Carolyn Hays - A Girlhood: Letter to My Transgender Daughter

Carolyn Hays - A Girlhood: Letter to My Transgender Daughter

3.5⭐

Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir, LGBTQIA+

Pages: 336

Format: Paperback Proof 

Publisher: Picador Books 

Date Published: 

 

Huge thank you to Picador Books for sending me a proof copy of this book to read and review. 

Book Blurb: 

When Carolyn Hays’s child made clear to the family that they were all wrong, he was not a boy, but, in fact, a girl, the Hays shifted pronouns, adopted a nickname and encouraged her to dress as she felt comfortable. One ordinary day, a caseworker from the Department of Children and Families knocked on their door to investigate an anonymous complaint about the upbringing of their transgender child. It was this threat that instilled in them a deep-seated fear for their child’s safety in the Republican state they called home. And so they uprooted their lives to the more trans-accepting Northeast United States, though they were never far from the hate and fear resting at the nation’s core.

Intimate, lyrical and thought-provoking, A Girlhood is an ode to Hays’s brilliant, brave child, as well as a cathartic revisit of the pain of the past. It tells of the brutal truths of being trans, of the sacrificial nature of motherhood, and of the lengths a family will go to shield their youngest from the cruel realities of the world. Hays asks us all to love better, for children everywhere who are enduring injustice and prejudice just as they begin to understand themselves. A Girlhood is a celebration of difference, a plea for empathy, and a hope for a better future, but moreover, it is a love letter to a child who has always known herself and is waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

My Review: 

I am glad that I read this book, as it opened my eyes to a lot of the problems that the transgender community face in the USA, especially in the southern states of the USA. However, I also need to say that I don’t think I am the target audience for this, thus some of the things in this book, like being a parent, how to parent, and how to accept your transgender child weren’t aimed at me, since I am not a parent. Although, I think this book is an important read and I think that it should be read by as many people as possible for awareness, understanding and educational purposes.

Carolyn Hays, under a pen name, wrote this book as a letter to her transgender daughter, who is now a teen, to show how much she learned as a parent of a transgender child, the mistakes that she made and the love that she has for her daughter. In the book, Hays shares her pain of her daughter not being accepted by most, her deep thoughts and the celebration of her daughter.  

This book is really powerful, but at times was quite hard and emotional to read too, whilst at times being a bit too slow and repetitive. I wish there was more covered about the experiences of the daughter, rather than just the experience of the mother since the book was a letter to her daughter.

I also found some of the facts, statistics and claims, especially about religion, that the author made weren’t followed up or explained in more depth, or even a footnote for readers to be able to see where the information is coming from.

Overall: Although I am not the target audience for this book, I enjoyed reading it as it opened my eyes to a lot of issues and problems that the transgender community face, especially in the south of the USA. I was also glad to learn more about LGBTQ history, which was mixed into the narrative of this book.

About the Author:

Carolyn Hays is an award-winning, critically acclaimed, bestselling author who has chosen to publish to A Girlhood: Letter to My Transgender Daughter under a pen name to protect the privacy of her family. Her previous books have been listed as New York Times Notable Books of the Year and Kirkus’s Best Fiction of the Year, and have been translated widely. She’s written for National Public Radio and the Washington Post.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/carolyn-hays/42198