Both Parties
A TRANSGENDER YOUNG ADULT BOOK
ASIN-B07X2DCC1Z
Mark and Caitlin are Both Parties to a remarkable transition …
Mark is transgender. He’s known it his entire life, which has been one of lying—to his mother, to his classmates, and to himself. Every day that he is a boy is a reminder that his life is wrong, and he must continue the lie that he isn’t a girl, and is agony—especially now in high school.
Caitlin arranges parties at the start of each school year, to get to know selected new kids and to maybe do a little matchmaking. She invites Mark with the specific idea of matching him up … to herself. It’s awkward and humiliating, but she learns the truth about Mark.
Their lives are told in alternating chapters, but it’s not a simple story. Mark only exists at school, while Jennifer is around after school and on weekends. At least there’s ongoing treatment at a gender clinic, but the doctors want the half-and-half arrangement to continue on into the next year. Meanwhile, Caitlin helps Jennifer learn the social roles and rules among teen girls, and Jennifer acquires new friends for the first time in her life.
It can’t last. Tension and pressure mount as Mark and Jennifer each try to balance the other, just to survive. Caitlin has her own problems, too, with her body and her family. Meanwhile, life goes on, with shopping and parties with girlfriends, and with boys paying attention to the girls. But it’s increasingly difficult to keep up the daily masquerade as Mark—and it’s only a matter of time before someone realizes that Mark is Jennifer …
Mark is transgender. He’s known it his entire life, which has been one of lying—to his mother, to his classmates, and to himself. Every day that he is a boy is a reminder that his life is wrong, and he must continue the lie that he isn’t a girl, and is agony—especially now in high school.
Caitlin arranges parties at the start of each school year, to get to know selected new kids and to maybe do a little matchmaking. She invites Mark with the specific idea of matching him up … to herself. It’s awkward and humiliating, but she learns the truth about Mark.
Their lives are told in alternating chapters, but it’s not a simple story. Mark only exists at school, while Jennifer is around after school and on weekends. At least there’s ongoing treatment at a gender clinic, but the doctors want the half-and-half arrangement to continue on into the next year. Meanwhile, Caitlin helps Jennifer learn the social roles and rules among teen girls, and Jennifer acquires new friends for the first time in her life.
It can’t last. Tension and pressure mount as Mark and Jennifer each try to balance the other, just to survive. Caitlin has her own problems, too, with her body and her family. Meanwhile, life goes on, with shopping and parties with girlfriends, and with boys paying attention to the girls. But it’s increasingly difficult to keep up the daily masquerade as Mark—and it’s only a matter of time before someone realizes that Mark is Jennifer …
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