In Sissy Boy, an excerpt from Toni Newman's memoir I Rise: The Transformation of Toni Newman, recounts her journey from her hometown of Jacksonville, North Carolina, where from an early age she knew she was "a different bird born in the wrong body." The excerpt follows her through childhood as a "sissy boy," her identification with female students in school, travails in high school and college, her first time loving a man, her decision to study sociology instead of medicine, her entry into the world of drag clubs, her secret relationship with a male friend of her football-player roommate, to finally her interactions with the transsexual streetwalkers that ultimately inspired her own transformation.