When I started my transition, one of the first books my partner recommended to me was “Amateur” by Thomas Page McBee. It’s a book that follows the author’s lived experience as he signs up for a charity boxing event in Madison Square Garden. Over the course of his training, he not only learns how to fight, but he also learns about the unique camaraderie of the gym as he battles his beliefs of what manhood and masculinity actually mean to him. To say it was deeply impactful to my development of boyhood is an understatement. I remember trying to hide my tears as I finished the last chapter of the book as I sat poolside of the public pool downtown.

I read that book in the summer of 2024, where there were an unprecedented 533 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced across 43 states that year. So far in 2025, there have already been 569 anti-LGBTQ+ bills across 49 states in America from when I am writing this in April 2025.

It was with all of this in mind that I dreamed up this print’s setting. A communal place where trans people (and in this case specifically trans-masc and transmen) were able to share in creating their own definition of masculinity and creating bonds of brotherhood with each other.