Detransition, Baby

This chapter continues the narrative of Amy and Reese’s relationship from Chapter 6. After their fight at the adoption agency, Amy returns home to their apartment, which she is surprised to find empty. She fears that Reese may have left or is planning to leave and checks the suitcases to see if Reese has already packed. When Reese returns, she sees Amy with the suitcase, and thinks Amy is packing to leave her. Reese begins crying. They decide to talk things over in the morning and go to sleep. The next morning, Amy feels Reese has “the responsibility to initiate the emotional processing,” as Reese was the one to wrong her (242). However, Reese says nothing about having cheated with Stanley and acts as if everything is normal.

The next week, Amy discovers that an app on her iPhone shows her Reese’s live location due to a setting they activated and then forgot about. Amy is surprised to see that Reese is in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Amy looks every day and discovers that Reese goes to the same location. When Amy asks Reese if she has been in Brooklyn, Reese denies it, causing Amy’s suspicions to grow.

One day at work, Amy leaves the office and takes an Uber to try and catch Reese. She has the Uber follow Reese’s live location, which begins heading to Brooklyn’s McCarren Park. At the park, Amy sees Reese get out of an SUV wearing one of Amy’s dresses. She walks over and begins to yell at Reese about taking her dress. Stanley emerges from the SUV and is at first confused by the confrontation, then quickly realizes Amy is Reese’s girlfriend. As the conflict escalates, Amy announces that she wants “to punch [Stanley] in the face” (252). Stanley responds by calling Amy a gay slur and punches Amy, causing Amy to fall to the ground and cut her face. Stanley drives off, and Reese attempts to help Amy, who is now profusely bleeding. However, Amy refuses Reese’s help, telling Reese to leave her alone, and Reese leaves. Amy realizes Stanley has broken her nose, which she previously had plastic surgery on to alleviate her gender dysphoria.

When Amy returns to the apartment later, Reese apologizes and assures her that everything will be better. However, the incident traumatizes Amy, who grows depressed and stops taking her estrogen. When Reese confronts Amy, she responds by asking Reese, “Didn’t you want a man? Isn’t that what you’re into?” (259). The growing tension and Amy’s increasingly obvious detransition cause Reese to leave Amy soon thereafter.  

Reese and Katrina begin to bond as they spend more time together and begin to undergo preparations for the pregnancy. Reese frequently goes to Katrina’s to hang out, once even sleeping over in Katrina’s spare bedroom. Reese feels herself developing a deep platonic affection for Katrina—a feeling she labels a “mom-crush” owing to her intensive “thinking about being a co-mom with Katrina” (266). Reese pictures her and Katrina having discussions about their child in the future, and debates about the best way to raise them, fantasies that “animate” Reese. However, Reese also worries that Katrina might be looking for “queerness [to] save her” after her divorce, and that Katrina will abandon Reese once she realizes queerness isn’t as “utopic” and rosy as she seems to imagine (266-7).

While Katrina and Reese get to know each other, Ames begins “brainstorming prodigiously about the logistics of their triad” (272). Ames believes the three of them must come up with a concrete plan about how the family will work, where they will live, and how they should legally make Reese a parent. He tells them about friends of his, a gay couple and a lesbian couple who are co-parenting children. The two couples live in a single house in two separate apartments, with the children able to freely move between the two floors. Katrina frequently discusses Ames’s ideas with her mother, Maya, who feels that Ames is viewing parenthood through too abstract a lens. Maya suggests that Katrina and Reese go to a baby store to create a registry together.

At the store, Reese and Katrina excitedly look at the various items on sale and discuss their future plans for their child. A store attendant mistakenly thinks that Reese is the woman carrying a child, and Katrina plays along, pretending that Reese is pregnant, which delights Reese. However, Katrina and Reese begin to argue when they consider buying a crib. Reese explains that she was raised without a crib, and that babies are happier sleeping with their mothers. However, Katrina worries about the baby’s safety. When Reese claims that it has been proven that its safe for women to sleep with their babies, Katrina jibes Reese about her child-rearing expertise. Reese relents and lets Katrina put the crib on the registry, feeling that Katrina, as the “natal mom,” will always “have that last word” (280). However, later that night, Reese sees that Katrina has removed the crib from the registry.