Book excerpt: We continue to follow Hope on her journey through what it means to be a black woman whilst navigating what it meant to be a black man. Giselle takes us through what it was like to build relationships to black men who often saw her as a deficit rather than a contributor and lovers who sought to explore themselves through her own journey revealing in the self deprecative nature of her transness as it led her to lack the will to be corrective in relationships. With this work Giselle seeks to answer the age old question asked to black queer people at some point in their lives. " what made you this way". This introspective look at the womanhood she felt she had to earn in order to be valid and the manhood she never resonated with to begin with throws the reader into territories often left off the conservative tables of black folks everywhere. The theories and affirmations in the work leave an immeasurable amount of growing questions for folks to ask themselves while both uplifting and holding black men accountable for their actions and the intent behind them.