The natural mother of the child : a memoir of nonbinary parenthood / Krys Malcolm Belc.

The natural mother of the child : a memoir of nonbinary parenthood / Krys Malcolm Belc.

By
Malcolm Belc, Krys.

Publication Date
2021

Publication Information
Berkeley, Calif. : Counterpoint,

Edition
First hardcover edition.

Physical Description
287 p. : ill.

Subject Term
Motherhood.
 
Surrogate mothers.
 
Adoption -- Law and legislation -- United States.
 
Parenthood.
 
Gender-nonconforming people.
 
Transgender parents.
 
Transgender people.
 
LGBTQ2 non-fiction.

Summary
Essentially this book is a heavily visual memoir-in-essays that explores how the experience of gestational parenthood-conceiving, birthing, and breastfeeding my son Samson-eventually clarified my gender identity and allowed me to project a different more masculine self. Ruminating on how the experiences contained under the umbrella of "motherhood" don't fully describe my experience amplifies the outsiderness the speaker, who is almost always addressing a cis "you," sometimes his mother, sometimes strangers, mostly his cis female partner. Instead of using a straight narrative, the book circles around this concept of motherhood and of my relationship to it. The book is also an archive of my queerness, of childhood photos of me smiling impossibly wide, of my original birth certificate and the legal documents surrounding Samson's adoption. It's a direct engagement with the documentation we think constitutes a record of one's life. The book ends on an exploration of how much we can really know when we enter into parenting a person, and of my ambivalence about the "before" and "after" that is so prevalent in trans stories and that feels so outside my experience as a nonbinary transmasculine person.

Language
English

ISBN
9781640094383


LibraryCollectionCollectionCall NumberStatus
Happy Valley - Goose Bay (LHV) MelvilleAdult NFicAdult Non-Fiction306.874 M29Checked In
St. John's - A.C. Hunter (SJH)Adult NFicAdult Non-Fiction306.874 M29Checked In