Quick, there’s no time to waste. Hurry into my vast library filled with cursed manuscripts inked in the blood of lost souls so we can begin discussing yet another book — by which I mean you will sit quietly and resist the urge to make breathing noises while I talk at you. It’s a good one, so get all your breathing out of the way now.
Whether trans or cis, women of all kinds grapple with many of the same challenges. Most women will have to deal with being forced to concede to an oppressive society, or needing to defend their own bodily autonomy or maybe just going through a bad breakup.
In January 2021, “Detransition, Baby,” by Torrey Peters, took the transgender literary world by storm. It’s a story of three aging characters, each with their own unique failures, trying to invent a new form of the family unit for the queer experience.
Reese is an impulsive — often toxic — maelstrom of a trans woman who wants children more than anything, having never gotten over her ex-girlfriend, Amy. Ames, previously Amy, is a former trans woman who detransitioned back into an emotionally repressed man after the dramatic collapse of his long-term relationship with Reese. Katrina is a recently divorced, high-strung cis woman who is both Ames’ boss and pregnant with his child.
Having believed Ames was infertile for unrelated reasons, Katrina is dismayed when Ames reveals that his potential infertility was due to injecting estrogen. Despite being a former transgender woman whose reproductive organs should’ve been atrophied, he manages to accidentally get Katrina pregnant anyway. Ames, uncertain of his identity as a man and a father, proposes to bring in Reese as a second mother to the child, knowing she will never see him as a man.
The narrative winds back and forth between the present, where the three characters navigate Katrina’s tumultuous pregnancy, and the past, featuring the deliciously unstable relationship between Reese and Amy.
Peters’ laissez-faire use of time mirrors her character’s cogent struggle with queer temporality. Reese and Ames both have to contend with how the realities of their life timelines differ from the expectations of normative society. Reese, a woman in her 30s, believes that by now she should have an expensive house, an enviable table and a child, yet the harsh reality of her transness puts these goals into the distance.
Though “Detransition, Baby” is layered with social commentary on queerness, family and motherhood, the experience of actually reading it is an untethered joy. Peters manages to find humor in the darkest, most absurd parts of trans life; her dry irony and sharp observations can turn a funeral into a comedy. Even amidst tragedy, she shows how much love there is in the trans community.
Intimately probing these characters’ lives feels like reading a gossipy tabloid at times. Betrayal, connection, sex, fighting and hope flow in a steady stream of soap-opera dramatics. This book tricks its audience into engaging with its deeper themes through a candy coating of entertaining chaos.
Queer solidarity and kindness is necessary to the survival of the trans characters, even if the community suffers at times from venomous infighting. In its raw look at queer life, the characters are often selfish, with internalized transphobia, misogyny and generalized toxicity. These flaws are an intentional choice to represent the breadth of trans people, even when it isn’t always flattering.
The book masterfully shows the nuanced conflict between liberation and comfort, displaying its transgender characters grappling with whether to break outside of the system or to try to earn its rewards. There are no easy answers on offer as “Detransition, Baby” refuses to shy away from the contradictory, messy nature of trans life.
For all of her leftist, radical ideals, Reese still wants to be the archetypal white suburban mother, subservient to a dominant man. Katrina wants to break out of the boundaries of heteronormativity — a word she repeats ad nauseam — but still holds a lot of her old biases. Ames, though he secretly still wants to live as a woman, detransitions because of the daily humiliations and vulnerabilities of being a trans woman.
This book’s honest, empathetic look towards detransitioning is incredibly refreshing in a time where transphobes are frothing at the mouth to use detransitioners as weapons against trans rights. It takes bravery to write a detransition story when so many trans people are scared to acknowledge their existence for fear of conceding to bigots. Yet, Peters doesn’t frame the existence of detransitioners as an indictment of the trans community, but as the result of transphobic social pressures.
Ames’ life is still deeply connected to queerness and informed by the trans experience despite him no longer living as a woman. He no longer goes by Amy or his given name, James; Ames is the accumulation of everything that came before. This book frames detransitioners as some of the trans community’s strongest allies.
In the past sections of the narrative, Ames is always referred to as Amy, and with she/her pronouns. It’s a subtle choice that makes a powerful statement about the fluidity of identity. Instead of being a man mistakenly living as a woman, Amy truly was a woman.
The book also treats Katrina with a lot of empathy, though she is the only main character who is truly cisgender. It breaks down the boundaries between trans and cis women, with the characters relating to many of the same struggles. Katrina has to redefine herself after her divorce, much like the experience of transitioning. Issues of body autonomy are shared by trans and cis women alike: Katrina has to fight for her reproductive rights, while, being transgender, Reese and Amy have to fight for their right to healthcare.
While the fascinating characters and wildly fun story mostly overshadow the book’s weaknesses, “Detransition, Baby” is certainly not perfect.
At a certain point the constant fighting between characters starts to feel absurd, like maybe they should each take a Xanax and practice using their big-girl words. Emotions are heightened to the degree that you’d think the interpersonal drama was underscored by a secret backstory of watching their entire family die in a fire. That said, the characters are still sympathetic with very real, if somewhat exaggerated, feelings.
Made of equal parts tenderness and melancholy, the bittersweet ending leaves a lot of questions about the future of these characters.
“Detransition, Baby” destigmatizes the exploration of gender and identity, no matter where it ultimately leads. It questions the essentialism of discovering a “true” self and represents self-discovery as an ongoing process. Each character must redefine themselves again and again, with the ending promising that they’ll continue to do so.
What a lovely, insightful tome we have read, even if a tad indulgent. It will be a perfect fit for my hazy candlelit lounge next to a glass cabinet of the finest box wine Safeway has to offer. I will read it as I dramatically recline on my velvet chaise lounge chair and spill the most richly pigmented red wine absolutely everywhere.
Farewell.
