Title & author
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Synopsis
In Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters crafts a story without giving into her readers, a story that follows three deeply human characters and prioritizes their humanity over the readers’ expectations and knowledge. The story soars, allowing readers to see the characters as they are, and not through a lens of cis privilege.
Who should read this book
Fans of Godshot and You Exist Too Much
What we’re thinking about
“The comma is a knife’s edge.” - Peters on the title
Trigger warning(s)
Physical violence, sexual violence, self-harm, slurs, abortion, sexism, mental health, transphobia, homophobia
“The Sex and the City Problem wasn’t just Reese’s problem, it was a problem for all women,” writes Torrey Peters in her debut novel Detransition, Baby (One World, 2021). “But unlike millions of cis women before Reese, no generation of trans women had ever solved it. No jobs, no lovers, no babies, and while a trans woman might have been a muse, no one wanted art in which she spoke for herself” (Peters, 9-10). In a novel that centers definitions and manifestations of womanhood, Peters utilizes the ‘Sex and the City theory’ (loosely defined as: as women age, they find pleasure through one of four paths, which each character of Sex and the City embodies) to set up and carry the arc of the novel. The three main protagonists, Reese, Ames, and Katarina, turn to careers, relationships, families, and expressions of self to try and make meaning of their lives. But for Reese and Ames, the novel begs the question: is there space for trans women to do so? Peters crafts a story without giving into her readers, a story that follows three deeply human characters and prioritizes their humanity over the readers’ expectations and knowledge. And it is because of this that the story soars, allowing readers to see the characters as they are, and not through a lens of cis privilege.
Whether her characters are discussing anything from pop culture to reproductive rights, Peters crafts a story without limiting it to fit the expectations and understanding of the readers, challenging them to question their own knowledge and do the learning themselves. “‘Remember how Johnny Depp pretended to be a drunk Keith Richards pretending to be a fey pirate?’” Reese asks Ames, not elaborating on the reference (Peters, 31). And, similarly but with regards to a more serious topic, “How is it, Reese wonders, that a bunch of New York men wearing flannel and slamming whisky in a cabin is seen as a sorely needed release of their barely tamed and authentic manliness, but when she, a trans, delights in dolling up, she’s trying too hard? It’s not that Reese thinks her desire to dress up reflects some authentic self. It’s just that, unlike bros, she’s willing to call dress-up time what it is” (287). Peters does not slow down to educate the uneducated. And why should this be on her? Why can’t she write a book simply to write a book without cis women peppering her with questions? Again and again, the idea of a book not being revered for the lessons it teaches, but for the impact, the beauty, of its writing is critical. Detransition, Baby forces readers to learn through not knowing, as Peters puts the task of educating on those who open the book. We are forced out of a privileged bubble, even if just for the timespan of 300+ pages, asked to be quiet and listen, and to sit in the discomfort of not knowing. Even Peters’s choice to only write from Ames and Reese’s points of views, and not Katarina’s, reads as a carefully curated choice. The one woman who does not have her own narration is the cis woman, which in turn decenters her perspective.
And when talking about trans women, Peters dives into the complexities of privilege. At a funeral of a trans woman, Reese reflects on the “high percentage of...trans women of color, who are being murdered” (209). As a trans woman, Reese’s relationship with privilege is complex, as she depicts in her Sex and the City Problem. Our cis-normatized society has installed systemic barriers that prevent the majority of trans women— especially those who do not come from an economically advantaged background— from any safe, stable environment. And we know the high, high rates at which trans women are being killed. But Peters takes it farther by acknowledging even the privilege hierarchy within this group of individuals— how trans women of color are the most impacted. She expands on these conversations about privilege in dialogue between Katarina and Reese, who have ongoing discussions about reproduction and society’s view on trans women and women of color having children (176).
It is this lack of catering to cis knowledge and expectations that allows us to truly see the characters in their entirety— Peters crafts deeply beautiful, human, mesmerizing, and flawed women. To her peers, Reese is a “pale, aging, once-popular, still-haughty trans woman,” and the readers aren’t meant to disagree (326). Yet, through flashbacks of her various relationships, starting from her as a young woman to one in her mid-thirties, we come to understand her, know her, more than simply seeing her through the eyes of those around her. “I ache when I see moms with kids. I’m so jealous. It’s a jealousy of my body, like hunger. I want children near me. I want that same validation that other moms have. That feeling of womanhood placed in a family” (179). By diving into Reese’s innermost desire to be a mother—which is not only revealed through Reese’s words but her relationships with men, Ames, Katarina, and other trans women—we see all of her character. Similarly, the depiction of Ames’ journey from James to Amy to Ames displays Ames in full: “I got sick of living as trans. I got to a point where I thought I didn’t need to put up with the bullshit of gender in order to satisfy my sense of myself. I am trans, but I don’t need to do trans” (98). Despite Ames not fully knowing who he is at the time of the story, what he wants, and who he may be in the future, we still see him as whole— we see why he is where he is and Peters makes it clear that is more important than knowing who exactly he is right at the moment.
Peters’s writing is captivating, witty, heartbreaking, intelligent— at times Detransition, Baby reads as non-fiction (such as when Ames discusses the elephant theory), but never does it veer away from its emotional core. It’s a book that calls for a re-read, encourages you to sit with what you don’t know, pick a pen up, and dive in once more to go over the moments that went unnoticed or unprocessed the first time around. It’s a book to read slowly, even though you will want to skip ahead to find out what happens. But— as do so many, too many, of the books I write about— it begs to question: will people put in the work? Or will they push the title aside once done, pat themselves on the back for reading it, fall back into their cis privilege, and curl up on the couch with their next read? Will their completion of this book become exemplary of white feminism and trans exclusionary feminism in action? Will they read this book, preach about it for the “lessons they learned,” and fail to recognize Peters’ brilliance as a writer?
“They are together, and miles from each other, their thoughts turning to themselves, then turning to the baby, each in her own way contemplating how her tenuous rendition of womanhood has become dependent upon the existence of this little person, who is not yet, and yet may not be”
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Thinking about the Sex and the City theory— by the end of the novel, what role does this theory play?
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