I take a breath and rise to my toes. Applause fades to a buzz of hushed voices. Arms out and gracefully rounded, I lift my chin like the princess I’m about to become. The flute’s soft, lilting notes still represent someone I don’t identify with, but that’s okay. Acting like a girl on the ice doesn’t say anything about me after I take my skates off. It’s just a fun performance.
I set up my triple salchow with a flourish of arms and a three-turn. Shoulders check, legs snap together. I’m an airborne blur for three full rotations. The crowd cheers the second I land. My smile reaches my ears, no fighting it back. I’ll always be alone when I perform on the ice, but there are people all around who love and support me.
I’m not sure when I’ll absolutely know if I fall in between a boy and a girl, or outside that binary entirely. No clue if I’ll make it to the national training camp, either, and that’s fine. Uncertainty feels like less of a burden and more of an opportunity.
I am Ana and Ana is I.
I’m done being anyone but me.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
When I was Ana’s age, I didn’t know what it meant to be transgender. Nonbinary was an even bigger mystery. Neither word was part of my small-town vocabulary. What I knew was how different I felt from everyone else. Like Ana, I was a young figure skater and although I loved seeing all the glittery dresses that girl skaters were once required to wear at competitions—and even during regular practice ice at some rinks—they made me uncomfortable to perform in myself. I loved having long hair, too, but didn’t like that it made people look at me and automatically think girl.
When I got older, I met other trans people for the first time in my life. At one point, I thought I identified fully as a man. I asked people to call me a traditionally male name, I cut my hair short, and I started using pronouns like he, him, and his.
I was delighted when people started seeing me as a man, because it felt fresh and new and closer to how I saw myself than when they assumed I was a woman. Like Ana, I gradually began to realize that this didn’t quite fit how I felt and internally saw myself. When I finally discovered the term nonbinary, a weight felt like it had lifted off me, one I’d been carrying since I was a kid skating in Georgia and Minnesota ice rinks. And when I came out to the people closest to me, it really did feel like stepping into the light after hiding someplace dark.
In this story, Ana realizes that her discomfort comes not from what her body looks like but how other people around her interpret her gender based on a number of identifying factors: her name, the length of her hair, the clothes she wears, the color of her figure skates, and even the bathroom she chooses to enter. There’s a term to define this discomfort: dysphoria.
Dysphoria is an emotional condition where a person feels distress or a disconnect with the sex they were assigned at birth. In Ana’s case, her discomfort is linked to social situations and the assumptions other people make about her gender. This is known as social dysphoria. Body dysphoria is another type, where a person feels uncomfortable with parts or all of their physical body.
Some people experience only one type of dysphoria. Others both. One type of dysphoria may be a cause of more stress than the other. In a similar vein, some people know they are nonbinary at a young age. For others like me, it takes a longer time to figure things out.
If there’s only one thing you take away from Ana’s story—and mine—I hope it’s that there is no one right way to be nonbinary, no expiration date for discovering your identity. Ana’s experience is hers alone, just like yours is unique to you. If you have questions or would like more information about gender identity, I encourage you to check out some wonderful, reputable online resources, like Gender Spectrum (genderspectrum.org), GLSEN (glsen.org), PFLAG (pflag.org), the Trevor Project (thetrevorproject.org), Trans Youth Equality Foundation (TYEF, transyouthequality.org), and Trans Youth Family Allies (TYF, imatyfa.org).
Ana now knows she’s nonbinary. She’s come out to the people she cares about, but she hasn’t made any changes to her pronouns. For now, it’s enough that her family and friends know she’s nonbinary, that they love and support her. This could change for her one day, and it may become important for her to choose different pronouns—or several, if the first set she tries doesn’t feel quite right.
The wonderful thing about identity is it’s yours. Whether you’re twelve like Ana when you figure things out or already an adult, you alone get to decide who you are.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a novel is like preparing for a new skating season: A lot goes on behind the scenes that most people don’t see. This book wouldn’t have had its moment in the spotlight without the help of some very awesome people.
Thank you, Jordan Hamessley, my wonderful agent and fellow figure skating fan. Like a seasoned coach, you’ve offered insight and boundless patience in answering my frajillion questions. Thanks for loving Ana’s story as much as I do. Thanks also to the team at New Leaf Literary, a truly innovative agency founded by the incomparable Joanna Volpe and supported by enthusiastic, book-loving people. I’m honored to be a leaf on your tree.
Editors are the choreographers of the literary world, and I’ve had the good fortune of working with not one but three at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Thank you, Lisa Yoskowitz, for seeing Ana’s potential and encouraging me to help her reach it during an intense summer of revisions. Thanks to Hannah Milton,
