Sissy – Jacob Tobia
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
‣ memoir
‣ queer lit
‣ not great with race, but otherwise solid
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"Yes, I may have been queening out in the church musical, but I was queening out for Jesus, so it was fine."
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I started Pride Month with Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story by Jacob Tobia. I was expecting to love this memoir, and for the most part, I did. Jacob talks about gender in a way that is both unapologetic and deliberately informative. In what seems like a second introduction [A Quick Manifesto], they name the fact that they are a "decent writer" as a "virtue." I'd disagree. Jacob is great writer. They write about the gentle nuances of gender identity in a brilliant way. Their statements are smart, but simple enough for someone learning about these concepts for the first time. In discussing their childhood friend, Nathaniel's, interest in trains, and his insistence on referring to them as locomotives, Jacob teaches readers in a kind way the value in calling people what they want to be called: "Which is how I learned that, sometimes, the words we use to describe something can be really important to other people, even if the differences don't make that much sense to us, and that it's just easier to listen when people teach us how to talk about things that are important to them (62)."
Yet, Jacob remains refreshingly witty. In their Manifesto, they tell readers: "Taking our own gender or the gender of others too seriously results in a world where gender must be rigid, must adhere to consistent rules and regulations (17)." They encourage us to laugh both with and at them, and actually evoke these laughs with references to Ariana Grande's God Is A Woman and the death of Toys'R'Us, and their use of Hufflepuff as an adjective (obviously, a negative one). Their honesty about their experience with puberty heavily contributes to the memoir's laughable moments, and includes gems like: "Honestly, I was way too busy being horny twenty-five hours a day, three-hundred-sixty-six days a year to even think about my gender identity (67)."
When discussing the ways society repeatedly fails queer people, Jacob startled me by including themself. For example, they say: "When a person hides in The Closet, we act as if it is their responsibility to come out. But when a snail hides in its shell, we don't delegate responsibility the same way (102)." Not only is what they're saying clear, concise, and presented in a new light, their inclusion of "we" when talking about the general public makes the statement less accusatory, and easier to digest. It's a kind way of calling us out, even though we are usually less than kind.
I loved so many things about this memoir, and found myself eager to get home and read another chapter, but I was also often frustrated. Jacob tries to make it clear that they aren't a racist and they make vague references to possibly being a person of color. Overall, they just suck at talking about race. The memoir isn't about race, and that's fair, but in the moments when race is discussed or even referenced, I found myself uncomfortable. As much as I understand that isn't the point of the book, my reading is always going to be informed by the role of race & socio-economic status in other concepts. Take, for example, Jacob's written expressions of femininity. Femininity is often interpreted as sexy. The things that we as a society claim as sexy and feminine are often black cultural norms, just not on black people. While I see how expressions of femininity help with dysphoria, the exaggerating or over-performing of femininity can feel like a characterization of black women, when instead, the feminine parts of white people can just be white, whatever that is. I also felt that there was almost a tokenizing of their friends. Jacob made it a point to share everyone's identities, whether that be racial, ethnic, gender, sexual. It's like a badge of honor that they have friends across all levels of privilege, even though a lot of the time, their identities aren't vital to the stories including them.
Though I've shared quite a bit of unease, I did enjoy this memoir. I'd easily recommend it and include it on reading lists. It made an impact on my reading this year and I am grateful to Jacob Tobia for their honesty and openness.