How to be a Girl

'ESSENTIAL READING' DIVA magazine

** Includes foreword from Susie Green, CEO of charity Mermaids **

Mama, something went wrong in your tummy. And it made me come out as a boy instead of a girl.

Marlo Mack gave birth to M, a beautiful baby boy. Or so she believed. At two years old, M started insisting on wearing only pink clothes. At three, M begged his mum to buy him pretty dresses, and to grow his hair long.

Friends, family, experts and Marlo herself had been able to brush these behaviours aside as a young child's playful experimentation with gender, but when her son begs to be put back in her tummy because he came out wrong, she knows she must listen more closely.

How to Be a Girl is a raw and unflinching memoir of a mother grappling with her child's transition from male to female. Always wanting to support M, Marlo - whose podcast of the same name has over 1.3 million downloads - finds her liberal values surprisingly challenged, and as she learns more about gender and its varied expressions, she questions what being a girl - or a boy, or something else entirely - really means.

For every copy of this book sold in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, Icon Books will donate 50p to Mermaids (1160575), a charity that is committed to supporting trans, non-binary and gender diverse children and their families.