If I Was Your Girl

by Meredith Russo

I took a minute to actually read the bumper stickers this time, out of morbid curiosity: JESUS WAS A CONSERVATIVE, one read, and RIGHTS COME FROM GOD NOT GOVERNMENT; ILLEGAL ALIENS! EXACTLY WHICH PART DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? and I CAN’T HELP THAT I’M HOMOPHOBIC … I WAS BORN THAT WAY! I stood in place and swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.

“You can have anything,” she said, “once you admit you deserve it.”

my cisgender readers—which is to say, to those of you who are not trans: Thank you for reading this. Thank you for being interested. I’m nervous about what you might think of this book, though maybe not in the way you might think. I am, of course, anxious that people might not like it, but even more than that I’m worried that you might take Amanda’s story as gospel, especially since it comes from a trans woman. This prospect terrifies me, actually! I am a storyteller, not an educator.