Jennifer Finney Boylan, professor of English at Colby College and a New York Times bestselling author, tells of her experiences as both a mother and a father, including her time in between, as “both, or neither, like some parental version of the schnoodle, or the cockapoo.”
This is not a story about the details of her gender transition, however. Boylan has done that elsewhere (in her She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders
Instead, she shares with us the challenges—and joys—that she, her wife, and their two sons encountered during her transition. Along the way, she explores what it means to be a mother or a father in today’s world. She observes, “Surely, if we make room for the mutability of gender, we have to accept that motherhood and fatherhood themselves are no longer unalterable binaries either.”
Boylan, who has written both fiction and memoirs, infuses her book with levity, warmth, and novel-like dialogue. Between the chapters on her own family are transcripts of conversations with friends on their own upbringing and/or parenting—friends such as New York Times bestselling author Augusten Burroughs and Pulitzer Prize winners Richard Russo and Edward Albee.
Boylan’s brilliance is that she not only shows us what her particular experience as a transgender parent has been like, but also helps us to reflect upon the whole venture of parenting in general. Transgender parents and prospective parents will be strengthened by her story; anyone who ever doubted transgender people could be good parents should doubt no more; and parents of all gender identities and sexual orientations should find much to ponder about parental roles and expectations.
