Human Rainbow

Luna is a beautiful green moth that is only seen at night. Luna is also a beautiful girl who shows herself only at night, and only to her sister, 15-year-old Regan. By day, Luna is really Liam, Regan's 17-year-old brother, a senior in high school, academically brilliant by all accounts. But Liam is transgender; since he was very young he has known that he is a girl accidentally born with a boy's body. As he approaches his 18th birthday, Liam/Luna begins to "transition", to show the world his true identity. Regan is the only other person who knows his secret, a burden that proves to be almost too much to bear.

On the surface, Luna is a "problem novel" written for young adults, joining a host of other books that deal with issues that teens encounter. What sets it apart from the others is the groundbreaking subject matter. I can't think of another children's book that deals with this issue. The author, Julie Ann Peters, handles it lovingly. She does a good job of showing the conflicting emotions that Luna's transition causes to the people closest to her, but she makes it clear that in the end Luna has an essential right to be who she is -- and when she is free, then the people around her are free as well.

I found Luna to be a beautiful, harrowing, poignant book.

A few years ago I taught a first grade boy, whom I am fairly certain is transgender. He simply saw himself as a girl. It was/is tough; he's a biracial child, with an African-American father who isn't real into having his son be a girl. I spent a lot of time on the phone with his mom, mainly because this child also had major anxiety issues that made it hard for him to learn. One evening we were talking, and she said, "I really hope this is just a phase he's going through." She paused, and then she said, "But it's not, is it? I just need to love him the way he is." His mom was great; for his birthday that year she bought him an American Girl doll and a Powerpuff Girls t-shirt. I think he's had a fairly positive experience in school so far. In my class he loved dressing up in a pink tutu (a lot of boys seem to love the pink tutu), drawing beautiful pictures of princesses and cheerleaders, and hanging around with the girls. He'll be a fifth grader this year. I worry about him as he gets into adolescence.

We actually have a full time teacher in our school district whose job it is to facilitate support of LGBT students throughout all the schools.

There is a transgendered person that I see in my part of town a lot. It's clearly a man dressed like a woman -- clothes, jewelry, make-up -- S/he dresses more frilly than I ever do. I see her most frequently in thrift stores, I always say hello, but I've never struck up a conversation -- which I'd like to at some point. One day, however, I overheard the sweetest conversation in St. Vincent dePaul's. There was a long line for the fitting rooms. S/he was in line, and right behind her was a young mom with two little girls. One of the girls was staring and staring at this man in a dress; she finally said, "Your dress is pretty." S/he said, "Thank you! So is yours," and they smiled at each other for a while.

I hope that some day our society will reach a point where we recognize that there is an infinite spectrum of what constitutes "human-ness" and we allow all people to be who they are -- from the youngest child to the oldest adult.

Anyway ... Luna. Highly recommended.