Welcome to Litsy!

On August 2, 2015, Gemma Hickey, a prominent social activist, completed a 938-kilometer walk across the island of Newfoundland--a journey undertaken to raise funds and awareness for survivors of religious institutional abuse. Along the way, Hickey heard firsthand accounts of abuse, courage, and recovery that forced Hickey's own trauma to resurface. At other times, alone and staring down the grand expanse of the TransCanada Highway stretching over the horizon, Hickey was left with little more than the physical realities of the landscape and the sense of one's own body. By the end of this arduous passage, Hickey realized they were transgender and reached the courageous decision to pursue hormone therapy. Through complex feelings of empathy and solitude, suffering, recovery, and celebration, Gemma Hickey's Almost Feral chronicles a journey from one side of an island to the other side of personal identity--charting an unknown territory where one's body becomes the map that leads to home.