Point of View

The book is split mainly between two points of view in the first person - Rae Spoon and Ivan Coyote. The book switches from Ivan to Rae from one chapter to the next, starting first with Ivan and finishing with Rae. The two both write their first two chapters as “Introduction” and their second two chapters as “Girl Failure” to show their similar situation and common experiences, but tell the story from their own perspectives to exhibit their different gender identities and approaches to growing up navigating these identities. While they have both failed at gender, they have lived very different experiences and lives failing at gender.

The point of view is told from the first person of Rae and Ivan, in order to validate their lived experiences as transgender people. Both Rae and Ivan explain in the book how crucial it is to not...