relate to the world. His upbringing has shaped who he is.

Richard wrote a letter of apology to Sasha while incarcerated, followed by a longer one. Although this could not be sent because it contained an admission of guilt, in it, Richard asked for forgiveness and declared himself “a young African American male who’s made a terrible mistake.”

Debbie

Debbie is Sasha’s mother. The two have always had a close relationship, so Debbie tried very hard to “get [her] head around” Sasha’s announcement that they were genderqueer, recognizing that this meant a lot to her child. Debbie works as a bookkeeper at a private school and is outgoing, with “broad and comic” gestures.

At first, Debbie struggled with adapting to her child’s nonbinary identity, especially when Sasha, for example, complained that there was no gender-neutral bathroom or corrected relatives who used their old pronouns. She also worried about people giving Sasha “a hard time” because of their choice of clothing.

Karl

Karl is Sasha’s father. Shyer and quieter than his wife, he is “a former college radio DJ turned kindergarten teacher” and is gentle, thoughtful, and dryly witty. He has silvering hair and wears a rainbow friendship bracelet, indicative of the fact that he, like his wife, wants to maintain his close relationship with his child and understand Sasha’s gender expression. He admires Sasha’s willingness to speak up about their gender identity and believes their school provided an environment in which they could learn to become themselves. Sasha helped him understand the problems of the gender binary better, and he stopped dividing his kindergartners into “boys” and “girls,” dividing them alphabetically instead. Through Sasha’s exploration of themself, Karl learned more about his own relationship with the world.

As a young man, Karl suffered an assault by a group of men who had assumed he was gay, so he understood the potential for Sasha to be attacked because of the way they looked.

Jasmine

Jasmine is Richard’s mother. She gave birth to Richard at the age of fifteen and tried her hardest to be a good mother, taking her son to church and teaching him to be well-mannered around women. She ran “a tight ship” but worried about Richard—particularly after her sister, Savannah, was fatally shot in a car and her orphaned children moved in with the family. After this, Richard was afforded less attention, as Jasmine had to “scramble just to get the bills paid.” This made her fear that Richard would succumb to the dangers facing young black men in Oakland. She wanted him to have a career and go to college, knowing him to be a good kid, but was painfully aware that this would not be as straightforward for him as it might for a child like Sasha.

Andrew

Andrew has been fast friends with Sasha since middle school. At that point in time, Andrew was living under his birth name, Samantha. Assigned female at birth, Andrew developed a crush on Sasha and the two became inseparable, but Andrew was beginning to feel uncomfortable about his gender. He “knew it was important to be pretty and cute, but . . . had no idea how to be those things.” When he first told his therapist he felt he was transgender, his therapist argued that he didn’t know what this meant. A year later, he told Sasha, who was accepting, and he began his gender transition upon entering high school.

Andrew is an important character not only because of what he represents thematically—part of a growing rejection of gender norms, stereotypes, and rigidity among the young—but also because it was their friendship with Andrew that first caused Sasha to begin questioning their own gender.

The attack on Sasha had a sobering effect on Andrew, as it made it clear what could happen to gender-nonconforming people.

Kaprice Wilson

Kaprice was Oakland High School’s attendance compliance officer. She “had a homegirl vibe,” and Richard was keen to join her program, which shocked Kaprice—Richard was aware he had been in trouble several times, but he wanted her help because he was not “a bad kid.” Kaprice was determined to help Richard after this, telling him that he would be able to get away with “absolutely nothing” after joining her program.

Born in East Oakland, Kaprice had seen the effects of crack cocaine and violence on students, particularly those in the area in which she grew up. As a young girl, she had little ambition, but those around her recognized her talent and encouraged her to pursue an education. When a former friend of hers, Lil’ Jerry, was murdered, she was galvanized to help troublesome kids become better in his honor. Her children were her “family,” and her office represented a safe zone for them.

Bill Du Bois

Bill Du Bois was Richard’s lawyer, a forty-year veteran of the Alameda County Courthouse who had represented other teenagers in similar situations. DuBois contested the court’s decision to try Richard as an adult and also argued that Richard had not known the real meaning of the word “homophobic” when he had used it—suggesting it simply meant Richard was not gay and that this was not in fact a hate crime.

Nemo

Nemo identifies as genderfluid and uses they/them pronouns, like Sasha. The pair knew each other from Queer Club at school and, after an incident in which the two sheltered in a truck during a wildfire, “their relationship changed.” The two teenagers have “a platonic relationship . . . but with elements other people might consider romantic.” They are a couple, but in a way which reflects their modern way of relating to the world, as aromantic and asexual.

Jamal

Jamal was a friend of Richard’s. On the day of the bus fire, he was sitting at the back of the bus when Richard got on. Tall and lanky, it was Jamal who first drew Richard’s attention to Sasha sleeping in their skirt on the bus. It was also Jamal who encouraged Richard to set Sasha’s skirt on fire. However, like Richard, Jamal did not really expect Sasha’s skirt to burn properly, as he shrieked that Sasha was “on fire” when he noticed what was happening and solicited the help of others to put out the flames.

Jamal was never interviewed, arrested, or charged, even though he had considerable influence on Richard’s actions on the bus.