Tomboy Survival Guide
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Stonewall Book Award Honor Book winner; Hilary Weston Writers' Trust of Canada Prize for Non-Fiction finalist
Ivan Coyote is a celebrated storyteller and the author of ten previous books, including Gender Failure (with Rae Spoon) and One in Every Crowd, a collection for LGBT youth. Tomboy Survival Guide is a funny and moving memoir told in stories, in which Ivan recounts the pleasures and difficulties of growing up a tomboy in Canada’s Yukon, and how they learned to embrace their tomboy past while carving out a space for those of us who don’t fit neatly into boxes or identities or labels.
Ivan writes movingly about many firsts: the first time they were mistaken for a boy; the first time they purposely discarded their bikini top so they could join the boys at the local swimming pool; and the first time they were chastised for using the women’s washroom. Ivan also explores their years as a young butch, dealing with new infatuations and old baggage, and life as a gender-box-defying adult, in which they offer advice to young people while seeking guidance from others. (And for tomboys in training, there are even directions on building your very own unicorn trap.)
Tomboy Survival Guide warmly recounts Ivan’s adventures and mishaps as a diffident yet free-spirited tomboy, and maps their journey through treacherous gender landscapes and a maze of labels that don’t quite stick, to a place of self-acceptance and an authentic and personal strength. These heartfelt, funny, and moving stories are about the culture of difference—a “guide” to being true to one’s self.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this wryly confessional memoir, author, poet, and filmmaker Coyote (Gender Failure) recounts a life growing up in the Yukon and Vancouver as a gender non-conforming tomboy. Coyote was designated female at birth but never liked girly things such as Barbie dolls. It s not like I thought I was a real boy, they write. I just knew I was not really a girl. A series of vignettes charts Coyote s journey as they gradually accepted their tomboy identity. Coyote opens the book, which is by turns raw, bittersweet, and funny, with a chapter describing the first time a stranger mistook them for a boy in public, and then moves on to other important experiences, such as the first time they kissed a girl and the moment they became fascinated with butch culture. Coyote also recounts their work as a landscaper in Vancouver and their pursuit of the electrical trades, a male-dominated field in which they felt at home. Stylishly illustrated with sketches of tools and enriched with poems and stories others have shared with Coyote, this book is highly recommended for transgender readers as well as those exploring their own gender identities or wanting to better understand non-binary experiences of a gendered world.
