Reviews with content warning for Deadnaming - Transitions: A Mother's Journey

Reviews tagging 'Deadnaming'

Transitions: A Mother's Journey by Élodie Durand

12 reviews

goose_bowomp's review

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emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

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hsteel's review

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challenging emotional informative medium-paced

3.5

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bhrtng's review

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2.0

This graphic novel follows a mother's journey to acceptance after her child comes out as a trans man. I picked this up because the cover grabbed my eye and I enjoy trans stories, but it was a bit of a disappointment. The mother spends about 90% of the book rejecting her son's identity, deadnaming and misgendering him constantly. She makes his transition entirely about herself and what it means to her as his mother and what it says about her. When she finally does accept his identity, she almost does it begrudgingly and it takes a long time for her to correctly name and gender him. At the end, it feels like she pats herself on the back for her allyship...there wasn't any time given to a heartfelt and thoughtful acknowledgement of wrongdoing. It's wild how her son is basically a background character to the mother's internal dialogue. Even her husband felt like a more significant character than her actual child. Like, she was just a bad mom. I know this is a story that might be impactful for parents of trans kids who have also struggled with their child's identity, but I don't know, it didn't sit right with me. The story is also interspersed with random facts about gender diversity in the animal kingdom and in other cultures but it just feels performative. It also feels sad that the mother seems to rely on these examples for why trans identities are normal rather than just trusting the lived experience of her child. I don't know who I would recommend this to honestly, if anyone. It doesn't feel like it serves the trans community at all.

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autumnruth's review

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challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

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barefootbetsy's review

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.25

This was a difficult read, but I appreciate that some of the things that made it most difficult are probably true things as they happened. The deadnaming and pronoun difficulties were heartbreaking to read, but my guess is that the author truly did struggle with those things for that year. To rewrite that story with her accepting her son immediately and not struggling would not have been accurate.

I hope that this book is helpful to all the parents who are similarly struggling. It shows how someone can go from having difficulties with acceptance to being fully supportive to the point of activism and writing an honest book about their struggles initially.

I recommend this book to struggling parents and that's who I read it for/gave it to (my struggling parent). I am a parent myself who is agender and I am not struggling with my children's gender identities.

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rainbowbrarian's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

2.0

This felt like a book for straight people. I strongly disliked Anne for the constant misgendering and hurt she was causing. And at the end it sort of congratulating herself on how far she’d come. But without really acknowledging the harm she’d done to Alex.

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jessereadsthings's review

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informative fast-paced

1.0

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livlamentloathe's review

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challenging emotional reflective

3.0

This one was hard for me—I’m a bit of a black and white thinker, so reading all of Anne’s thoughts and misgendering was rough. I was very frustrated by her slow progression and the clear ways in which she was hurting her son.

That said, I understand the world is shades of gray. Gender and sex are very gray, especially. And Alex’s transition was very new to Anne so she took it personally. Change is hard. I did appreciate how far Anne came from the first page. And how much research she did—even speaking with colleagues and changing course materials. I just wish change happened faster, especially in cases where one person’s struggle to change is hurting another (Anne’s struggle hurting Alex fyi).

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indeedithappens's review

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emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

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nerdysread's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Je sais as quoi donner comme note. Je ne sais pas quoi noter. Relation très conflictuelle avec ce livre (allant plus sur le négatif

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