Sissy is about growing up as a transgender person in middle-class America in the 1990s and 2000s. As a child, Jacob wanted to play with Barbies, wear dresses and try on his grandmother’s earrings as well as being involved in ‘boy’ activities and he was distressed that so few people accepted his otherness. Eventually, his older brother’s friends began to taunt him and call him a sissy; the book is about the journey from being hounded by the word to embracing the word.
It took Jacob years of anguish to discover that being who you are, not who other people may wish you to be, is the best place to be. You can hear his delight when he talks about wearing high heels and his love for sparkly tops but that does not disguise the highly intelligent, determined activist that is Jacob Tobia.
Jabob attended Duke University where he graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Human Rights Advocacy. While at university, Jacob held a variety of posts on student rights and advocacy boards for equity and gender neutrality. It was during these years that Jacob realized not only that he could be openly transgender but also that, for the sake of his inner being, he had to show the world the real Jacob Tobia.
These days he works as an actor, writer and producer based in Los Angeles. His LGBTQI advocacy has been featured in television shows such as Good Morning America, while his articles have been published in papers such as The Guardian and The New York Times.
Sissy is an openly honest look at what it’s like to be transgender in a world that is only beginning to accept just how many genders there really are.
Jo
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