Detransition, Baby
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By Torrey Peters
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3 reviews
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Reese nearly had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York, a job she didn’t hate. She’d scraped together a life previous generations of trans women could only dream of; the only thing missing was a child. Then everything fell apart and three years on Reese is still in self-destruct mode, avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.
When her ex calls to ask if she wants to be a mother, Reese finds herself intrigued. After being attacked in the street, Amy de-transitioned to become Ames, changed jobs and, thinking he was infertile, started an affair with his boss Katrina. Now Katrina’s pregnant. Could the three of them form an unconventional family – and raise the baby together?
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This book centres around the possibility of parenthood for its three distinct characters: Reese, a trans woman; Ames, a detransitioned man and Katrina, a cis woman.
The storyline and writing was definitely engaging and interesting but I think what I enjoyed the most was a new perspective on motherhood and learning more about trans experiences. I know it's important to understand this as one authors perspective but I learnt a lot from both her, Reese and Ames as we see them deal with the new challenge of prospective parenthood and see a small window into their past.
"This book is a story of trans feminine culture in the new millennium." Says the author in the acknowledgements. And so it is. And that part I found really interesting and entertaining. BUT, it's also about cis women and their relationships and here it became quite disturbing, misogynistic and way off the mark as if the author doesn't understand cis women at all. So, for me, a very mixed bag of witty, engaging and challenging writing with some very interesting insights into the trans community and infuriating and quite worrying assertions about domestic violence (but it's never called that) and cis women.
This is a really interesting exploration of gender identity, parenthood and family. It was heartbreaking, funny, insightful and enlightening. The characters are really well developed and each have their own unique story, and is so well-written in showing you life from another person's experience and perspective. It challenged me in a really good way, and is like nothing I've read before. Highly recommend!
