“their mothers, and their fathers, and everyone in between”: Queering Motherhood in Trans Parent Memoirs by Jennifer Finney Boylan and Trystan Reese

Abstract

AbstractIn their respective memoirs Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders (2013) and How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned About Love and LGBTQ Parenthood (2021), Jennifer Finney Boylan and Trystan Reese illuminate how mother and father are concepts that are varied, mutable, and fluid. Boylan, a university professor at Colby College in Maine and best-selling author, reveals that she is a transgender woman, formerly a husband in a long-term marriage, and father of two. Boylan writes from her position as a second mother to her children, and as the still-married partner of Deirdre Boylan. Reese, a social justice advocate, is a transgender man who not only adopted two children with his husband, Biff Chaplow, but who also gave birth to their biological baby. In my analysis herein, I argue that through narratives that conflate the conventional and the radical, Boylan and Reese normalize trans parenthood while queering normativity. Drawing on scholarship from queer, maternal, and life writing studies, and foregrounding the themes of transitioning, reproduction, and childrearing, I showcase how Boylan and Reese use their memoirs to open up vital spaces for new and inclusive notions of family.