ARC, Books

Book 651: Sorted – Jackson Bird

Geoff W

I am always on board for reading anything from LGBTQ+ authors, but particularly nonfiction (memoirs, biographies, autobiographies, etc.). So when the publisher reached out about this one I downloaded it (and somehow actually got to it the week it was published).*

Overall, I really enjoyed this. I mean page one is a J.K. Rowling/Albus Dumbledore quote, of course I was going to enjoy this. I had no idea about Bird’s connection to Harry Potter (or that the Harry Potter Alliance, now known as Fandom Forward even existed)! This being said, I wasn’t totally enamored with the book and didn’t figure out why that was until roughly 80% of the way through the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter references and metaphors throughout Bird’s memoir. I honestly thought after a while I might get bored or frustrated with them, but the nerd in me kept geeking out every time he mentioned one. These two were by far the most poignant (and hilariously true about any orientation – the second):

“One of my favorite things about Harry Potter was how, at the beginning of the series, he’s just this average, if somewhat weird, kid at a normal school, but then on his eleventh birthday, a giant of a man comes out of nowhere and whisks him away to a magical world that he was meant to be a part of his whole life.” (21)

“The thing about being trans is that you don’t get a letter on your eleventh birthday from Dumbledore welcoming you to Hogwarts School of Queerness and Transsexuality. Hagrid doesn’t knock down your front door at midnight to confirm all the strange things that have always happened in your life and tell you, ‘Yer transgender, Harry.'” (202)

I’m honestly surprised Bird didn’t use more anecdotes from the story to connect his life to Harry and his friends’ misfit existences in the Wizarding World, but HE DOES, only on his youtube channel.

And then there were times when I was like why am I reading this kid’s (I’m only like 4-5 year older) memoir how much life experience (outside of his trans experience) does he actually have and he’d hit me with  one of these quotes or experiences that was so eerily similar to mine that I was like well damn.

“It was as if homosexuality was something that could be spontaneously inflicted on one of us in the future, not something we would’ve already had an inkling about. We’d been brought up to think it was this tragic thing that just happened to some people inexplicably, like getting into a car crash, and we desperately didn’t want it to happen to us.” (47)

“The next day, I woke up with one of the worst hangovers of my life. I’m not convinced it was entirely from the Prosecco because I wasn’t nauseated, as I usually was when I imbibe a bit too much; I was just sore. Every muscle in my body felt stiff and heavy. It was like my body was having a physical reaction to the emotional exertion of the night before.” (136)

That first quote I feel could be from any LGBTQ+ kid who grew up south of the Mason-Dixon line, in a rural area or in a fly over state. And that second quote was like looking in a mirror. Something similar happened when I first said out loud to someone other than myself that I was gay. I spent two days in bed in a state of sheer exhaustion and my roommate couldn’t even get me out of bed to go get food.

My biggest critique of the book is that it was too educational. That sounds horrible, but all of the asides and the pull out pieces distracted from Bird’s story. I didn’t realize WHY this was the case until much later in the book (probably should’ve read the publisher’s note closer) when a couple of passages explained why it was the case.

“I worked hard over those fourteen weeks to launch my podcast and deliver the absolute best TED talk I could. I played it really safe with the talk. I allowed myself a bit of sass, but I didn’t want to alienate anyone by being aggressive or presumptive. My goal was to welcome people in. This resonated with cisgender people, who were largely moved by my talk. My queer trans friends, on the other hand, gave it such acclaim as ‘basic,’ ‘vanilla,’ and ‘boring.'” (265)

And I have to agree with Bird’s queer trans friends with that statement about this book. Every time he took 2-3 pages to describe a surgery or offer tips and tricks on interacting with trans people or being trans it pulled me out of his story which was too disruptive for me. Not to mention that EVERY time one of these occurred, it reiterated something I’d read in his very thorough introduction and list of terms to know.

Bird’s story is heartwarming and there are parts where his writing is truly hilarious, but we’re living in 2019 where trans representation and existence, at least in the media has grown exponentially. This in no way detracts from the very-real every day dangers many trans people, especially trans women of color, face and Bird acknowledges that. And maybe, as I learned about 80% of the way through this book, this isn’t necessarily geared toward someone (who yes is a cisgendered male) who has a masters degree in gender, sexuality, and queer theory or has read numerous academic and pop culture works on LGBTQ+ identities. Honestly, it felt like two books crammed together: Sorted: My Story and Trans 101: A Primer on how to be(come) or interact with a trans person.

Recommendation: Honestly, I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked it—Bird’s story is heartwarming and his writing is witty and humorous, but it was a little too remedial when it came to providing definitions and explanations of trans related experience and procedures. But, that’s part of what Bird has gained a following for, providing an easy and digestible introduction to trans lives and experiences, so I just wasn’t the 100% right audience for it.

*I received a digital copy of Sorted from the publisher in return for my honest opinion. No money or goods were exchanged.

Opening Line: “It’s a testament to the all-consuming pervasiveness of gender in our society that the very first thing we do to babies is sort them into genders.”

Closing Line: “I have a rock-solid base. I haven’t cracked all the secrets to life or even all the secrets of my own life, but I can at least say that I’ve sorted things out . . . for now.” (Not whited out as this is a work of nonfiction.)

Additional Quotes from Sorted by Jackson Bird
“In the constant cycle of content creation there is a pressure to be consistently posting. I realized early on that if I held myself to a standard of perfection for every video, I would never complete any of them. I have had to learn to let things go. I tell myself that my videos, my writing, anything I’m producing is not just the content itself but also a snapshot of who I was in that moment. It’s frozen in time, a portrait of my beliefs, interests, shortcomings, and bad haircuts from that exact moment.” (xx, Introduction)

“Labels can be so important to understanding who you are, finding a community of people with similar experiences, and gaining access to resources you might need. But they can also be oppressive and limiting, like when they come attached to laws restricting rights or when they leave no room for growth or variance between binary options.” (xxiv, Introduction)

“I was stunned. Apart from having no clue how to navigate this new social terrain of breast-related anxiety and McCarthyistic homophobia, I was positively tickled that everyone appeared to think I was so flat-chested.” (35)

“I did genuinely want to be in a real relationship, and whenever I wasn’t dating someone, I collected make-out buddies like Pokémon cards.” (83)

“I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that I’m an advocate of self-sorting Hogwarts houses, seeing as I believe in self-sorting ourselves when it comes to gender too, and just about everything else for that matter. I didn’t stick to the gender I was sorted as at birth and, if one day some quiz does come along and says I’m not Gryffindor, I won’t believe it either.” (150)

“May people I came out to responded by coming out to me in turn—as bisexual, as questioning their gender, or with some other revelation entirely. Seriously, I am filled with other people’s secrets now. I’m surprised my hair isn’t as big as Regina George’s.” (190)

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