This Is How It Always Is

I was prepared to hate this book as I knew it would likely be a preachy piece of propaganda, but no - the author actually does a good job of steelmanning the argument for gender dysphoric kids. now you'll note I didn't say trans. there are no such thing as trans children in the same way there are no lawyer children, no motorcycle riding children, no mensa children - these are things you are when you grow up, not when you are still in the larval stage.

I liked a lot of what the author included: admitting unconscious parental influence (mother's sister died, she desperately wanted a girl) on a child (who surprise-surprise choose the name Poppy) that Ken Zucker proposed can be an underlying cause; making the dysphoric child be a 5th male when it's scientifically known that subsequent male births have a greater chance of homosexuality (so gender non-conformity must be a part of that). She highlighted how the school would allow no ambiguity, very much wanted to rush a 'transition', and that their primary goals were a name change and hair length. She admitted it is a sacrifice for the whole family - an active choice of one child over another - when you can't put your family photos on the wall and you have to move across the country. The suspicion that new friends for Poppy might just be opportunities for parents to gossip or get clout. And the dad's clinging to fairy tale is very much in-line with Kathleen's Stock's chapter on immersive fiction in her book Material Girls.

there were some definite eye-rolls when she engaged in her inner 'after-school special': the first profanity-laden homophobe they meet is also a gun-toting lunatic. Ichthyology just happens to be on Poppy's radar for a profession, allowing a lecture on the famous gender bending clownfish (other things that exist in nature but aren't in this book: praying mantis eat their mate's head, panicked guinea pigs eat their young, rats will mate with their young, horses can mate with donkeys to create a totally different species). And the medical clinic the family goes to just happens to be in Thailand, where Poppy gets to appreciate the existence of ladyboys without the distressing fact that prostitution is their main occupation and that this is how Thailand reconciles gay men in their population.

but I also take issue with creating a precocious character that supposedly has such a wide vocabulary at the of age 3, and yet is still asking, like an ingenue, if they will be a boy or girl when they grow up and calling occupations boy-jobs and girl-jobs at the age of 9. The family watches Claude get smaller and smaller in the family self-portraits he draws at school, but there is never a thought to find a child therapist to help them or explain why Claude is getting smaller while in the presence of his very supporting family. (this is a sticking point for me as, once Claude becomes Poppy, the portraits are now all her and no one else. This is ripe for talk therapy: what does it mean?) As a child, the only area where Claude is adamant is the desire for clothes: long dresses, ribbons, barrettes, bikinis. The subsequent name change and hair length are suggested to him; they don't come from him organically. so is girl anything other than the clothes?

lastly, this book is now 5 years old and it's useful to show how quickly and how far the trans movement has advanced. the author advocates for 3rd spaces, a commonly held solution not long ago, but today's trans activists reject it, insisting that self-ID alone is enough for a bearded, bepenised trans-identified male to shower alongside women in women-only spaces.