Detransition, Baby

 
 
Detransition, Baby

by Torrey Peters
Random House

2021

 

In my late teens and early 20s, I read a lot of books about trans people, most of them by non-trans authors, and most of them not so great. Since then, I've kind of avoided transgender lives as a subject for fiction reading, although there's been some very good sociology published in the last 10 years or so.

 
Detransition, Baby is written by a trans woman, and is by far the best trans fiction I've read. It also stirred up a lot of complicated emotions for me, so I read it much more slowly than I otherwise might.

 
Ames used to live as a trans woman, but has returned to living as a man. Katrina is Ames's current girlfriend and is unexpectedly pregnant. Reese is Ames's ex-girlfriend, and is also a trans woman. When Katrina asks Ames whether she should have an abortion, or if not, how they can provide a stable life for the baby, Ames suggests that the three of them co-parent together. Cue the Odd Couple theme music?
Well no, because this is not a comedy or farce. Peters alternates present-day chapters with flashbacks that tell about Ames and Reese's childhood and their transitions, how they got together, and how they broke up. 

 
Between the two of them and their acquaintances, Peters tells a variety of stories about what it's like to be a White trans woman. I could see some similarities to myself and my life in both of them, as well as a lot of differences. The characters are different enough from each other that there's no chance you could read it and think that any one of them has had like the typical transgender experience.

 
Reese in particular is self-destructive and messy, and unapologetically proud and self-righteous about it. She is also probably the most-developed character in the book. Ames is, at times, infuriatingly passive. (This isn't a flaw in Peters' writing - Katrina and Reese are often infuriated with him.)

 
In the present day, we see Katrina initially reject Ames's idea, then warm up to it, accept it, go through a honeymoon phase, experience the a setback that makes her want to cancel the whole idea, and finally return to the point of needing to make the decision again.

 
I suspect that non-trans readers will experience the book differently than I did. I imagine everyone is, at times, confronted by people, either real or fictional, who are similar enough to you that they could have (and perhaps, in your heart, you feel they should have) made the same choices you did, but instead they chose differently, which in turn leads you to reflect on the quality of your own decisions. I actually don't encounter people like that very often, but in reading this book, I did.