Detransition, Baby
6/11/21 - We talk with Torrey Peters about her breakout novel, Detransition, Baby, full of queer characters finding and defining family, and why she dedicated it to divorced cis women. Plus, a bunch of great reading recommendations for books by trans authors.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Executive Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Producer: Jordan Bailey
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan
Design Assistant: Brijae Morris
Ad sales: Midroll
LINKS
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
An Unkindness of Ghosts by River Solomon
Lote by Shola Von Reinhold
Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through by T Fleischmann
TRANSCRIPT: DETRANSITION, BABY
Gina: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Jordan: A podcast for long distance besties, everywhere.
Gina: I'm executive producer, Gina Delvac.
Jordan: And I'm producer Jordan Bailey.
Gina: So Jordan, when we were planning out, what did we want to do for pride? One of the things that came up over and over again was how obsessed you were with Torrey Peter's book, Detransition, Baby. I'm so excited you got to talk to her.
Jordan: Yes. I was literally obsessed. It was the kind of thing that I just could not stop talking about. Couldn't stop reading, but it was one of those books where I couldn't stop reading it, but also I tried to read it as slow as possible because I just didn't want it to end. I was like trying to save her every moment I had with the characters. Um, but you know, I did end up finishing it and I'm really glad I did. Um, but yeah, this was one of my favorite books this year and I had a really great conversation with Torrey. Um, and I'm so glad I got to talk with her.
[theme song]
[interview begins]
Jordan: Thank you so much for being on Call Your Girlfriend. I'm so excited to talk to you.
Torrey: I'm really thrilled to be here.
Jordan: Yeah. I read your book earlier this year and I was like completely obsessed with it. It's one of the books that I just like every time I had a conversation with a friend, I was like, have you read Detransition, Baby yet? Like you have to read this book. I honestly recommended it like no less than a hundred times. So I am like very excited to get to talk with you about it. But for anybody who hasn't had the pleasure of reading it yet, how would you describe Detransition, Baby?
Torrey: You know, I need to go with like my elevator pitch. That's a lot, but basically it's the story of Reese. Who's this trans woman in her thirties and Brooklyn, and you can sort of think of where it was like a Fleabag-esque character, and the action kicks off when her ex who's a detransitioned trans woman, and now living as a man, Ames, approaches her, and is like, I got my boss pregnant. You've always wanted to be a mom. Do you want to make like a family together?
Jordan: Yeah. Which is a pretty wild premise. Um,
Torrey: Yeah, that's just the first chapter.
Jordan: Yeah, well, one of the first things that caught my eye was the dedication on the very first page. So the book is dedicated to divorced cis women. And I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about the connections you see between trans women and divorced cis women.
Torrey: Um, you know, it's, it's funny. I made that dedication and then, cause I, I wrote it. I said, I, I wrote that dedication pretty early on in like the writing process. And, um, it was funny because I forgot that I am also are divorce. It's just like in a certain way to, and I dedicated the book to myself. I'm not a cis woman, but I have like a divorce. Um, but it basically, it happened where I was like, uh, I was in my mid thirties and I was like, looking around for like, basically someone to show me, like, how do you live? Not how do you be a woman, which is so much of what the transition process is, but like once you've arrived, what do you do now? And, um, and I think that's a, we're in a funny moment for trans women to figure this out. So I was asking like older trans women, how do you do it? And they're like, we're not sure because the opportunities for us are so different than they were 10 years ago. And I started reading all these, I found myself, reading these books by divorced women. Like that was like the only thing I wanted to read, I wanted to read like Ferrante. I wanted to read like Rachel Cusk. I want to read Jenny Offill, I wanted to read Sula, just like I wanted these stories of women who were starting over at some point in their life. And I realized, I was like, oh, the trajectory of transition for me. And the trajectory of divorce are really similar. It's like you live your life harboring or live your life like working or operating under certain illusions. And then suddenly there comes a point where those illusions no longer work or they fail. And you have to kind of start over only, you have to start over without those illusions that you've relied on so long and you can't get bitter. And the people who had a sort of game plan for doing that and sort of told stories about this is what it means to start your life over when you're 35 or 30 or 45 or whatever, were divorced women. And they had a game plan to deal with things like bitterness, they had a game plan for dealing with living. And I just felt like, oh, I've actually learned so much from these conversations with divorced women. I actually think that I have something to say back as a trans woman, that I have some thoughts about gender or some thoughts about my process to say back to them. And maybe we could enter into our conversation together.
Jordan: I love that. One of the things that also kind of stuck with me is throughout the book, you use the word transsexual and you use it a lot. And at first it kind of caught me by surprise because I am a cis person. I'm a cis woman. And I've really learned to like, stay away from that word. I've learned. Like, that's, that's not a word that we use anymore. Um, so I would love to hear you talk about why you choose to use it. And what kind of appeals to you about that word?
Torrey: I mean, it's funny when I used it, it wasn't really a choice. Like I hadn't thought, like I get asked about that word a lot and I just use it because that's what my friends use. Like, it was, it's actually just like my vocabulary. And then somebody was like, why are you using this offensive word? And I was like, oh, was it offensive? Like, cause that's just how my friends and I, we describe each other as transsexuals. And you know, I think that that actually speaks to the way it's that language just constantly evolving. What is like the okay thing to say. So they're like, if you go back to the sixties, transsexual was a polite word. And it was a really specific word for like, if you've had some surgery, but not all of the surgeries, you were a transsexual. Whereas if you had had all of the surgeries and you were a sex change, like a sex change was a noun. And now to call somebody a sex change would be like the most horribly offensive thing you could say is like, Hey, you're a sex change.
Jordan: Right.
Torrey: But then kind of people started saying like, oh, well that's sex change changes. Offensive was use the other word transsexual. And then there was like bigger umbrellas of like transgender that included all these different types of people. But for me and my friends, I think we use the word transsexual just because it's a funnier word. Like it's a pulpy, seventies word, you know? And if you're going to call yourself something, do you want to like call yourself the thing that like you mark off in the doctor's office? Or do you want to like call yourself the thing that was like in a seventies exploitation flic that's much funnier and cooler. And so it was like, well, if I, if I can choose a word that has sex in it, or I can choose the word as gender in it, I'm going to choose the one that says sex.
Jordan: Yeah, of course every time. Yeah. It does kind of have like a word that you can really sink your teeth into. You know, it feels like it has a lot of like, there's a lot of there, there, I feel like.
Torrey: Four syllables. It's just, it goes on forever, all those S’s.
Jordan: It’s a sexy word, there's a lot of like fun sounds in it. Yeah.
Torrye: You can, you can kind of lisp it and it sounds sexual. Being able to do that. Like being able to like say that and joke around with it, I think is like, it comes from a place of comfort, you know, like for me, I'm not, I don't have any problem with the use of transsexual. And so to say the word and, you know, in, in all sorts of different ways is, is it's kind of just like a pleasure. And if you're a writer like choose the word that gives you pleasure.
Jordan: Totally. I'm curious if there has been any pushback on it, like from other trans folks or people in the trans community, has anybody been like, you know, we don't, we don't use that word. Like, does anybody push back on it? I'm just curious.
Torrey: I think it's more like the New York Times like interviewed me about it. I was kind of like, you guys barely reviewed my book, but you want to know why I use transsexual. So I've gotten like DMs about it where it's more like curiosity. And I think it's, it's often those people who want to have proper etiquette. And for me, like sort of my approach to this is I think the etiquette is going to change again in six years. Like when I transitioned, everybody was trying to say that you should write trans with an asterisk after it, because like in coding, the asterisk means like all inclusive after it. I don't code. So I can't explain too much more than that, but that was like the, that was like the fat was to say trans Aster. And now if you were to put trans asterisk, you would like out yourself as like horribly out of touch, you know? So, and that was just like six years ago. And so I'm sure that in another six years it'll be a different language. And so what I generally feel is like, I don't really care what words people use. It's like part of the same gesture of like dedicating the rope to divorce system and is like, I'm really interested in having a conversation I'm interested in people just like, and being able to share with people. And I don't want to expect that somebody read like an entire book of etiquette in order to talk to me, you can tell when is coming to you with respect and like, okay, maybe they get the word wrong, but if they're speaking to you respectfully that comes across and someone can use the most proper terms and speak to you with disdain and disrespect. So it kind of, as in interactions with all humans, like just come with respect and I'm not going to worry terribly about the word. I mean, that's me personally. And I'm sure that they're like, if the next trans person you'll interview, who'd be like, Torrey’s wrong, so you're welcome everyone, just got into trouble.
Jordan: I love that. Getting in trouble. Well, actually speaking of getting into trouble, um, I would love to hear also about your decision to include a main character who has detransitioned, because I feel like, you know, there's a way in which that maybe could feel a little bit like politically risky, you know, the sort of like taboo topic of detransitioning. Um, and I'm curious, like what made you want to include that aspect of transness in the book and such like a central way?
Torrey: There's three things. One is that like transition lives for trans people. And I think that's, you can either pretend that that doesn't exist or you can talk about it. Like sometimes when things get really hard, you're like, it'd be easier for me to detransition. And if you make it a taboo, then there's shame around it. If you can't talk about it, then like shame occurs. And when, if you do detransition, you become ostracized. And so a way to sort of depressurize that is to just talk about it. It'd be like, yeah, of course, sometimes you feel this way. Like I had periods in my life where things were really hard and it wasn't that I wasn't trans, but it was like, things would be so much easier if you detransitioned. The second thing is that I basically don't care what transphobes think about this word and think about this concept. Like, I think that the idea that somebody else has weaponized, uh, an idea and used it against trans people doesn't mean that I just see that concept to them and pretend like it doesn't exist. I, in fact, I like, I don't, I'm not going to like write based on the promises of transphobes, I'm kind of right on the premises of like what I've experienced and what my friends have experience. And so one thing is, is basically like I don't actually care how other people have politicized it and weaponized it. I'm just going to speak to it that way. And then the third thing is that most people have at this point, sort of have an idea of, of what a transition narrative should look like and in a certain way that is overdetermined. And if you write about change and like missing things with the transition narrative, it's kind of like, especially trans people was sort of like gag at you they'll be like, that's little, like it's a little done. We've like seen it a lot. But detransition has just transitioned in reverse. And so you can kind of start talking about the ways that transition affects us outside of that overly determined narrative. And so Ames for instance detransitions. And he finds himself missing his, his old community and his ex girlfriend doesn't accept his new gender and things like that. And so the, all the things that are sort of the tropes of transition can be taken outside of transition destabilizes and shown like how these are just like interactions between us as like individuals, um, that are about grief and about missing each other and about, you know, no longer feeling included or not feeling quite right only without all of the sort of meaning that's calcified around transitioning.
Jordan: Yeah. Um, I would love to talk about one of my favorite scenes in the book. Um, a scene that really stuck with me that I think actually speaks to a lot of what you were just talking about with detransitioning. I love the scene where Amy and Patrick are shopping at the glamour boutique. And I felt like I was on such an emotional roller coaster when I was reading that, like, I was really nervous for Amy at first, like going into the date and meeting up with Patrick. And then I, I shared like her hesitancy and her anxiety and kind of the first moments in the store. And then I was so excited for them. And I was so happy when they were trying on clothes. And then like, you know, when the mom and daughter came in at the end, like I could just feel my heart sinking. Um, and I would love to hear you talk a little bit about that scene and why that specific story felt important to include.
Torrey: That was one of like the harder things for me to write. Like I liked that I like to think about scene ended up being like funny and, and, and not overly heavy. For me, it was a way to talk about shame. Like ultimately it was a scene about shame and about dissociation also. So I was sort of like, I wanted to talk about the ways that Amy and Patrick were taking pleasure and sort of dressing up and then suddenly seen from another vantage, what they were doing was perverted and creepy, you know, and the ways that they saw themselves as perverted and creepy, and the ways that, that like shut them down emotionally and how that switch, that shame can like trigger, like how it, how it's instant, you know, like a moment, something that can be so fun, you just shift a vantage all of a sudden, and then it's, it, it becomes a thing that you can never speak about, you know? And so to some degree I've found in my writing that when I write about shame, it dispels it, it sells it for me. It also dispels it for readers. So I wanted to write about things that are like, like that much more than detransitioning. It's actually the glamor boutique scene that trans people have been. Like, I can't believe you wrote about that because I wrote about things that are oftentimes like the idea that dressing up in, in, in sexy clothes could feel sexy, right, then that, that, well, that just means you have, you're not a woman. You just have a fetish. And that's actually something that is often really weaponized against trans women, even though I think that cis women also sometimes if you dress up sexy, you feel sexy. It's not like that doesn't mean that you're not a woman or you're a pervert or something. It just means like, oh, you get to confirm your gender. And it feels good, no matter what your gender is to confirm it. So I wrote about like that basically being like, yeah, sometimes it feels good to confirm your gender was really like Torrey, you've like given weapons to like all of these people who are going to say that we're just getting off and we're just fetishists. And to me, the fact that everybody's so afraid of that being sad is the result of shame. Like that's the result of a, kind of a way that psychiatrists that like transphobes that all these people have have made trans women ashamed and especially ashamed of having any sexuality at all. So I was like, well, I'm just going to write about this sexuality. And we're going to write about this moment. And I wasn't sure where it was going to go as I started writing it. Um, the interesting thing that happened is I wrote that scene in which at the end of it Amy's really dissociated. And when she is like hooking up with Patrick, and that was at the exact same time that the New Yorker published that short story cat person. Do you know that story?
Jordan: Oh gosh. Yeah, of course.
Torrey: Which is also about a woman dissociating during like sex that makes her feel bad about herself. And to me, it was like, I wrote this whole thing that I thought was like this like really specifically trans experience of dissociation. And then I, and that it was like this deeply shameful thing that like, oh, it's so dangerous for me to share this. And then I like went, you know, it's like six months later, the New Yorker tells a story of dissociation by a cis woman, and it's the most popular, short story ever to be published on the New Yorker. And it was basically what it showed me was like these experiences that are thought to be so specifically trans or maybe so specifically cis, aren't like the, what happens when you have bad sex and you diassociate, that's like an experience that just like being in a body totally weird sometimes. Yeah. And that, like, this is part of that conversation that I wanted to have. And so sharing the thing, that's like, here's a really vulnerable thing from trans women’s experience and I'm going to put it out there and see actually the ways of like cis women might relate to that and that's going to make trans women feel less ashamed and it's gonna make, hopefully cis women understand better than like what trans women are going through is not other, you know.
Jordan: Totally. I went to a virtual talk that you did with Roxane Gay a while back and one of the things that I loved from that conversation is you talked about having this like very expansive definition of queerness, especially when it comes to somebody like Katrina in the book. And I would love for you to talk a little bit about like what, I mean, what queer means to you. That's like such a broad way to frame it, but I guess, like I'm curious who in your mind can be included in the queer family that we might not normally think of and how that's working in your book.
Torrey: Well, I really want to be careful is that ever sort of police the borders of who gets to be queer and who doesn't. Largely, I'm interested in queerness as like a way that you do things rather than like an identity. And I think that what ends up happening is we lean into identity and then you start policing each other as to like who's queer enough. And I think like if you just do queer things, you're queer. Um, and to that, and what is happening with Katrina, who's attracted to men, wants to be a mom, has like, you know, a management job in an advertising agency in no way would seem to be queer. But the fact that, like what she's understanding about herself as a heteronormative ways of doing her life aren't serving her anymore. And that she's looking for like models of feeling satisfaction and relationships with men feeling satisfaction or relationships from family that sort of like the old models aren't offering her. And I think that oftentimes queerness isn't necessarily like, only about, oh, you're attracted to like the same sex or same gender. However you want to define it, or you like, you like leather, whatever. But are you looking for like models of like being in relationship to other people that aren't the models that are like given to you by the dominant culture and in a lot of ways, I think that that can be queer, especially if there's a certain sort of political bent to it. Yeah. Um, and I think that for Katrina, what she was discovering in this book as she was, she always had the sense that like, she didn't want to live maybe in like just a sort of heteronormative conventional marriage, but she didn't have the political language for it. And in that she was coming into queer, she was discovering a sort of political language for it. And the ways that, that political language allowed her to feel like she owned her desires in a way that she never had, that was like a sort of early discovery of a kind of queerness that I think that could be really useful for a lot of women who are, who are heterosexual. Like, I don't think that queerness. And I think this is like, oh, this isn't only my ideas. I think that's there’s, there's other people out there who've written about, like, I don't know, pessimism or like with disappointment of like heterosexuality right now. And I don't think that in that case heterosexual, it means attraction to men. I think it's like, how do our sexuality as it's like practice and the political implications of that practice.
Jordan: Right. It's like the capital H.
Torrey: Yeah, totally. And so, you know, I don't know what the exact opposite of heterosexuality is, but I'm like willing to sort of basically be like, it's probably like some kind of queerness, or maybe don't know how to name your queerness, but if that's your queerness and that feels good to you and that political, like, you know, veil over it or lens over, it feels right to you. Like, I'm not going to say that's not queer. And I'm going to fact hope that people who, for whom it's useful take up, what's useful to them.
[music]
Jordan: One of the big themes in this book is about how traditional motherhood and family structures are often just out of reach for trans women. And I'm wondering if in your own life and your own real life, if you have examples of trans women who have created family structures, um, that work for them and what those structures look like.
Torrey: The funny thing is I wrote that there's a Alexander Cheek quote that I've been interested in recently, which is like, be careful, what you write in fiction has a tendency to come true. And so I finished this book and then I met this woman who was living with her husband, or ex-husband at the time with a then nine-year-old and also her sister. And so what has ended up happening is that, I mean, it took a lot of, you know, it wasn't easy necessarily, but, um, so I'm engaged to that woman now. The husband has moved out, but lives down the, down the way from, um, my partner, Chris, who's the woman and Chris and I have my apartment. And so Chris spends half the week with me, half the week in the old apartment where her sister lives full time with her son. And then half the week of the son goes and lives with his father down the block. And it's like, we didn't plan it. I wasn't like looking for this. Like my, my interest in motherhood in some ways was like exploring this through fiction. I wasn't intending to like recreate a family or something, but it's sort of like, actually these are different ways that trans women can find themselves. So again, so what has ended up happening is that essentially, um, her son has four adults who he can go to at all at any different moment. He can go to his father, you can go to me, you can go to Chris and he can go to his aunt's. And he has like different places with like different kind of vibes and living situations. And it's been two years now. I like to think that he is flourishing that maybe he wasn't even before. But I know other people who also like have small communities and we make space for each other in ways that our families, um, not necessarily with children right now, but I think making space in a way that, where there could one day be
children.
Jordan: Well, that sounds beautiful to me. I'm like, that sounds like a beautiful, beautiful family. And also congratulations on your engagement. That's like, that's amazing. So throughout the book, um, you are very clear that Reese and Ames and Amy's experience are of white trans women and that you yourself, right from the perspective of a white trans woman. And you make a real point, I think throughout the book to highlight that the experiences of trans women of color are very different from those of Amy and Reese and like even of yourself. And I would love to hear why it felt important, make this distinction, first of all. And also, I'm curious if you could talk about some of the, what you see as like the defining differences between the experience of trans, of white trans women and trans women of color.
Torrey: Yeah. I mean, part of it is an artistic question that the more specific I can be about who I'm writing about the better I can make my jokes better, I can make my details. Like if it's clear also that I'm not trying to represent, there's a thing that happens when you're like, oh, I'm, I'm representing trans women in this. And then you get like weighed down with that burden of representation where you can't have characters be bitchy, or you kind of characters, you know, do things that are messed up because it's like, well, now I'm saying that all trans women do this. So when I can be like specific about, what's like the millieu that I'm writing about who am I writing about, I can be more and more specific, which in some ways then makes it universal in the way that, like, I think many writers that I admire, like, um, you know, I think famously Phillip Roth, you know, like wrote about Jews in Newark. And then that became like universal for our sort of immigrant experience by going really, really specific. And so there's a way in which was like, I'm not just writing about white trans women. It's like, I'm writing about white trans woman in Brooklyn down to like a certain neighborhoods. And unless we make better jokes, like if I make fun of like Reese for wanting a KitchenAid stand mixer, that's funny because it's Reese, like Reese is trying to be bougie. And whereas if I was like saying that about like a Latina immigrant, like all she really cares about as a kitchen, I'd stand there like that joke falls flat. It feels wrong. Not if like, if that's, who's being addressed. So the part of it's like a, just like make your jokes work kind of thing from a craft level. And then I think it's also like, there's a sense that if I make clear who I am, it also makes space for trans women of color, black trans women to tell their own stories. Instead of me like taking up the whole stage and trying to speak for other people, I can basically be like, this is who I'm speaking for. And if you want to hear other things, instead of asking me to speak on those people's behalf, you just go look for their work. And it's like, to me, I'm hoping the ways that I talk about the whiteness of my characters is also like a finger pointing off stage to basically be like, there's a bunch of other people whose stories you could go look for, and it's an invitation to go look for those people's stories. Sometimes people will ask me like, well, why didn't you have black trans women in your book? And to me, I'm like, I didn't do it because that's not my experience. And also there's black trans women writing really great stories. And, you know, you can read two books. I don't know if people realize, but you're allowed to read more than one book. And so, you know, instead of expecting my book to tell everybody else’s story, go read another book. Yeah. And, uh, that's kind of been, my approach is like, I’m going to be clear who I'm writing about, and then if you want something else, go read it. I think that the differences are oftentimes the differences between just the white women and black women, you know, like the, the, the trans aspect kind of can create certain valances, but usually like, you know, even amongst trans on like the fights that white trans women and black trans women are not fights, but the disagreements that we have and the ways in which we're there's racism or scarcity or all those sorts of things, they mirror the ways that racism works between white cis women and black cis women. So it ends up being important for white trans women to think of our racism generally because like, if we want to like fix what's going on in our own communities, the dynamics for it are, are actually usually articulated best by or not best, but probably most frequently by black cis women. And just those dynamics in our smaller community.
Jordan: I'm curious if you can, if you have any, like, off the top of your head, um, you know, for people who like do need to go read a second book, or who, who like should go read another book, um, are there black trans authors or, uh, like other trans authors of color who you'd like to shout out?
Torrey: Sure. There's I just was on a panel with River Solomon who writes great books. There's Joss Barton, who does these like amazing prose bone things, River Solomon does a kind of a spec fic, but really amazing work, Joss Barton. Co Xin Tong is, uh, Asian trans woman. Who's written really great stuff. Vivek Shraya is, uh, is a trans woman, um, of, uh, I think Indian descent, any sort of ethnicity that you're looking for there's a trans woman who is writing it. One of my favorite books is by Jackie S who's a Black trans woman. Oh, I really want to recommend Lote, L O T E by Shola Von Reinhard, a Scottish Nigerian writer who just won a big award in Scotland for this book Lote about kind of finding the figure of, of, in the sort of archive of British dandyism in like, sort of Stephen Tenner like, where are the black people in these stories and, and show them, Shola Von Reinhard sort of created a fictional version of that world of like the twenties dandy sort of decadent thing. That book is excellent. I could go on for a long time, but I think the point is sort of like, you don't actually have to look very hard if you want to find them. And you can find books by chance. Well, all ethnicities and you can find them in almost any genre. If you like science fiction, if you like, um poetry,if you like horror, there's, there's going to be stuff out there for you.
Jordan: Cool. That's great. So when you were writing Detransition, Baby, did you have a particular reader in mind? And I guess I'm, I'm specifically wondering, were you writing this book with trans people in mind?
Torrey: Yeah, I was mostly because, I mean, I had no idea that that book was going to get as big as it did. I heard that, like the only people who would read it was trans people, like, and probably not just like trans people in general, but like my friends, it was like my friends make cameos and things like Talia. Like I was just hanging out with the person that Talia was based on yesterday. It was funny. We were making fun of her as though she was Talia. Like remember when you said this she's like, I never said that, like your creation based on you said that, um, it was just like, I was never as enthralled with you as Talia seemed to be. So, um, yeah, but so, but as I was writing a lot for them, but an early on, I think that was really more my, my audience, my imagined audience. And then as the book got bigger and I was reading books by, um, certain cis women. And that really meant a lot to me. I like, sort of was like, maybe I'm addressing these other authors that I really liked too. Like, um, I read Ferrante and the ways that Ferrante’s characters made choices really resonated with me. And I was like, I want to actually, like, I don't think Ferrante will ever read my broken. I don't know, cause no one knows who she is. But, um, like I just imagined, like, I want Ferrante to see like my characters were making choices too in ways that like she made her characters, my choices. And so sometimes it'll be like the authors of books that I've read that really made an impression on me. Like I sort of want to like talk back to those other authors, like not in real life. Like if I ever ran into like Rachel Cusk or Ferrante, who I was reading to think about motherhood and divorce, I wouldn't actually want to be like, look what I did to their like face, but like in a sort of like the conversations, like a backend, I like to think of it as like a, like a sort of tennis game, um, with authors just kind of volleying back and forth, different things.
Jordan: Yeah. I love that. Um, so this is a little bit of a spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't read the book. And also, I'm not quite sure if we'll leave this in the interview yet, but I am really curious, like as a reader. So at the end of the book, you choose to leave the question of whether these three people actually create a family together. Like that question is left unanswered, and I would love to know why you made that decision to kind of leave it open-ended at the end.
Torrey: For me. I think that that's the, the question of how to make a family in this particular moment is a generational question. I think like, um, you know, are we going to keep doing the same thing? So we've always been doing, and maybe they aren't working or, you know, for the characters, are you just going to repeat your patterns forever? Or are you going to like decide to do something new? And so the, and I think that's the question for like many generations, like every generation has to answer it, it, it sort of hearkens back to what I called the Sex in the City problem, where there's like four models for how to live, you know, find a husband to have a baby, have a career, do art, um, for finding meaning in life. But everybody has to reinvent them. And I think that the, like the question of how to reinvent family, how to reinvent finding meaning is, it's not up to me to say like, this is how to do it. Like when I talk about like, oh, here's my family with like my fiance and her son now, it's like, that's my way that I figured out using ideas that I think are generational, but how other people are going to do it? I don't want to prescribe to them. I don't want to say this is you should just get three people and share a baby. That's not, you know, everybody. So it's a bit of a provocation, especially to translate, which is like this book is a, is a question which is like, are we going to keep feeding the same patterns that we've, that we've been doing for 40 years? Or are we going to do something new? Are we going to find something new or are we going to create new structures for families? And I'm not the person who's going to prescribe how to do that. But I am going to like demand of my readers that, that if something's not working for them, that they think about how to fix, how to make a new life. I think that's actually also true for a lot of cis women then that, you know, if things aren't working, how are you going to make new families? How are you going to make motherhood work for you? Because right now there's a spate of books all in fiction about how mothers\hood, like not working for people, like there's The Need by Helen Phillips. Like I'm really looking for to Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder. That's coming up this summer. And it's all about who didn't parenthood work for her during the pandemic. It was mothers who like had to leave work who were like, couldn't get a moment to themselves, like lost their minds during the pandemic. And it's like, how are you going to reinvent this idea of motherhood and parenthood, so it's actually like going to work for you. I don't know the answer to that, but I am, I am kind of like, I was just going to go back. I'm going to be like the characters and go back to the old ways. Are we going to like, make a hard choice, make some compromises and figure out new ways so that the structure of leaving it open is in some ways my kind of provocation, if the show becomes a TV series and I want to do more than one season, I'm going to have to like…
Jordan: Decide.
Torrey: It's like, it was probably not going to be that the answer is probably not. like, and then they all went home. Yeah. I want to see, yeah. I want a season two, so they do try it.
Jordan: We would love to know what kind of snacks you like. And if there is a particular stack that helped you get through the writing of this book, like, what are your, what are your go-to snacks?
Torrey: I'm always sort of changing my snacks, but I, I really like sunflower seeds. I like, I like, and I kind of think that they're like a little bit gross, like deep sunflower seeds. It's like, you like eat the seed. Like, unless you're outside, you don't spit the seed on the ground. Right. You're like spit it. And like, and it's like, it's kind of like all of the grossness of chewing tobacco without any of the badassness. And so I like, but it's like, I want something to fidget on while I'm writing. Like I want, I feel like other people smoke for the same reason. Like, it's like, I want something that's just and sunflower seeds are great for that. So I eat sunflower seeds when I'm writing. And then, uh, and then, and then I kind of went on afterwards and like, that was gross.
Jordan: But whatever gets you through, you know, it helps.
Torrey: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Jordan: And then the other question is, um, you know, on Call Your Girlfriend, we love to hear about people's best friends and their support systems. And I would love to hear about, you know, who are the people closest to you? Like, do you have a best friend or a few best friends who really supported you through the writing of this book?
Torrey: I mean, there's a lot of different people, but I really wanna talk about, um, T Collect Fleishman, who is another writer. It goes by T Fleisman who wrote the book. Um, Time is a Thing that a Body Moves Through. Clutch and I have known each other for, it must be almost 16 years now. And we've like known so many iterations of each other and we've lived in the same city at times. We've lived across the country at times. They're non-binary. But like when we both met, we were like young kind of, sort of confused, seemingly living as men. They were like more from like a gay experience. And I was like, seemingly like from a straight experience. And we, we didn't like each other when we first met actually like were like who this one. And, and then we just sort of started bonding and then we kind of figured out like, oh, well we both have these gender things going on, but in different ways. And then like, I've just been on this sort of parallel, intertwined journey as well as both like trans people and as writers and as like that sometimes like sort of vagabonds or vagabonds. So that word, like just kind of we've, we've been all over the country, lived in like many different places. Um, and so there's somebody who will tell me if I'm doing something stupid. And I think as a writer, it's like, you have to trust your instincts. And so someone says something stupid. That's something you're doing a stupid most of the time, you have to be like, no, I have a vision. I don't care what you think and I'm going to do it anyway. And so to have like one friend who knows you from a long time, and it's like, this is like one of your tendencies Torrey is to do this thing and it's like, it's like not cute. It's not going to work, you know? And to have that person you can trust, and you can tell you that in a way that's like really loving. And, um, and who's usually right. You know, like I think that the Clutch never told me and I've been stupid that I haven't like afterwards been like, oh, you're right. It's like, there's only people have been like, you're stupid. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna do it my way. Anyway, I then felt vindicated. But the Clutch is like one of those people who's frustratingly right about everything.
Jordan: That's great. Well, I love that. I love that. I love that you have that in your life. That sounds, that sounds like a beautiful relationship. So I'm happy that you have that. Um, and I'm also really happy that we got to talk. This was so fun and I'm so glad that we got to talk to you. And I just want to like, thank you again for being on Call Your Girlfriend.
Torrey: Thank you so much for having me. I was just like, this is so much fun. Um, I, yeah, I loved it. Yeah.
Jordan: Great. Awesome.
Torrey:I hope I get more books out one day and get to talk more. Yeah.
Jordan: Yes, Yes, of course. Are you, are you working on another book? Can I ask that?
Torrey: Yeah. I'm working on, um, what I'm calling a queer financial thriller. Those words are usually not, like queer and finance. Yeah. Like I'm thinking like the way that like Big Short is sort of a thriller and like I'm interested in what happens I think with the next generation of trans women who may be the first generation of trans women to have access to money and how are they going to behave? Like, how's it gonna work? How's the trans community gonna work with like, there's a couple of like tech startups, you know? Cause I think that's, what's gonna, I think that's how it's going to happen. And like, and, and I think money is something that's really difficult to talk about in community because everybody wants to seem like it's egalatarian, but it's, you know, some people, so you have people who have trust funds, you can pretend that they don't have trust funds and people who don't have trust funds, pretending that they're like, you know, I have as many Beamers as they want. And like, it's just, it's like, nobody actually knows. Cause nobody everybody's afraid to say what they have. And um, so the thriller aspect, I have a lot to do with drama about like hiding who does and doesn't have money as they're like making transactions and moves.
Jordan: Yeah. Wow. That sounds, that sounds thrilling. I am, I can't wait to read. That sounds really exciting. That sounds great.
[interview ends]
Gina: Oh my God, Jordan, I can't believe I haven't read this book yet. I'm so excited based on your interview. And I have to say like every friend in the CYG family has been recommending it heartedly. So I'm so stoked.
Jordan: Yeah. You got to get on it Gina. And once you do call me and Ann and we'll have a three-way book, a book club, because I know Ann is also obsessed with this book.
Gina: I know Ann's favorite kind of book club is like just randomly send her a voice note of something you loved and no formal process, no planning. We save the wide chats for another time. But this club that happens in the voice notes.
Jordan: I love it. I love it.
Gina: I love it. Well I hope everyone has a chance to read it and we will see you on the internet.
Jordan: See you on the internet.
[outro music]
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.