Detransition, Baby

Detransition, Baby has become an incredibly popular book club book. How can it not be, really? It has all the great hallmarks: a dry sense of humor, creative writing style, and most importantly, messy people living messy lives. Torrey Peters’s first novel explores the sloppy quasi-triangle of Reese, a trans woman who can’t quite get it together; her ex-partner Ames (previously Amy, previously previously James), who detransitioned a few years ago; and Katrina, the woman that Ames has inadvertently knocked up.

Right.

When Ames realizes that he can parent, but he can’t father, he turns to Reese for help: she’s always wanted a kid and is good with kids, so why not be the third parent in this family? What unfolds from there traces Reese’s relationship with Amy through the past and how Reese is drawn into a world with Katrina’s wants and Ames’s needs. Travelling through the trans femme world of Brooklyn and bringing to light stories about the trans community that have nothing to do with HIV, Detransition, Baby has become an immediate standard of queer literature.

In this episode, we’re talking through Detransition, Baby, including the conversation the novel holds around motherhood, womanhood and fatherhood, as well as ideas of gender versus sex, and most importantly: what would these three want if they were on an episode of House Hunters? (It’s happened before!)