Two trans women, Reese and Amy, fell in love, but then Reese
cheated with married men, and Amy has detransitioned back to a man, because
being a trans woman was just too difficult. Now he muses that before he transitioned from
a man to a woman, he felt like his body was a separate obedient entity, like a
good dog. Then he transitioned to Amy,
and the dog disappeared. That would seem
to be a good thing, but then he implies that he detransitioned because he
missed the comfort of the dog. That’s
all well and good, but the dog did not come back, and now he is going by Ames.
Believing himself to be sterile due to hormone injections from his years as
Amy, Ames has a sexual relationship with his boss, Katrina. She becomes pregnant with Ames’s child, and
Ames has to ‘fess up to his trans history.
Katrina reels from the shock of this revelation but then rebounds and
pushes Ames to decide whether he wants to commit to being a father or not. Ames, however, is still wrestling with his
gender identity and has not ruled out the possibility of transitioning to a
woman again. He broaches the possibility
that he, Reese, and Katrina all serve as the child’s parents. What?
Well, OK, the family unit is evolving these days, and Katrina eventually
warms up to the idea, adopting the attitude that queerness is cool. This book was definitely an education for me,
as I don’t know any trans men or women, at least none that I am aware of. The three main characters are fully formed
and in transition, in more ways than one. I have to say, though, that Katrina’s
flexibility about how her child would be raised seemed radical to me. Of course, fiction is fiction.
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