Hands down, so far, my favorite of the readings we have done in class so far was not exactly a reading but more of a skeleton of an idea—the idea of transitioning. The many stories mentioned in the appendix of Transgressive Tales are its bones. They build on this idea of changing one’s form—whether it be from a human into an animal or an animal into a human.

Although these stories were written before being transgender was openly discussed, in a time when people were buried under the heavy earth of rigid gender identities, the idea of transition is still common. Could these examples of transformations between species be allegorical? These days, it is definitely easy to look at these tales through the lens of Queer Theory and say yes to that. Yet, there are even more literal examples of transness following the animal tales.

There is a whole section titled “Gender Drag,” which does in fact focus on tales that involve transformations in gender. Tales with titles such as “A Young Woman Disguised as a Man is Wooed by the Queen” and “Robber Disguised as a Woman.” These titles, in their blunt and literal nature, almost seemed like they were designed to shock readers. They remind me of sordid tabloid headlines in their form. This just goes to show the negative way in which gender non-conformity was treated at the time these were written.

Some other titles that stood out to me in this reading:

• The Two Girls, The Bear, and The Dwarf
• The Man as Heater of Hell’s Kettle
• The Lost Genitalia
• The Farmwife is Changed into a Woodpecker
• Test of Sex: Catching an Apple
• The King Transfers His Soul to a Parrot

As a little kid, my parents used to read to me at bedtime every night. I would listen with eager ears as they regaled me with tales of Sam I Am’s enthusiasm for oddly colored foodstuffs and the Goodnight Moon bunny’s adorable bedtime rituals. I memorized every part of the books I was read and would recite them aloud over and over again.

Fast forward a couple of years, and my young imagination was dancing with so many ideas that I just had to write them down. My handwriting was barely legible chicken-scratch so I enlisted the help of my mom, who has beautiful penmanship, and I would dictate to her the contents of my mind. Owing to my obsession with collecting discarded found objects, I built a universe around an anthropomorphic string named Talula that eventually stretched over five very short books.

Next, I discovered poetry. My mom would take me to poetry readings hosted by her many interesting friends and they took me in and mentored me as I tried to write poems for myself. Occasionally, I would read them myself in front of crowded rooms of adults.

I would write as much as I could, about the real and the imaginary and sometimes both blended in very interesting ways. A lot of what ended up on paper was inspired by situations I found myself in. I was ambitious enough to start writing whole books, but none ever got beyond four or five chapters. Most died after one page and were buried in the back of my mind somewhere hidden.

Nowadays, I am trying to master being brief. Gone is the ambition of writing a novel; now is the time for poems and short stories.