A Book That Helped Me To See Myself
There are so many excellent books featuring LGBTQ+ people and topics, and so I wanted to share with the PFLAG NH family one that I found really powerful and interesting. A voice that I do not often get to see in queer literature is that of parents. A parent of an LGBTQ+ person can sometimes have a journey of their own, and I feel that experience was beautifully captured in Elodie Durand’s graphic novel Transitions (Top Shelf Comix, 2021).
Transitions tells a mother’s journey as her adult son comes out to her as transmasc. At first, the mom really struggles with the news. She is hurt, confused, and angry by what she sees as a change that comes “out of nowhere”. Throughout the story, she shares her raw vulnerabilities as she really grapples with her son’s transition. While this is a really difficult journey for her, and she doesn’t begin from a place of support for her son’s gender affirming journey, she grows as a person and as a parent and eventually becomes an ally and advocate for her son.
One of the things I really enjoyed about this book was just how real it felt. As a parent of a trans child, I saw a lot of my own struggles in Anne’s story. We both deeply love our children, but it took a lot of time and work on ourselves in order to embrace their new identities. We both had so many concerns and fears to work through, and it felt really good to see another mom’s journey on the page to help me feel like I am not alone. We are not alone.
Apart from this emotional connection, on another level, I also really enjoyed the informative elements of this book. Anne is a scientist and she shares a lot of what she learns about biology and gender identity in her story. Deconstructing the myths and uncovering facts about gender really helped her to process her son’s transition, and I appreciated that the author was able to weave that information into the story in an accessible and thoughtful way. She had so many misconceptions about gender as a binary (as many of us do), and as she learned more and expanded her understanding of gender, so did I.
This was such a great book for lots of reasons–the art is beautiful and creative, the story is emotional and compelling, the information is engaging and factual–but ultimately, what I liked the most was that I felt seen in this story. I definitely encourage any parent, or anyone who wants to support a trans person they care about, to check out this story!