I grew up in the 80s surrounded by images like Cindy Crawford and Pretty in Pink, which made figuring out what sort of girl I was “supposed” to be rather complicated. On top of that, I grew up with seven sisters ranging in size, shape, interest, and certainly attitude and three brothers who had their own ideas about what a girl “should” be. And as a middle school teacher for over a decade, I see teenage girls and boys navigating a world of gender “shoulds” and trying on a spectrum of gender markers, which is beautiful and painful (at times) to witness. None of the Above by I. W. Gregorio is about an 18 year old girl with AIS (Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome), when one’s chromosome make-up does not match the gender to which one identifies or intersex. She questions how she (and her whole school) understand what it means to be a girl.
