Why “Becoming Jennifer” Is the Story Closest to My Heart

Some stories come from the imagination. Others are carved from the heart, shaped by memory, pain, and the unshakable desire to be understood. Becoming Jennifer belongs to the second kind. It isn’t just a series I wrote. It’s the story of my life, disguised in fiction, a coming-of-age journey that mirrors my own path as a transgender woman finding her truth in a world that often refused to see her.

The first book, Not Yet Jennifer, began as a whisper from my past. It’s set during a summer that feels endless, not because of sunshine and laughter, but because of everything left unsaid, a time when I, like Jamie, ached for a name no one ever used and carried small, secret tokens of who I really was.

Those scenes of longing, of hiding parts of yourself in plain sight, weren’t imagined. They were lived. Every stolen moment of self-expression, every small act of rebellion, and every flash of hope came directly from the reality of growing up trans in a world without language for what I felt.

Writing those chapters was both cathartic and devastating. There were passages I had to walk away from because they brought back too much, the loneliness, the confusion, the shame that was never mine to carry. And there were moments, too, of incredible joy, the memory of friendship, of first love, of discovering music and art as lifelines when the world felt too heavy. Jamie’s voice, unsure, tender, desperate to be seen, is the voice I once had but was too afraid to use.

The second book, Becoming Jennifer, moves beyond longing into transformation. It’s about that fragile, difficult process of telling the truth, first to yourself, then to the people around you. It’s about the fear of rejection, the sting of cruelty, and the deep, complicated love that sometimes arrives from the most unexpected places.

Writing this book meant confronting some of the hardest parts of my past. Some of the abuse Jennifer faces in these pages is drawn from my own experiences, things that left scars I still carry. Putting them on the page was terrifying. But it was also necessary.

Fiction gives us distance. It lets us take the raw material of our lives and shape it into something that can be held, shared, and maybe even healed. Through Jennifer’s story, I could revisit the darkest corners of my past and say, This happened. It mattered. And I survived. More importantly, I could offer that survival to someone else, to a reader who might still be in the middle of their own storm, wondering if they’ll ever make it to the other side.

At its heart, this series isn’t just about being transgender. It’s about becoming, about growing into yourself when the world tries to define you, about finding family where you least expect it, and about the small, stubborn spark of hope that refuses to go out, no matter how many times it’s threatened. It’s a love letter to every person who has ever waited to be seen, to every child who whispered their true name in the dark, and to every survivor who has turned pain into power.

Writing Becoming Jennifer changed me. It allowed me to reclaim the parts of myself I once tried to hide. It reminded me that telling the truth, even when it’s messy, even when it hurts, is one of the bravest things we can do. And it showed me that stories, at their best, are not just entertainment. They’re bridges, between past and present, between writer and reader, between who we were and who we’re becoming.

So when I say this series is close to my heart, I mean it literally. These books hold pieces of me, the frightened teenager, the hopeful dreamer, the resilient woman I am today. And if, in sharing those pieces, I can help someone else feel less alone, then every word was worth writing.