This is one of my favorite books of 2016. Mark Seliger (whose works you have undoubtedly seen on the covers of Time Magazine, Rolling Stones, and GQ) does a phenomenal job of capturing both the portraiture and resilience of the trans people of one of New York's most prominent LGBTQ communities.
A heartbreaking and intense memoir about Conley's experience in a 12-step ex-gay conversion program and more deeply, his knotty, complicated relationship with his parents. Conley's deeply embedded trauma from the shame-based dogma in his father's ministry and the sorrow he experienced in conversion therapy is both infuriating to behold and beautiful to read. He holds true to a non-condemning world where no one is demonized nor are they a saint.
