Detransition, Baby

Ames makes plans for Reese and Katrina to meet at the GLAAD Media Awards gala, a ceremony honoring LGBT media figures that Ames has been invited to through his work. Before going to the awards, Ames invites Reese over to his apartment, where Reese used to live several years earlier when the two were in a relationship. Reese is overcome with emotion upon revisiting the apartment, reflecting on her relationship with Ames and feeling that their breakup “had been [Reese’s] own first major failure” (158). Reese begins to cry, but Ames helps her compose herself and they go to the gala to meet Katrina.

At the gala, the group gets drinks and begins to talk, making awkward small talk and mostly avoiding the topic of Katrina’s pregnancy. Reese remarks to Ames that she likes Katrina, a remark which surprises her. Reese explains that she “expected a rival,” a comment that throws Katrina off guard (165). As the two women talk, Katrina’s divorce comes up, and Reese explains to Katrina that as a trans woman she feels an affinity with divorced cis women, because “divorce is a transition story” that often causes divorced women to doubt the imperatives society has constructed around femininity: “the only people who have anything worthwhile to say about gender are divorced cis women who have given up on heterosexuality but are still attracted to men” (167).

As the night goes on, the conversation slowly drifts towards Katrina’s pregnancy. Reese compares Ames’s proposal to co-parent to being asked to join a sexual threesome. Katrina finds Reese’s remark flippant, and she tells Reese that she has “reservations” about the arrangement. The two have a tense conversation about the desires and social forces that define and enable motherhood. Reese implies that Katrina doesn’t understand of the pain Reese experiences by not being able to biologically conceive a child. Katrina responds by telling Reese about her miscarriage, and says she understands “how it is to have a body that isn’t a home to babies” (172). Katrina asks Reese why she wants to be a mother, and Reese says she feels the question is unfair, as cis women are never forced to “prove that it was okay to want a child” (176). Katrina justifies her question by pointing out that cis women of color and immigrant women are also denied opportunities to be mothers. Pushed to explain why she wants to be a mother, Reese explains that she feels that she has a natural proclivity for mothering. Later that night, Reese feels that she has made a bad impression on Katrina, but Ames tell Reese that he thinks Katrina might be more open to the idea than Reese realizes. 

This chapter follows Reese after she has been together with Amy for several years. While Reese previously worked as a nanny and waitress, she now works at a public relations firm. Reese makes less money with this work, but she feels the job looks more respectable to Amy’s professionally employed friends and colleagues. However, Reese begins to feel listless about her life, questioning her future path and feeling she has “fallen behind” in life in comparison to other people her age (187). A friend of Reese’s gives her a book about “queer temporality,” arguing that queer people’s lives follow a very different path and “lifeline” than those of heterosexual people (188). Yet Reese cannot shake her anxiety about the future, especially after making friends with a cis woman named Angela and seeing the beautiful apartment that she owns with her husband.

While running an errand at a fashion boutique for work, Reese runs into Stanley. Though Reese at first attempts to make pleasant small talk with him and then leave, Stanley asks her to help him pick out clothing and Reese reluctantly agrees. Later that night, Reese returns with Stanley to his apartment, where the two discuss Stanley’s life since Reese left him. As they talk, Stanley begins to make a move on Reese, and while Reese enjoys this, she ultimately stops Stanley and tells him she should go. Back at home, Reese attempts to wake Amy, to have sex. When Amy turns her down, Reese flirtatiously texts with Stanley.

The next week, Amy calls Reese and invites her to an information session for couples interested in adopting a child. Amy tells Reese that a friend of hers has a sibling who works for the adoption agency, and that she thinks the agency would be open to letting a trans couple adopt. Amy expects Reese to be ecstatic, but Reese instead behaves evasively, only telling Amy that she’ll meet her at their home to get ready. As they prepare to leave for the information session, Reese tells Amy she feels nervous about attending it and worries they’ll be perceived as an old stereotype, “the deceptive transsexual” (203). Throughout the information session, Reese acts erratically and begins “fully but silently crying” (205). Amy takes her outside and tells her that “it’s okay to have doubts” about adopting (206). Reese tells Amy that the reason she is acting strange isn’t because she’s having doubts about adopting, and then confesses to Amy that she’s begun an affair with Stanley in the past week. Amy says nothing and walks away, then hides in a room until Reese leaves.