Supposedly Fun

Hope for the Future

If I may get personal for a moment, this book was particularly meaningful for me because my husband and I have recently gotten licensed to be foster parents and we have been working on a placement with a transgender teenager. You can imagine, then, that Sarah McBride’s story of coming out publicly and using her love of politics to serve as an advocate for the transgender community, hit me right in the feels. Reading Sarah’s experience of the world helped me better prepare to support this kid and understand what his life is like, and for that I am eternally grateful.

On some levels, Sarah’s story also hit me personally because I have lived as an out, married gay man and have also struggled with whether or not I was going to be able to live the life I wanted–and fears that others would judge me harshly for it. But it’s not just my personal connections to Sarah’s story that made me feel so good about this book. Sarah is remarkably open-minded and accepting–carefully reminding her readers that there are many people in the transgender community who have endured far worse and who have had very different experiences than her. And we can’t forget those stories as we move toward equality.

Sarah’s passion for politics is palpable, but the book does drag a bit when she gets overly focused on process. There are, however, beautiful moments of humanity in those sections as well. The latter part of the book deals more with Sarah’s personal life and her tragically short marriage (not a spoiler–it is discussed in Joe Biden’s forward and Sarah alludes to this throughout the book). I’m not ashamed to say I cried at the end.

I feel like I have a much greater depth of understanding coming away from Sarah’s story, which is the best possible outcome I think. I look forward to following her career further–and all the extraordinary things she will undoubtedly accomplish.