A review by enbeefinery
A Girlhood: A Letter to My Transgender Daughter by Carolyn Hays

emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

“But remember, intellect can close the heart as quickly as ignorance can. With ignorance, you can hope that knowledge will lead to new understanding. This is unlikely when the intellectual has already built a fortress of bigoted ideology.” 
 
this letter –full of historical facts and philosophical musings on what it means to be human, to be alive and to be at odds with everything– was the best love letter i’ve ever read, and to be honest, i don’t think anything will ever top this. 
 
what i most appreciate about this book is the measures ‘carolyn’ has taken to protect her daughter, from changing all the names and publishing the book under a pen name to obfuscating any potential identifying information. she loves her children and every single word in this book shows that. that being said, i’d be lying if i said this book didn’t hurt every inch of my being. it was such a bittersweet feeling, seeing how some trans children are treated, and how we all could’ve and should’ve been treated. how easy (not effortless, but easy) it is to actually love your child unconditionally and how so many parents (mine included) deny their children that love. i will never be safe enough to come out to my parents, but boy am i happy to know there are trans and queer children that are not only out to their parents but out, fought for AND loved. i also really loved the fact that carolyn didn’t sweep her daughter’s privileges under the rug, and constantly (but never dismissively) reminded her that she is white and middle-class and that not all parents are like hers, and how  transphobic can and does intertwine with other forms of bigotry.
 
the only chapters i slightly (a bit more than slightly) disliked were those in part 4, talking about god and how we are all his creation, yada yada... as an agnostic-leaning atheist with years of religious trauma (and also as someone studying evolution and developmental biology), it felt a bit… how do i put it… meh? but i can see how those chapters can help religious parents or even queer people who feel their faith contradicts their existence and are looking for the middle ground. 
 
anyways, i wish my mum would read this book.
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