When Wayne and Kelly Maines adopted identical twin boys,
Jonas and Wyatt, at birth in 1997, they were thrilled at the idea of having two
sons. For a while, it was virtually impossible to tell the boys apart. But as
they grew older, one child, Wyatt, started insisting that he was a girl.
Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt.
Amazon Review: “Why IS it such a big deal to everyone what
somebody has in their pants?” Excellent question, posed by an unusually astute
transgender girl, the subject of Amy Ellis Nutt’s emotional and illuminating
Becoming Nicole. It’s also a little ironic, since Nicole’s story makes a bit of
a deal of it, but in a much different way than other stories we’ve been hearing
lately, from celebrities like Caitlyn Jenner and television shows like
Transparent. Nicole, her twin brother Jonas, mom Kelly, and dad Wayne, are your
typical middle class American family. They live next door to you--are shuttling
from work, to Cub Scouts, to softball practice…. They’re also coming to terms
with the fact that one of their own has Gender Dysphoria, a medical condition
whereby a person does not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth.
And so Wayne and Kelly Maines discover that they don’t have two sons at all,
but a son and a daughter. This is a particularly hard pill for Republican, Air
Force veteran, Wayne, to swallow, and his journey from denial to accepting and
championing his daughter, is one of the more powerful and moving side
narratives in a book chock full of them. That is why I really struggled to
write this review, because Becoming Nicole is an important book that imparts
important lessons, and the ones that resonate most have nothing to do with
what’s in anyone’s pants: Be true to yourself, live an authentic life, exercise
compassion. –Erin Kodicek
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