Obie Is Man Enough

YA fiction 

     "'You're never going to be a real man, Sarah,' Coach Bolton says, using my old name.  He's never really made the effort to use my new one, Obie.  I cringe.  It hurts every time.  It says: I do not see you; Making you feel comfortable does not matter to me."

     Obie, protagonist of Schuyler Bailar's Obie Is Man Enough, was assigned female at birth and named Sarah.  For years, as Sarah, he swam and won trophies as a member of the Barracudas swim team.  But, feeling an increasing incongruity between outward appearance and inward self, he decided to transition.  Unfortunately Coach Bolton reacts very badly (and unprofessionally) to his decision, telling him he can never be a real boy/man and kicking him off the team.  

     Luckily Obie's family is supportive of him and ready to fight back when people are cruel, abusive, or dismissive.  A lot of families aren't.  His mother finds him a new swim team, the Manta Rays, with a coach and teammates who affirm his identity.  But several people in his life remain problematic.

     There's Obie's former best friend and teammate, Clyde Bolton, Coach Bolton's son, who begins to torment him.  One day he beats him up so badly he needs to go to the hospital.  When Clyde refuses to write an apology and says that he's not at all sorry for what he did a five day suspension becomes an expulsion.

     Now Clyde is out for revenge.

     Then there's Lucy, his other former best friend.  She seems to be avoiding him.  She's taken to hanging out with Jen and Chelsea, two popular mean girls who were cruel to her in elementary school and are still making life hard for Obie.

     Then there's Charlie (Charlotte) who is actually a positive complication.  Obie's first crush reciprocates his feelings.  They begin to date and get along really well...

     ...but what if Charlie's feelings change when she learns that Obie is transgender?  What if she has a close encounter of the Clyde kind before he figures out how to tell her?

    The book has the ring of authenticity because Bailar writes from personal experience.  As a transgender college student, he was also a competitive swimmer who had made the same choice Obie did.  Not seeing anyone like him in books motivated him to write Obie Is Man Enough.

On a purrrsonal note, I'm almost ready to try to go to sleep.  But I feel like the time I first stood at the end of a five foot diving board (going for the swimming imagery here) and it felt like fifty feet and everyone was telling me to jump.  Tomorrow is my surgery.  After nine months I am more than ready to have my kidney stone evicted.  But the thought of being put under and being operated on in the same hospital where I almost died from a hospital acquired post surgical infection?  Scary as fuck!!! (Jules)

She will come home and I will take care of her. ( Tobago)

A great big shout out goes out to our ultra supportive family and friends.

Tobago and Jules Hathaway 

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