The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives

by Dashka Slater

What makes it feel small is the web of connections, the way people’s stories tangle together. Our lives make footprints, tracks in the snows of time.

Its per capita rate of violent crime made it the second most dangerous city in America, but its citizens still paid some of the highest rents in the country. Gravity works backward here—the money flows uphill. The whiter and wealthier neighborhoods in the hills boast good schools, low crime, and views of the bay. Thanks to the Bay Area’s high-tech boom,

inside her—a bell vibrating in resonance. Before puberty, her physical body didn’t seem to have that much to do with who she was. People used to mistake her for a boy, but she had felt proud to be a girl. But now being a girl was like being stuffed into a heavy, constricting costume. She could barely breathe in it. The rules of the universe were fixed: You look a certain way and so you have to act a certain way and people are going to treat you a certain way. There was no way to alter it.

That seemed to be true for most people. They just knew. Whether or not the appearance of their body matched the gender in their mind, there was some core understanding: my identity is this.

see gender and sexual orientation and romance as one big interconnected tangle of feelings—this is who I am, this is who I’m attracted to, this is who I love.

In these online conversations, the word sex referred purely to biological attributes like chromosomes, hormones, and anatomy. Gender expression referred to a person’s outward appearance and interests and how they aligned with what our culture considers masculine, feminine, or androgynous. Gender identity was the term for how people felt inside. Sexual orientation was about who you were attracted to physically. Romantic orientation was the category for who you were romantically attracted to. And there was a whole array of distinctions within each category as well. It was like a gigantic menu with columns and columns of choices.

Transgender people are the victims of an astonishing amount of violence. One out of every four trans people has experienced a bias-driven assault, and the numbers are higher for trans women, trans people of color, and nonbinary people. Of the 860 nonbinary people who responded to the 2008 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, 32 percent had been physically assaulted.

Anyone can start a petition on the We the People website at Whitehouse.gov, requesting that the federal government address a problem or change a policy. If a petition gets enough signatures within a thirty-day window, the White House will issue an official response.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because I’m going to make you understand the family motto: Never let your obstacles become more important than your goal.