When we are reading, knowing a character’s gender guides us in imagining that character. All of them have gender-specific definite articles: el/la, le/la, der/die. In the English language, the definite article the is neutral, but think about languages like Spanish, French, German.

I feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for the translators working on the foreign language editions of this book. We are conditioned to assign gender identity, even to inanimate objects. As I began to read the book, my main concern was how he would do this in a believable, organic way and would not end up being a cheap trick. I suspect this is exactly the reaction Garvin wanted to invoke.ĭuring his book release event, Garvin says he intentionally left Riley’s birth-assigned gender unstated. Drawing upon a year of research and his own experiences as a victim of bullying, Garvin writes some terribly realistic scenes that quickened my heart rate and left me short of breath. Riley is subjected to a more severe brand of bullying that is all too prevalent for people in the LGBTQ community.

I was just a small, shy kid, but at least I was a boy who looked like a boy and acted like a boy. Ah, the memories, but my experiences cannot hold a candle to what Riley endures. I found myself grinding my teeth to the point my jaw ached. When an author creates a character they want you to like and then puts them in awful situations, they hope you squirm and feel uncomfortable. I felt terrible watching the novel’s charming protagonist Riley suffer those experiences. I, too, experienced bullying from early elementary school through high school so I feel like I am qualified to claim Garvin’s depiction of bullying and its effect on the victim is authentic in the worst way. Garvin has stated in several interviews that he was a victim of bullying in school. We all need friends and to shove away someone who is clearly a supporter is daft. This is as close-minded a perspective as that of those who still consider non-cis gender identity to be a mental illness. Sadly, I have already seen a couple of reviews from members of the LGBTQ community who lash out at Garvin for being a straight, white male and daring to pretend he knows anything about what they are going through. I hope they realize that by writing this novel, Garvin is attempting to understand the community, relate to it, support it, and inspire his readers to do the same. Time will tell how the LGBTQ community responds to this novel, but my hope is that they accept and appreciate this work by one of their staunch allies rather than view it as an invasion of their community by an outsider. Jeff Garvin, a cis male (born male and identifies as male) author, is audacious to write a first person novel from the perspective of a gender fluid teen. I did not know what gender fluidity was until I heard about Symptoms of Being Human and reading it was an eye opening experience.

Symptoms of being human by jeff garvin