Sign-In
Cart
The Freedom to Be: Stories from Transgender Youth, Adults, and Their Families
Paperback
ISBN13: 9780988332010
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: Feb 3 2020
Pages: 184
Weight: 0.53
Height: 0.42 Width: 5.51 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
2020 Outstanding Books (IPPY) Gold Medal Winner!
Award-winning author, Diana J. Ensign, practices the art of listening to people who teach us how to love and care for one another on this human journey. Here, transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming teens, adults, and family members voice an urgent call for freedom: The freedom to pursue dreams, to work in meaningful jobs, to be free of hatred and violence, to love one another, and to be who they are.
This book underscores the essential human need for safety, connection, acceptance, and for policies that ensure every family is valued.
With these candid and insightful narratives, we learn practical ways that parents, teachers, healthcare providers, neighbors, friends, and allies can create supportive communities for transgender individuals.
Through compassionate understanding, this book guides us toward a more loving world. Together, we can stop the violence, end the hatred, advocate for LGBTQ equality, and stand for freedom.
TESTIMONIALS
As a parent to a transgender child, I recommend The Freedom to Be to family members, friends, and community members who want ideas on how to best support transgender individuals. -Steph B., Parent
As we begin the process of understanding who we are within the LGBTQ+ community, most of us are incredibly vulnerable, uncertain of our futures, and hoping to find compassion. In those beginnings, we rely on the willingness of others to share their stories with us, honestly and humbly, so we can become who we were always meant to be. The foundation of our community rests in the courage and the raw honesty of people like those in The Freedom to Be who are bravely living their truth of being queer. -Chris Handberg, Executive Director of Indy Pride, Inc.
Diana Ensign has captured the voice and experience of youth and adults who need and deserve to have their voices heard. As an educator, I believe The Freedom to Be could help begin informed, positive conversations between parents, teachers, and other adults with trans and nonbinary youth in their lives. -Dawn Merrill, Humanities & Technology (k-12) Teacher
To be loved, valued, and accepted are basic human needs, but unfortunately all too rare for gender nonconforming and transgender people. As a clinical social worker, I've learned that society's binary idea of gender is a fabrication that limits our individual creativity and potential. As The Freedom to Be shows, these are human beings who just want to live their lives in peace and without threat so they can realize their full potential. My hope is that the human race will evolve to the point where differences in gender expression are no longer feared and demonized but rather enhanced, embraced, and celebrated. - Tina Wiesert, Clinical Social Worker, LCSW
The Freedom to Be highlights the amazing strength of LGBTQ+ people. Stories like these allow the youth at Indiana Youth Group (IYG) to know that life does get better, and they too can lead full, inspiring lives. -Chris Paulsen, Chief Executive Officer of Indiana Youth Group (IYG)
The telling of human stories is always a timeless, brilliant venture. The act of writing these stories into human history begins to capture our truth. Sharing your own story authentically during this time in history is brave and bold. They cannot erase our being! May we all continue to be brave enough to share and bold enough to listen. -Kris Wise MSW, LCSW, Ally Counseling & Consulting
Also in
General Gender Studies
Quiet Girls Can Run the World: Owning Your Power When You're Not the Alpha in the Room
Holman, Rebecca
Paperback
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
Gillette, Doug
Moore, Robert
Paperback
One Bad Mother: In Praise of Psycho Housewives, Stage Parents, Momfluencers, and Other Women We Love to Hate
Dickson, Ej
Hardcover
Damned If She Does: Why Women Quit Church and What It Means for the Future of Religion
Stankorb, Sarah
Hardcover
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
Serano, Julia
Paperback
Talk to Your Boys: 16 Conversations to Help Tweens and Teens Grow Into Confident, Caring Young Men
Schroeder, Joanna
Pepper, Christopher
Hardcover
The Sexual Politics of Meat - 35th Anniversary Edition: A Feminist-Vegan Critical Theory
Adams, Carol J.
Paperback
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It
Reeves, Richard V.
Paperback
Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity
Beety, Valena
Hardcover
Genderqueer Menopause: Navigating Menopause for Trans, Gender-Nonconforming, Genderfluid, and Other Queer-Bodied Folx
Firefox Allen, Lasara, MSW
Paperback
Generation Uncoupled: America's New Gender Divide and the Crisis of Human Connection
Cox, Daniel
Hardcover
Watching the Girls Go by: A History of Street Harassment in the United States
Brookfield, Molly M.
Paperback
Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film - Updated Edition
Clover, Carol J.
Paperback
Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities
Walker, Nick
Paperback
The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet
Thomas, Leah
Hardcover
Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism
Subramaniam, Banu
Paperback
The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do about It
Gray, John
Farrell, Warren
Paperback
The Short Story of Queer Art: A Pocket Guide to Key Movements, Works, Themes & Breakthroughs
Hoskin, Dawn
Paperback
Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Marsha P. Johnson and Beyond
Feinberg, Leslie
Paperback
Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It
Reeves, Richard V.
Hardcover
Cruising Utopia, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Then and There of Queer Futurity
Muñoz, José Esteban
Paperback
Testo Junkie: Sex, Drugs, and Biopolitics in the Pharmacopornographic Era
Preciado, Paul B.
Paperback
Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality /]csarah McBride
McBride, Sarah
Paperback
The Gender Identity Guide for Parents: Compassionate Advice to Help Your Child Be Their Most Authentic Self
Hawn, Tavi, Lcsw
Paperback
Anthropological Theory for the Twenty-First Century: A Critical Approach
Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth
Bolles, A. Lynn
Perley, Bernard C.
Paperback
How Economics Discovered Women: Bringing Gender Economics Into the Twenty-First Century
Lundberg, Shelly
Hardcover
Sex and Character: The Pioneering Study of Gender Traits, Masculine and Feminine Attributes
Weininger, Otto
Paperback
The Real Domestic Product: How Birth Control Built Equality (and Why the Future of the Economy and the Planet Depends on It)
Gregory, Elizabeth
Hardcover
How to Understand Your Gender: A Practical Guide for Exploring Who You Are
Iantaffi, Alex
Barker, Meg-John
Paperback
Mujeres del Alma Mía / The Soul of a Woman: Sobre El Amor Impaciente, La Vida Larga Y Las Brujas Buenas
Allende, Isabel
Hardcover
Introduction to Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies: Interdisciplinary and Intersectional Approaches
Shaw, Barbara L.
Rellihan, Heather
Saraswati, L. Ayu
Paperback
Pink, Blue, and You!: Questions for Kids about Gender Stereotypes
Gravel, Elise
Blais, Mykaell
Hardcover
Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference
Fine, Cordelia
Paperback
Four Mothers: An Intimate Journey Through the First Year of Parenthood in Four Countries
Leonard, Abigail
Hardcover
Art Above Everything: One Woman's Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life
Griest, Stephanie Elizondo
Paperback
Defining Sexual Misconduct: Power, Media, and #Metoo
Hannem, Stacey
Schneider, Christopher J.
Paperback
A Clinician's Guide to Gender-Affirming Care: Working with Trans and Nonbinary Clients
Singh, Anneliese A.
Chang, Sand C.
Paperback
Cultivating Joyful Learning Spaces for Black Girls: Insights Into Interrupting School Pushout
Morris, Monique W.
Paperback
Casa Susanna: The Story of the First Trans Network in the United States, 1959-1968
Bonnet, Isabelle
Hackett, Sophie
Paperback
Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity
Orenstein, Peggy
Paperback
Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law
Spade, Dean
Paperback
Gender Explained: A New Understanding of Identity in a Gender Creative World
Ehrensaft, Diane
Jurkiewicz, Michelle
Paperback
Abortion and Reproductive Justice: An Essential Guide for Resistance Volume 15
Fried, Marlene Gerber
Ross, Loretta J.
Paperback
How to They/Them: A Visual Guide to Nonbinary Pronouns and the World of Gender Fluidity
Getty, Stuart
Hardcover
Blessed Are the Women: Naming & Reclaiming Women's Stories from the Gospels
McKeever-Burgett, Claire
Paperback
Care at the End of the World: Dreaming of Infrastructure in Crip-Of-Color Writing
Kim, Jina B.
Paperback
In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks: . . . and Other Complaints from an Angry Middle-Aged White Guy
Carolla, Adam
Paperback
No Free Attention: How Women Use The Possibility of Sex to Manipulate Naïve and Lustful Men
Currie, Alan Roger
Paperback
A Woman Is Responsible for Everything: Jewish Women in Early Modern Europe
Carlebach, Elisheva
Kaplan, Debra
Hardcover
Loving Black Boys: A Black Feminist Bible on Racism and Revolutionary Mothering
Lomax, Tamura
Paperback
Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People
Roughgarden, Joan
Paperback
Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong-And the New Research That's Rewriting the Story
Saini, Angela
Paperback
Is It Racist? Is It Sexist?: Why Red and Blue White People Disagree, and How to Decide in the Gray Areas
Leondar-Wright, Betsy
Streib, Jessi
Hardcover