This award-winning young adult novel about isolation, identity construction, being different and coming out as transgender, follows 17-year-old J, who lives with his parents in New York and does not identify as a female. To cover his body, J wears long baggy pants, large T-shirts and also keeps his hair short. Experiencing peer pressure at school and finally losing his closest friend Melissa, whom he had kissed after a party, makes him isolated from the world that surround him. After J eventually learns that a transformation from female to male is possible, he decides to become “a real boy” using hormones. But will his friends and family accept J this way? 

I am J encourages classroom discussions on bullying and peer pressure against transgender teens and provides a paradigm shift for young adults by giving them an authentic insight into the challenging life of a young queer person. Also, the story is suitable for an interdisciplinary teaching project on Trans Rights and Diversity with the subjects Ethics and Social Science.

Novel · United States · 2011