Raised as a boy and home-schooled by her single mother, Jessie Jacks is unlike other boys and girls. Jessie is an intersex child born both male and female, although her countenance and appearance are strikingly female. After the death of her mother, she is placed in the care of her aunt, Annie Sheldon, where she is faced with a whole new set of circumstances that she must adapt to - peer pressure, social prejudice, first love, issues of sexual identity, as well as the biological, physiological, and psychological changes she experiences as puberty raises its ugly head, or in this case, beautiful head.