Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

Author:Torrey Peters [Peters, Torrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

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Unbidden, the memory of the skating rink that Reese attended in her own childhood rises to the fore of Reese’s thoughts. Although Reese told everyone in New York that she had grown up in Madison, Wisconsin, she had actually grown up in a little ranch house in Middleton. All the big Midwestern college towns seem to have one downscale twin, a suburb where the big-box stores, neon-and-concrete strip malls, and drive-thru chains can accumulate without threatening the Arcadian character of the college town itself. Like any good beta, Middleton took pains never to threaten her prettier, more famous sister—its city’s motto was “The Good Neighbor City” and its chief attraction was the National Mustard Museum.

In the second grade, the family next door introduced Reese to figure skating. Some night, Reese doesn’t remember why or how, she ended up in their neighbor Virginia’s care while her own mother worked late at the Sub-Zero appliance factory offices. Virginia took Reese along with her daughter, Deb, to one of Deb’s figure-skating lessons at the rink in Madison.

Reese was the only boy on the ice. She slipped around in her sweatpants and rented skates, arms flailing, a novel curiosity to the giggling girls in their sequined skating dresses. Her tiny heart fluctuated between elation, envy, and the thrill of losing herself in the same activity as all the other girls. On the car ride home, Virginia bought them Happy Meals—the boy Happy Meal that came with a He-Man cup for Reese, and Deb got the girl one, a pastel unicorn cup. Reese brainstormed all the ways she could ask her mother to go back to the skating rink, and in her young weary way, concluded that all of them would end with her mother’s exasperated no.

That’s not what happened. Over the next few weeks, her mother continued working late, sending her next door, and the lessons continued. For her birthday, Reese asked for a pair of skates, and got them. They were black, not white as they should have been, but her mother darkened when Reese pointed this out, so she hastened to correct herself: No, no, black is great, really, she loved black skates, she was just thinking about her new skating friends, the girls, and how they would want her to match them, that’s all.

She skated for the next four years, largely chaperoned by Virginia. She was the only boy, looked after with a special kind of concern by the ice-skating version of soccer moms, who tended toward an entirely feminine, fussy sort of authority that Reese nestled into with satisfied sighs. The only moments of true pain came during the shows, when the skating rink raised money by having the kids put on a performance of The Nutcracker (at Christmas) or whatever Disney movie could be adapted (in the spring). Reese’s costumes, sewn by the skating mothers, nearly matched those of the girls around her. It was only when she unfolded them that her heart sank: Where the

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