AustLit

'When I came out as transgender at the age of 17, I wasn’t aware of any public debates against my rights. I didn’t know what percentage of the country would vote against my right to marry, and there weren’t mainstream newspapers accusing people like me of coercing others into irreversible sex-change surgeries. But I also had no positive role models, no vision for what my life could look like in the future and absolutely no guidance. I came out in year 12, in 2013, not a very long time ago, but after everything that has happened in this country in regard to LGBTQIA rights, it may as well have been a lifetime. Hyper-visibility is bringing new-found challenges, as well as advantages, when compared with previous invisibility.' (Introduction)

'At the end of a long driveway off a busy road in Sydney’s north, you reach his studio first. It’s in the garage: brown brick, ’70s style, flat-roofed carport off the front. At the door is an arrow pointing to his house. The house is set behind, like an afterthought. He prefers the studio: most days he is out here, painting.' 

'We live in an age where memoirs arrive thick and fast, and a book deal comes easiest to those in the public eye. When there’s little money in skewering yourself for general consumption unless fame has first taken its toll, it’s unlikely a memoirist ever gets back as much as they give. Towards the end of Jessica White’s Hearing Maud – in which the author bares a great deal of herself – White explains she wants readers to understand how difficult it is being deaf, still, and how hard people with disability must work.' (Introduction)