Tag: Queer

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Sappho to Shakespeare to Sparks; We Write of Love

RaeAnna

The interesting thing about writing on love is everyone does it. 

Sitting and contemplating if I’m going to be a great writer or not.

From Sappho to Steel, Shakespeare to Sparks. 

Love comes in as many forms as people. My love differs intensely from person to person because how can I love one person as they are in the same way I love an entirely different person as they are? It’s one of the most fascinating aspects. It’s not one size fits all but tailored like haute couture. Which is likely the reason us artists are so very obsessed with it. 

My words are love letters to lovers and friends and family and even those who hurt me. Love is expansive and difficult to pin down. Putting that feeling into a tangible for public consumption is the greatest challenge an artist faces. How do I show every intricacy and depth of love I have for my fiancée? How do I tell the vastness and unconditionality of love I have for my best friend? How do I adequately portray the shame of still loving the man who hurt me violently? How do I illustrate the grief of loving parents I cannot include in my life but will always include in my heart? I could spend a lifetime writing about the love I feel for a singular person, but I don’t just love one person, so how do I choose what stories to tell? I can’t. I write the best I can. 

We’re all trying to figure it out and create some art along the way and just maybe immortalize ourselves with just how much we love someone. At the end of the day, very few of us are Emily Dickinson… We kind of like the idea of our names being known for eternity, and even better if we can give our love an eternity we aren’t lucky enough to possess as mortals. Although, Emily found her way into everlasting fame without even trying. I wonder what it’s like to be so unrelentingly talented? 

Writing about something so profoundly personal without sounding clichéed or falling into trope is hard. Like, really hard. I want to do it well. I want to say what I feel without sounding cloyingly obnoxious. I’m just trying to figure out how to infuse a love-soaked anything with the giggles of smiling into an intimate moment. Because love is joyful and fun. It doesn’t and shouldn’t be all yearning and pining and devastating. The best sex is the kind you dip your head into her hip bone with giggles because it’s fun and funny, yet never losing momentum or passion. The best friendships are the ones where sadness and grief and anger and all those big feelings we turn to them with can be validated yet poked fun at enough to give perspective and levity. Those moments are not prevalently portrayed in art. The simplicity of existing in love with others.

Beaches are romantic. I might be a romantic… shhhhh, that comes later.

Some storytellers’ love lasts the test of time and so many disappear within mere years. What makes it good? Who is our generation’s Austen and Tolstoy? So often, books and art about love and loving feel redundant. The same thing over and over with varying details. Lovers whisper the words of Neruda. We binge watch yet decry Hallmark movies as cringey. Whether it’s critically acclaimed or a guilty pleasure, we consume love stories with a veracity large enough to sustain a multi-billion dollar industry—romance novels alone made $1.44 billion in 2021, and it’s only a growing market. 

I want to write about love well. I want to explain all love is meaningful and has its place. Not all love is happily ever after. Most of us have loves before “I do.” Some have love after “I do.” Some friendships last the test of time. I have best friends I don’t talk to anymore but could write about the love I have for them for the rest of my life. Sometimes the happiest ending is a break up. And not all breakups are romantic. Not all love stories are forever, but that doesn’t mean they’re not just as important. Love is vast. 

Sometimes, I write things I like but then immediately hope are not the most uncomfortable thing in the world. Like, “Not being able to wake up, tuck my head into the space between your neck and shoulder, breathe you in, and feel you snuggle into me is the greatest displeasure of my life.” I cringe a little reading that, but I think I would love it if someone felt that about me, and I also mean it like crazy. I know why I wrote that. But the context of it changes the meaning and varietal of love so drastically. This love could be so many kinds of love. Love that is grief of knowing you’ll never have that moment again with a death. Love that is yearning for someone after a breakup, which is an entirely different kind of grief. Love that is desire in a long distance relationship. Love that is parenthood. Love that is wanting the dog on the floor to be snuggled in bed instead… because ‘I feed you dammit!’ I love putting love in context. But also, you’ll read that and you’ll be the narrator with someone in mind. Or you’ll want to be the one being missed. 

That’s the most fun about writing on love… We feel it in our bodies because it’s something we have experience with and chase and romanticize and hate. Writing about love is fun because it’s hard and yet the most relatable thing in the world. It spans culture and color and socio-economic background and religion and sexual orientation. It is universal. Love connects us. 

Romantic is a label I have fought and, for years, easily avoided. I am not known as a sentimental woman. As a woman who writes from a feminist lens in a world beholden to the patriarchy, writing about love feels prescriptive. Expected. I want to be a serious writer, and serious writers don’t write about silly things like love. I’m sure Dante has something to say on that. But he was a man not burdened by the weight of provoking a society actively keeping women’s things in the women’s thing area. Love is often spoken of as if it’s a silly thing women titter over in our beribboned alcoves to diminish it by making it a target of women’s admiration. No one is forcing men to propose. Though not all marriages are love matches, I have a sneaking suspicion, a whole lot of those very serious, down-to-business men are pretty excited to bend the knee. We’re all fools in love. But also, writing about love is always equated to romantic love, and that’s just not true. I write about how much I love my dogs all the time.  

This bath house at Brighton Beach felt really lesbian, and my favorite love stories are queer.

I have written about so many topics throughout the eras of my life thus far. From international business to social justice to tech to weed to natural disasters to coffee. I have always written about love. I cannot figure that bitch out. Going through my writing, love is the motivating undercurrent in every piece. Love for country, love for humanity, love for family, love for justice, love for people. Through my work as a lens of introspection, it’s hard to not think of myself as a massive romantic. Instead of turning from that, I’ll carry it like a banner. It’s my challenge to write about love and do it well. 

So, will I be a Brontë?

Books, Fiction

Lesbian Love, Affair of Poisons, and Abuse in The Disenchantment by Celia Bell

RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 368
Overall Feels I wanted more gay.
Gay Vibes 8/10
Drink Pairing A slightly watered down, iced oat milk latte.
⭐⭐

A girl reading The Disenchantment by Celia Bell in a candlelit and petal filled bath and drinking a cup of tea.
I wish all my baths looked like this.

I am disenchanted with The Disenchantment.

I firmly believe the world needs more queer literature, so I’m glad this book exists to help create more visibility. Especially as it tackles queerness for women in history. Depicting one of the many ways that has played out throughout history. I wanted to love this one, but I don’t love it. The overall book feels like it is being pulled in two directions and neither are particularly well portrayed: being a lesbian in a society and time that does not condone or allow it and surviving an abusive marriage in a society and time that condones and allows it. Basically, as a woman, you’re fucked if you do, fucked if you don’t. The main character in The Disenchantment is fucked all around except in the most literal way.

As both a lesbian and survivor of domestic violence at the hands of men… I could not connect with this book, and I really should have. Marie Catherine is a Baroness in Paris during the Affair of Poisons. She’s married to a physically and emotionally abusive older man with whom she has two young children. She is having an affair with another noblewoman. There’s storytelling and an artist who gets caught up in the whole thing. There was so much potential in this not-so-little novel, but my attention was not kept. I think I read four books in the time it took me to get through this one. 

Cover of The Disenchantment by Celia Bell in a candlelit and petal filled bath.
I had more fun taking these pictures than reading this book.

The plot is muddy, while the narrative is meandering. Bell is tackling too many massive topics in one debut novel. If she would have focused on a singular theme, the book would have benefited and had a larger impact. 

I desperately wanted to love this because it is all about the lady-gay, female empowerment, overcoming obstacles, and surviving abuse. Unfortunately, I just could not get on board with it. I expect great things from Celia Bell, but this was not it.

Memorable Quotes
“So Marie Catherine had quietly believed for years that she had been made with something lacking, and any spark of inclination that she might feel for a man in company was a short-lived thing that fizzled out after the first imaginary movement of love. Then she had met Victoire de Conti.” … “She didn’t love as some women did.”
“”I forgive you.” She said it as if she were a priest who had the power to offer absolution. And, for a moment, she felt that she did, as if the words had lit a candle flame inside her mouth that burned with the light of her love. She did not, would never, believe that flame was the flame of hell. Not if every confessor in France lined up to tell her that she was damned.” 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Buy on Amazon

Title: The Disenchantment
Author: Celia Bell
Publisher: Pantheon
Copyright: 2023
ISBN: 9780593317174

11..., Lifestyle, So Gay

11… Reasons I’m Proud… of Myself

RaeAnna

This is hard. Necessary. But hard.

Human and happy.

It’s Pride Month, and my heart hasn’t been in it, which is fine and life. Some years, things hold less weight in our hearts or minds than other years, and that’s okay. But I need to care a little bit because I am le gay, and I can’t not. So here I am, forcing myself to Pride for the last eleven days, and I’m starting in the most uncomfortable way I can.  

Being proud of literally anyone I know is so easy for me. Like… have you seen people? Pretty incredible. Okay, less so for white dudes. I’m so proud of my people for just being them. To the point I could explode with how incredible and strong I know they are. 

How do I do that? How do I give myself even a modicum of grace I give everyone else? What have I done deserving enough of pride? Nothing. That is my visceral answer. That is what I truly believe to my core. I have done nothing nor am I worthy of being proud of myself. I know, logically, this is not true, but it feels true. My internal monologue can be boiled down to: feelings fighting logic. Feelings never win out against logic. Except when logic is trying to convince my feelings that I’m a good or decent human deserving… anything remotely on the cusp of kindness. Pride falls into this strange category of feeling based on logical analysis. Or it is, at least, for me.  

Making myself create a list of reasons I’m proud feels like a form of self-harm; though, I know, it’s actually a good exercise in self-love, which is indicative that I love myself. I do not. I am solidly pretending that I love myself. Fake it til you make it. Going on 32 years, I’ve gotta have a breakthrough at some point in time. It’s not today, but over the course of 16 days—truly started this one a hot minutes ago—I came up with this list. I stretched. Maybe #12 should be: I’m really proud I finished this list and actually put it into the world. 

Just a Pride photoshoot. Nothing to see.
  1. I came out. Simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing I’ve ever done. 
  2. I am alive.
  3. I got tattoos. I now have ten with appointments for two more this fall. They make me happy. They make my body feel like it belongs to me just a little bit. My tattoos are personal and public reclamation and declaration.
  4. I don’t respond to my parents’ anymore.
  5. I cut out toxicity. The people who made me feel anxious, less than, unworthy, undeserving, too much. I shut out the people who wouldn’t or couldn’t match me. Being in my life is an investment, just like I believe being in other people’s lives is an investment; so I’m not making shitty investments anymore. 
  6. My puppies are safe and loved. In 2020, I spent a lot of time, money, and emotion rescuing and raising a dog and her thirteen puppies. Every single one of them is safe, happy, loved, and thriving in their furever homes. 
  7. I’m chasing peace rather than chaos.
  8. I’ve sought out friends who accept me as I am.
  9. I keep going.
  10. I’m trying really hard. 
  11. I’m making an effort to be vulnerable with those who have earned it. 

bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

11..., Lifestyle

11… Unusual Traditions I Made Up

RaeAnna
It’s a photoshoot! Because I can.

Tradition might be one of my favorite things. I love traditions. They make my world go round. I have traditions for everything. And it takes very little for me to create a new tradition. Seriously, I could like doing something one time, and it is immediately a tradition…. That I will uphold for the rest of my life. The more I write this, the more I’m thinking this is solely an autistic habit creation thing… But I’m gonna stick with calling this… tradition! And let everyone believe it’s just a cute quirk of mine.

We love Starbucks.
It’s a cathedral. This caption will make sense shortly.

Please don’t get “tradition” mixed up with “traditional.” If I call something “traditional,” that is very much a bad thing. If I’m calling something traditional, I’m being polite in front of people I don’t trust. Whatever it is is likely rooted in heteronormativity, the patriarchy, capitalism, or something generally shitty.

Traditions, though, are lovely and often little things that bring me joy. I have so many. So, so many. I’m only going to share eleven that are all over the place in importance. But I’m not going to tell you which ones are the important ones and which are not. Also some have been practiced for decades and others a year. Just know, if I ever rope you into a tradition, you’re stuck with it for life. So take part wisely. 

  1. Every time Dylan drives me to the airport, we get Velvet Taco. Every time he picks me up from the airport late at night, we get Waffle House. This tradition does not go both ways. It’s only when I’m the one flying.
  2. Marshmallows with a little bit of hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls with Christmas music while opening presents on Christmas morning.
  3. Dumplings whenever I’m sick or extra-spicy sad. 
  4. Getting a Starbucks I got to a new state/place. There are limits and terms to this agreement, but there is a state cup for everywhere I’ve been. 
  5. Matching outfits on trips. I rarely travel with people, but when I do, there are coordinating outfits and a lot of photos. Alex has been on the receiving end of this tradition more than anyone. Although, Amanda is a fast second. 
  6. Lighting a candle in every cathedral I go into. I’m not religious. 
  7. Going for a swing on a swing set late at night when I’m sad and can’t sleep. Extra awesome when it’s a cold winter night and the stars are clear. 
  8. Photoshoots for absolutely no particular reason other than… I can. 
  9. Birthday tattoos.
  10. Mommy-Doggy ice cream cones every time we go to the vet. 
  11. Throwing trash in the backseat of my car and yelling “ROADTRIP!” We do not need to be on a roadtrip. We will pick up immediately.
11..., Lifestyle

11… Unexpected Changes from Two Months of Regularish Lifting

RaeAnna

Back in April 2022, I started getting really serious about consistently working out. For the first time ever. Granted there was a very long period of time where I was super active as a dancer up until I was 23. I didn’t have to make a conscientious effort to move my body; I just always was. I’m an active person. I love rock climbing, walking, and playing sports with friends, though I am more than very bad. My vacations trend towards adventure with a lot of hiking or walking. Me out of shape is still very in shape. 

A woman in houndstooth pants, a black lace bra, blue blazer, and black booties, holding a disco ball covered in flowers in front of a mural.
Are those abs? What in the world?

Then I got into shape for realsies. Or at least, I was on the path. I was running six days a week and going to yoga at least four. In the span of two months, I lost 20 pounds and was in the lithest shape I’d ever been in in my adult body. I even ran a couple races and finished solidly just above mid-pack. Yay me. I hate running.

My dedication to working out floundered in July when I was constantly traveling. In August, my best friend and co-pawrent had a hip replacement, which took all of my time for four weeks and most of my time for an additional four weeks. A quarter of the way into his recovery, I seriously broke my hand—it’s still healing—and, being the fall risk that I am, exercise was even less possible. So working out became a thing of the past. My body started shifting away from lithe and lean because of course it did.  

A woman in black rock climbing.
Rock climbing again and figuring out I can do more even after I broke my hand.

But I’m getting older. It happens. I actually really love it. Our society has such a negative view of aging, and it’s so common to hear people complain about how their bodies turn to shit after 30. I’m not experiencing that. Things are changing, 100%, but I’m choosing to have a positive *insert serious internal gasp here* look at aging. So much of what our body experiences is influenced by how we view something (I have sources on this if you want to call me on it because this is a science based fact), and this is particularly pertinent to aging. So often we blame aging rather than a lack of stretching, not exercising, not stimulating our bodies/brains, poor form, overexertion, so on and so forth. It’s easier to blame age. Thirty is not old. Thirty is still so fucking young. I suffer from a lot of health problems. If I don’t want to die in the near future, it’s extra important I take care of my body in any and all ways. 

The physical effects of exercise are not all that appealing to me. I’m naturally thin. It’s just genetics. I can eat like crap, do nothing, and still never go over 150 pounds at 5’10”; believe me, I’ve done my best trying. Going from a ballerina body to that of a woman with hips was an adjustment. I’ve finally made my peace with it. So I don’t exercise to look a certain way. I exercise because it is the very best thing for mental acuity as I age. My biggest fear is losing my cognitive abilities and control. Combatting that starts right now by moving my body. As much as I hate admitting it, the other really important thing for women as we age… weight lifting. I hate it. I’d rather do cardio until I pass out. 

In November, I got a bougie ass gym membership. If I don’t spend too many monies on a gym membership, I will not work out regularly. I HATE wasting money more than just about anything. It’s right up there with systemic racism and all that bad shit. Running and yoga are still really hard for me. Running: I have a propensity to stumble and fall; with a hand that is still fragile, I can’t afford to lose my dominant hand again. Yoga: there’s a lot of putting weight on a hand that can’t take it yet. So I started weight lifting, and I think I accidentally became a gym rat. It’s the easiest thing for me to do with my hand. I’ve always had strong legs because… dancer. Upper body strength, what is that? Because… dancer. What I’ve lacked in strength, I’ve made up for in determination. But I hate looking weak. One way to, at least, feeling weak is knowing exactly how much weight I cannot do. 

A woman in houndstooth pants, a black lace bra, and black booties, holding a disco ball, flexing her arm muscles and making a goofy face in front of a mural.
When did I get arms? Or shoulders? or abs? I’m also making a dumb ass face because why not?
A woman rock climbing all the way to the top in a sports bra and leggings.
I’m still scared of heights… but I can almost see muscles in this picture.

Holy fuck. There have been some serious changes in the mere two months I’ve been not so consistently weight lifting. And it’s not just limited to doubling then tripling and even quadrupling the weight I was lifting at the beginning of December.

1. Boobs My boobs are not the same boobs I had two months ago. All the muscles in my chest and abs have changed things. Lifted two things. I’ve never been known for wearing a bra because my boobs have always been right about where they should be aesthetically for today’s societal beauty standards that I hate conforming to yet historically have. My boobs are so fucking perky. It’s weird. Now, I almost never wear a bra because why would I???   

2. Sleep I don’t like to sleep. It’s the antithesis of productivity, yet something I very much need for my health and a foundational element in maintaining mental acuity. Damnit. Working out has helped my sleep. It makes me tired at reasonable human times. Like midnight or one in the morning rather than never. Physical exhaustion, enough of it, can actually counteract anxiety. Who knew? It’s also made me more prone to getting up between 7:30 and 8:00 in the morning… weird. I have an almost normal sleep schedule. I wake up, like, ready to go. 

3. Protein So people have been telling me for years that protein is important. Ballerina mentality means I can and do push far past what most people find acceptable levels of physicality. Limits? What even are those? Fucking weird. If I take protein before I work out… I can lift a shit ton more with ease. Who knew?? Why didn’t someone tell me that? 

4. New Body My boobs aren’t the only thing that’s changing. My entire body is different. I have arm muscles. Back muscles. Abs are actually starting to show and not in the ‘my fluff is aligned in a flatteringly deceptive way’ kind of thing. My shoulders are a bit of a “what the fuck?” every time I look in the mirror. My legs are sleeker. My fluff hasn’t started falling off yet because I’m not really doing cardio. A body I’ve never had before. A body I’ve never wanted. When I bend my elbows, my forearms can feel my biceps. It’s not the ballerina body I’ve always had. It’s a strong body. It’s foreign and alien. I’m trying to get used to it. I’m still shocked as all hell that my body can look like that… this. And, truthfully, I don’t know if I like it. I’ll get there. (Especially as I keep outlifting stronger and stronger men. That helps.)

A topless woman in houndstooth pants and black booties, holding a disco ball in front of her.
Seriously? What the fuck, shoulders?

5. My Body Feels Different Being in this body feels different, for sure. What’s really weird is how it feels when people touch me. This may not make sense. When people touch me, it feels like they’re touching me closer than ever before. Where there used to be skin, fluff, bone, it didn’t feel like there was a lot of me to touch. Now, there’s resistance when people hug or touch me because there’s muscle. It feels like they’re touching me more immediately. I’m autistic as fuck, so my sensory issues are probably in play here. But when there’s pressure on my body, my muscles have more feeling than the fluff and skin. Therefore it feels more intimate than before, like people are actually touching me rather than the buffer. I can feel people’s touch so much more intensely. In a lot of ways, it’s great… if I like the person. It’s also made me a lot, a lot, more sensitive to being touched. 

6. Gym I finally realized the gym is just an age appropriate playground for adults. Once I do what I have to do for my workouts… then I can play. I’m very bad at weights and cardio and all that crap. But what I am good at: flexibility and balance. It’s so fun. I get to bounce around doing things I enjoy, and it turns out it makes other people ask if my sanity is intact because it’s so hard. Thanks ballet!

7. Orgasms I’m going to leave it at: Stronger abs, stronger…

8. Things Are Lighter Things are not lighter. I got stronger. That’s fucking weird. At 31, I am in the best, strongest shape of my life. My body also probably looks the healthiest it ever has. Ballerina bodies are beautiful but don’t exude health. I love picking up heavy, also heavy and awkward, things in front of men and them asking if I’m on steroids. They can’t do it with the same ease. And that brings me immense joy. I can also now move two 45 pound bags of dog food easily and at the same time. With six dogs, this is efficient, and I love efficiency.

9. Balance I hate balance because that means I’m human. I have a tendency to go balls to the wall with everything I do. I go hard, I go fast, and I go constantly. Rest is deserved by everyone. Except me. Lifting has taught me that I don’t have to feel like my legs and arms are falling off to get a good workout. I can workout hard and not pass out. I can take a day off or even a minute for a break without being an absolute failure of a person. I hold myself to an inhumanly high standard, partially because I’m only motivated by my own constant failure, partially because of trauma, partially because I’m just starting to realize how ingrained my ballet mentality is, partially because my mother. That standard probably will never change, and I don’t want it to. But lifting has allowed me to be okay with having a modicum of physical limitations.

10. Velocity of Change Under the fluff, muscle is growing and growing really fucking fast. My body does not change like a woman’s. It changes like a man’s. Maybe even faster. It’s weird. I’m getting an entirely different body really quickly. There is clear definition between my muscles, and that started happening within two weeks. It’s only getting worse, better, I don’t know, it’s continuing.

11. Twerking I used to be able to twerk. I can’t now. My ass has tightened up so much, I cannot twerk. No matter how hard I try. Oh lord, have I tried. Nothing. No twerking for me. I should have twerked for everyone because I’m a white lady in my 30s and no one would believe that shit. I could two months ago. Then my body changed. My butt won’t twerk anymore. I’m sad. (I think that’s the most I’ve ever used the word twerk in a paragraph, day, ever.)

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Books, Fiction

Prevailing Impacts of Cishet Normativity in Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby

RaeAnna

Read Yes
Length 337
Feels Complicated yet Positive
Gay Vibes Super Gay
Drink Pairing Wine Flight
⭐⭐⭐⭐

As a woman living in a non-traditional family, Detransition, Baby is an important representation for so many people who have been confronted with the cishet-normative and choose to live the life we want or need. As a queer woman, Detransition, Baby is exceptional for so many reasons. Torrey Peters and Detransition, Baby is one of the first novels ever published by an out-trans woman by a big-five publishing company. Congratulations to One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House, for using its considerable power and influence to uplift a voice that needs to be heard. 

A blond woman in a romper lounging on stairs beside the book Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters.
This picture was taken over a year ago. Finally posting a review. We can say I’m a bit behind and have definitely changed my hair.

The most exceptional part of Detransition, Baby is in its presentation and acceptance of the mundane and quotidian quality of the lives and struggles of queer and trans people because they are. Peters, as a queer trans-woman writes with the authenticity of lived experience and presents it to her readers with a perfunctory yet humorous: this is life. Queer lives and loves hold all the same ups and downs of cishet loves and lives, we just have the added bonus of prejudice, bigotry, systemic laws, outdated beliefs, ignorance, and hatred cishet people don’t have to deal with. For the LGBTQIA+ community, that is just life and it is mundane and quotidian, albeit painful and frustrating, but to be queer is to look the world in the face and keep living and loving authentically. Peters doesn’t make instances of homophobia or transphobia extraordinary or unique because they are not. They are a part of our lives. We do our best to get through them; educate the people we love so they can better protect us; and we continue on because that is all we can do. Queer people are just trying to pay the bills, feed our pets, have some friends, get a healthy amount of sleep, create families, and enjoy life. Detransition, Baby allows readers into the daily struggle of what that looks like for queer and trans women from the very first page. 

Reese is a thirty-something, queer, trans woman living in Brooklyn with a penchant for men who do not treat her well and a deep yearning for a child. Ames, formerly known as Amy, was Reese’s partner for years before detransitioning, losing Reese and their life together. Ames’ lover, Katrina, is a half-Chinese, half-Jewish cis woman. These three thirty-something women’s lives collide in Brooklyn when Katrina finds out she’s pregnant, though Ames believed he was sterile from the years of hormone treatments. Ames creates a plan to bring Reese, Katrina, and himself together to bring this baby into the world in an unconventional yet stable and loving manner. The narrative bounces along a timeline spanning years before the baby’s conception when Amy and Reese were together to weeks after conception as Ames, Reese, and Katrina confront their own self-destructive ways, identity, gender, and what a stable life for a child could and should look like. 

Close up of the cover of Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters on steps.
Detransition, Baby is an amazing book.

Ultimately, Detransition, Baby puts cishet social norms at the forefront of the novel in conjunction with how queer lives, loves, and families are expected to fit within an outdated societal structure, which no longer serves the humans it was built for and around. (Like it ever did…) Yet everyone is impacted by those expectations due to the basic human need to be seen, accepted, and affirmed. Peters, in her debut novel, which garnered her the first nomination ever by a trans woman for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, creates a messy, emotional, and vulnerable deep dive into the meaning of womanhood, queerness, family, relationships, gender, and sex. It speaks so deeply to the queer experience, yet every human who has been met with the opportunity or sought out a new beginning in their thirties, when their lives are expected to be settled. It’s hard. It’s messy. It’s painful. And yet, we come out the otherside more authentically ourselves. It’s no wonder Peters dedicated her novel to “divorced cis women.” 

Within Detransition, Baby there is a universal understanding of the human condition told through the lens of a specifically queer story. 

Memorable Quotes
“Many people think a trans woman’s deepest desire is to live in her true gender, but actually it is to always stand in good lighting.”
“She had previously been under the impression that she had failed majorly for most of her life, but in fact, she had simply confused failure with being a transsexual—an outlook in which a state of failure confirmed one’s transsexuality, and one’s transsexuality confirmed a state of failure.”
I stopped keeping quotes because there are so many fabulous ones.

bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna

Buy on Amazon | Buy on Book Depository
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Title: Detransition, Baby
Author: Torrey Peters
Publisher: One World
Copyright: 2021
ISBN: 9780593133378