Meet Jas.
“I tried hard to hold onto what I had been about to say. But I knew that by the time Daddy finished saying whatever he was going to say, I’d lose my courage. I wouldn’t tell him I wasn’t a girl. “
Like me, Jas (short for Jasmine) is not the girl everyone thinks he is. He is ten years old, labeled a behavior problem because of his frequent angry outbursts, and doesn’t know how to tell the people who love him that he is a boy.
When Jas gets in trouble for “disrupting” a boys-only baseball game on the playground, it’s the last straw. He begins to speak out about who he really is — but can he get the adults to understand that he is not a tomboy and doesn’t just wish he was a boy. He IS a boy.
A Boy Like Me is his story.
Standing Up for Transgender Kids Starts With Understanding Them
Stories like A Boy Like Me are more important than ever right now.
Throughout the United States, transgender children and their parents are under attack. There have been a record number of proposed laws banning parents from allowing their children to transition, play on sports teams, or be themselves at school or in their communities.
Many adults want to stand up for transgender kids, but don’t know how.
Reading stories like A Boy Like Me can help you understand issues transgender kids deal with every day, which is the first step toward helping them stand up to the hate and confusion that is being thrown at them by teachers, politicians, and other adults in authority.
About Jack
Jack Ori knew he was going to be both a writer and a teacher when he was six years old. Back then, he wanted to be like Laura Ingalls Wilder from the Little House on the Prairie books; the dream stuck with him as he got older.
Jack has been part of the indie publishing scene since 2008. Since his gender transition in 2012, he’s been on a mission to help people tell stories that matter. He passionately believes that we all have things to say and that stories can help us heal ourselves and help others like us. He writes stories about young people who discover their inner strength while overcoming traumatic experiences.
In addition to A Boy Like Me, Jack is the author of Reinventing Hannah, a novel about a sixteen-year-old girl who goes from silent victim to strong survivor and advocate after she is sexually assaulted.
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