated how this book showed what it was like to come out to your family, and how it should not be taken personally or negatively but as another aspect of life that changes and grows along with the child. Though this is not the experience of every child who is questioning their gender, this is a great example of what we should all strive for when it comes to our own friends and family. The author, Theresa Thorn, is the mother of a transgender child, and she explains the lessons her child has taught her about withholding judgment, challenging pre-existing ideas around gender, and ultimately giving children, families, and teachers who read this book the ability to better understand themselves and facilitate conversations amongst everyone.

Schools even to this day so often use the terms “sex” and “gender” interchangeably, when the two are separate ideas. This book gives the reader the vocabulary necessary to differentiate and expand on their understanding of gender, such as “gender expression,” “transgender,” “non-binary,” “intersex,” and “cisgender.” There are also some helpful resources such as documents, organizations, and other books for both children and adults so they can further explore and understand the gender spectrum. Illustrator Noah Grigni explains how growing up in an area where access to these terms and resources were limited or non-existent made their own gender exploration confusing, difficult, and lead to feeling unseen and isolated. Books like these can keep children and adults from having to go through these struggles.

Given our current President and the direct orders that have been issued to remove legal protection for transgender people and non-binary people, it is important now more than ever to combat this discrimination and intolerance by teaching others to love, understand, and accept what someone’s identified gender is, no matter how different it is from their own. Knowledge and language are the enemy of ignorance and hatred–if we are given the chance to understand what it is like for others to explore their gender and what that can look like, we can connect with each other as a community and stand against discriminatory laws and injustices.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book to anyone regardless of how they identify, but especially those questioning their gender or who want to teach others about diversity and acceptance in the LGBTQIA+ community. I would suggest using this as a jumping off point to facilitate a conversation with those who do not understand, agree with, or accept gender identities other than cis gender boys and cisgender girls. This book is a gentle way to combat outdated and prejudiced ideas and introduces readers to the colorful and diverse world that exists all around us. Get this on your bookshelf, pronto! 

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ABOUT THE REVIEWER

REVIEWER BIO: Justice Johnson is a student Portland State University and is taking Zapoura Newton-Calvert's Social Justice in K12 Curriculum course. Their volunteer work was a partnership with Reading Is Resistance and the Social Justice Books Project from Teaching for Change.