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A review by rudyyy
The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood by Krys Malcolm Belc
4.0
Mixed feelings on this one! I really related to some of what Krys wrote about transitioning and having some of his big life experiences being treated like surprises or just never coming up because people assumed them not to be an experience of his.
“There are things I miss. Before Michigan, before testosterone, sometimes people in Philadelphia would look at me and Samson and know he was mine, think I made him, and they would call him beautiful. No one says that anymore; now they say ‘you’re such a good dad’ because now they think I am a man and no one thinks men can do anything related to children, least of all make one. . . . Sometimes I miss women, how they loved and accepted me before I took too many steps out of their world. I miss my mother even though she liked me more now, likes this me who has a beard and broad shoulders and who smiles, smiles all the time. But she used think we were the same.”
At the same time, I feel like I see hints of transmisogyny in the idea of being assigned male being the easy way out, etc. Or even in the above quote, the idea of previously being closer to women…when it feels like he’s just talking about cis women probably? Hmm.
Also the section on breasts was kind of hard for me to read! Just a lot of body horror and dysphoria and stuff.
The section at the end of the book with Samson was so sweet though
“There are things I miss. Before Michigan, before testosterone, sometimes people in Philadelphia would look at me and Samson and know he was mine, think I made him, and they would call him beautiful. No one says that anymore; now they say ‘you’re such a good dad’ because now they think I am a man and no one thinks men can do anything related to children, least of all make one. . . . Sometimes I miss women, how they loved and accepted me before I took too many steps out of their world. I miss my mother even though she liked me more now, likes this me who has a beard and broad shoulders and who smiles, smiles all the time. But she used think we were the same.”
At the same time, I feel like I see hints of transmisogyny in the idea of being assigned male being the easy way out, etc. Or even in the above quote, the idea of previously being closer to women…when it feels like he’s just talking about cis women probably? Hmm.
Also the section on breasts was kind of hard for me to read! Just a lot of body horror and dysphoria and stuff.
The section at the end of the book with Samson was so sweet though