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" When nowhere else in the world gave me positive messages about my femininity, Gandalf, Merlin, and, of course, Dumbledore, stepped in to save the day. They were my heroes. But more than that, they gave me a narrative of survival. All wizards were misunderstood as children. All wizards struggled to contend with their powers. All wizards had to go on a harrowing journey in order to find mentorship, support, and other people like them. And once they found that support, once they found a community that helped them learn to use their power for good, wizards were all-powerful. If they could be unstoppable, I knew I could be, too. "
― Jacob Tobia , Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
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" I breezed down the hall in my towel before pausing at the door to the bathroom. Staring back at me from the door was the usual, unwelcome sign: Men. Oh. Right. The reality stung as it sunk in, burrowing its way down to my heart. That’s how this works back in the “civilized world,” isn’t it? I can’t pee without being treated as a man. I can’t brush my teeth without being treated as a man. I can’t shower without being treated as a man. Under a housing system that required every first year student to live in the gender-segregated dorms on campus, I couldn’t brush my hair in a mirror, get dressed, sit at my desk to do my homework, go to sleep after a long day, bring someone home with me, or have access to any private space without being treated as a man. The straitjacket back in place, I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the last two weeks in the woods had been for nothing; everything I’d learned about myself had been for naught. I was back to being a guy, a boy, a male, a man. I was back to square one, my identity erased by the need to sleep, to bathe, to shit, to rest. Each of my basic needs became subsumed by the gender binary, packaged as things that “men do together. "
― Jacob Tobia , Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
