Bookin' It in 2022

I finished 20 books in 2022.  The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1. Cack-Handed: A Memoir by Gina Yashere 
2. Can Black People Grow Hair? by Andrea Krystal 
3.  Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman
4. Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color by Gilbert Baker
5. Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon
6. High School by Sara Quin & Tegan Quin
7. Femme in Public by ALOK
8. Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism by Megan Phelps-Roper
9. Unprotected: A Memoir by Billy Porter
10. Your Wound / My Garden by ALOK
11. If You Give a Pig the White House by Faye Kanouse
12. Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity Edited by Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane
13. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts 40x40: Bad Reputation / I Love Rock-n-Roll
14. Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson
15. Bearing My Seoul by Taryn Blake
16. The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love by Joanna Gray
17. Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family by Amanda Jetté Knox
18. Enter the Blue by Dave Chisholm
19. Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game by Abby Wambach
20. Saint Peter and the Goldfinch: Poems by Jack Ridl

Quote of the Day

Regarding glass ceilings...I'm mostly bolstered by folks who create their own ceilings.  I'm less interested in banging down the door of some man who doesn't want me there.  I'm more about building my own house.

-- Ava DuVernay

Quote of the Day

Women have had to find themselves within content presented from the male perspective forever.  It's essential to flip this and allow men the opportunity to find themselves within content presented from a woman's perspective.

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. ix-x

Quote of the Day

Recently, on a call with a company hiring me to teach about leadership, a man said, "Excuse me, Abby, I just need to ensure that what you present is applicable to men, too."

I said, "Good question!  But only if you've asked every male speaker you've hired if his message is applicable to women, too."

-- Abby Wambach, Wolfpack, p. ix

Quote of the Day

At a certain point, it's not so much about what you are capable of playing, but instead it's about what you choose to play -- what you want to sound like.

-- Dave Chisholm, Enter the Blue

Quote of the Day

A genius is the one most like himself.

-- Thelonious Monk

Quote of the Day

Hate is loud and violent, but it burns out quickly.  Love is quieter and slower, but more resilient.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 275

Quote of the Day

Once I was a little girl who was sunny, funny and charming.  My name meant "worthy of love," but the world made me feel anything but.  The light nearly went out of my life from hopelessness.  I came back from that, but I spent years keeping that light dim, just wanting to fit in and be accepted.  I wanted to be worthy of love, and I thought being like everyone else was the key.  Thankfully, life didn't let me keep believing that.  As it turns out, loving my family fiercely and unconditionally is what gives me the love I was craving.  Fighting for the rights of families like mine is one of the ways I've learned to love myself.  It's helped me let go of my past and heal by using what I've learned through trial and trauma ... My life reflects exactly who I am: unconventional.  And now I get to use what I've learned to help other people who are unconventional in their own ways.  It's the very best sort of life.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 266

Quote of the Day

... there is one good reason to discuss [gender-affirming] surgical procedures: for some, they are absolutely necessary and lifesaving.  If these procedures are never discussed -- if no one shares their importance -- it makes it easier for governments and insurance companies to deem them cosmetic and unnecessary.  Some of them already are.  As I've said before, trans people who need surgery but face long wait times or are unable to get it at all have an increased risk of suicide.  We need to keep these surgeries funded and make them more accessible.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 249

Quote of the Day

Our society is obsessed with trans people's genitals.  What is or isn't between a person's legs seems to govern how much we accept them, judge them or fear them.  We try to pass laws restricting where trans people can go to the bathroom, where they can change clothes, what shelters they can stay in and even what prisons should house them.

A journalist once asked my twelve-year-old about her future plans for surgery.  When I stepped in to stop it, the journalist turned to me and said, "Can I ask you about her plans, then?"

No, you cannot.  Fixating on a child's genitals is never appropriate, whether that child is trans or not.  That should be common sense.  Sadly, it isn't.  It's weird, and frankly a little creepy, how much people care.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 248

Quote of the Day

We don't need to guess at someone's gender to be kind.  In fact, it might be kinder and simpler if we don't.  

The world is changing.  More people are coming out than ever, and our society needs to evolve along with them.  Rather than insisting that trans and non-binary people meet cisgender criteria, let's change our ideas of gender and be more inclusive.  That would allow everyone -- trans and cis people alike -- to live with fewer restraints.  Change, I'm discovering, is refreshing.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 246

Quote of the Day

There are many genderless ways to greet people without being rude.  Here are a few samples:

"Hello, how are you today?"

"Hi!  Can I help you find anything?"

"Helllo, folks.  How's everyone doing today?"

"Are the two of you ready to order?"

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 246

Quote of the Day

Most of us have been taught to assume someone is either a man or a woman.  We do this by picking up on physical characteristics, dress, voice and even subtle mannerisms.  We've done this for years in Western society, not realizing we were sometimes getting it wrong and causing real harm.

To complicate matters, we not only make these gender assumptions but also declare them as an act of respect.  Calling someone "sir," "miss" or the dreaded "ma'am" ... is strongly encouraged, if not outright enforced, in many customer-service jobs.  But because gender isn't as clear-cut as society once thought, it's time to start rethinking our ideas of politeness.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 245-246

Quote of the Day

The hate aimed at me and my family is ongoing.  I constantly remind myself that people who say needlessly cruel things about other people reveal more about themselves than they do about their targets.  Yes, the internet can be a brutal place, but it's also one of the best platforms we have to create change on a global scale.  So I remain visibly online with my family's blessing, telling our story and hoping to help that change along for the next family in transition.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 234

Quote of the Day

Many people like to share their opinions.  That's fine.  But I've learned that not all opinions are created equal.  If people of colour share their experiences with racism, that will always be more valid than white people telling everyone what they think of racism and its effects.  Why?  Because we can't fully know what it's like to go through something unless we've gone through it ourselves.

The same is true when it comes to straight and cisgender people sharing opinions about queer people.  When folks who have no lived experience make disparaging comments about my marriage to Zoe, her decision to transition and our support for our transgender teen, it makes it easier to disregard their opinions.  I can have opinions about New Zealand, but I've never been there, you know?

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 233

Quote of the Day

... a lived experience is always more valid than an experience never lived.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 233

Quote of the Day

Alexis learned she should enter any space as if she belonged there, regardless of how people treated her.  She learned to expect respect, even if others aren't willing to give it easily.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 95

Quote of the Day

Exposure is important.  If you haven't experienced something personally and learned about it that way, the next best thing is to learn from someone who has.  

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 94

Quote of the Day

Admittedly, calling the child I had known as my son for eleven years by female pronouns felt awkward at first.  But so had the first time I did squats at the gym, and now I do them without thinking.  Pronouns, I figured, were a lot like squats: I would trip all over them at first, but they would be easier with practice.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 73

Quote of the Day

When your world has been turned upside down a few times -- and especially when you suffer from sometimes crippling anxiety -- it's not unreasonable to want normal as your main course at the buffet of life.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 50

Quote of the Day

... it's hard to open up to someone if that someone is frustrated.  This is especially true if you are holding back on sharing a life-altering secret out of fear of your entire world falling apart.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 8

Quote of the Day

When writing about trans issues, cisgender people like me -- those of us comfortable with the gender we were assigned at birth -- should strive to make sure we write nothing that can damage an already marginalized community.

-- Amanda Jetté Knox, Love Lives Here, p. 2