“I don’t believe in safe spaces. They don’t exist. I do, however, believe in dangerous stories: the kind that swirl up inside you when you least expect it, like the voice of a mad angel whispering of the revolution you are about to unleash.”

In these opening lines, the narrator explains her perspective on stories and storytelling. According to her, stories that are “dangerous,” that is, ones that are revolutionary, radical, or unexpected, are necessary to tell. And they are more important than the stories and “spaces” that are palatable and expected. This opening foregrounds the nature and tone of the story that the narrator is about to share.

“Where are all the stories about swarthy-skinned robber trans girls waving tiny knives made of bone? About trans teenage witches with golden eyes who cut out their own hearts and lock them in boxes so that awful guys on the internet will never break them again? About trans girls who lost their father in the war and their mother to disease, and who go forth to find where Death lives and make him give them back?”

The narrator is reflecting on the popularity of conventional trans stories or memoirs that focus on pretty, white trans women who achieve a conventional, bourgeois standard of success. She expresses her frustration about the lack of stories about the other trans women, those that are doubly marginalized, who must rely on magic and violence to survive, and who challenge dominant power structures rather than assimilating into them.

“Picking locks is a glorious thing. To be able to open sealed doors is the greatest and most important kind of magic, because it allows you to interact with the world on your own terms.”

The narrator explains that she has become very adept at picking locks. This skill provides the door-opener with the ability to control the world around them, rather than being restricted or cut off. The ability to pick locks makes the whole world accessible. By referring to lock-picking as a “kind of magic,” the narrator also foreshadows how magic, from the impressive to the mundane, will be an essential component of her