A Review of
At The broken PLaces:
A Mother and trans son pick up the pieces
by donald and mary collins
Click the above image to learn more about the book and buy it!
Published 08/18/17
Review by Preston Birch
Donald and Mary Collins, in their book At The Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up The Pieces, portray an interesting dynamic between parent and transgender child. We often see a parent’s support for their transgender child (or any LGBT+ child for that matter) as completely black and white – either they’re furious and kick their child out, or they’re completely supportive and accept their child with open arms. But for some reason, what people don’t seem to acknowledge are the gray areas: the parents who are supportive in some areas, but unsupportive in others. This gray area is much more common than the black and white, so I’m actually surprised that books and websites don’t talk about it more.
When I read things like this, I try to put myself in the headspace of a younger me. A “straight, cis girl” who knew absolutely nothing about being transgender and had incredibly limited information on the LGBT+ community to begin with. I try to remember what it was like to be an outsider looking in. While I read this book, I was surprised to find how easy it was to understand what Donald was talking about. This may be because I know at least a little bit about the LGBT+ community, but I’d like to attribute it to Donald just knowing what he was talking about. I felt myself relating a lot to what he had to say. Especially when it came to his relationship with his mother. Going back to that gray area I was talking about earlier, our parents seemed to have similar reactions after we began transitioning – being supportive in some areas, and unsupportive in others, especially when it came to pronouns and names and the like.
When it came to his mother, Mary, I found myself not liking her as much as I liked Donald. This is most definitely my own bias, and as this was merely what she felt and was thinking about. I can’t really blame her for anything. Mary talks about how she dealt with “the loss of her daughter,” how she felt when her child came out, changed his name, got top surgery, etcetera. Her experiences give another side to the story that we don’t see often enough. Parents of transgender children rarely get to share their own experiences with raising a transgender child – at least that I’ve seen, anyway. As far as I know, Mary and my mother have similar sentiments, both having a bit of their fathers’ names in their child’s name (Mary giving her child the same initials as her father and my mother giving me the same middle name). Both were upset when the child expressed a want to change said name.
The interviews with the other people were, if I can be blunt: boring. While they did add some variety to the book, I can’t help but feel like that variety wasn’t really needed. Each interview was relatively the same, but with a thing or two changed: “My parent(s)/I was/were a bit unsupportive of me/my child for a while, but they/I warmed up to it.” Each interview got repetitive to the point where reading through them all felt like more like a chore. When I saw that there were going to be interviews, I expected to see stories ranging from dark grey to nearly white – instead I saw basically only regular gray. However, pushing that aside, I enjoyed the majority of the book. There was clearly a lot of passion put into it, and I can certainly appreciate the differing sides that it shows the reader.
Review by Preston Birch
Donald and Mary Collins, in their book At The Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up The Pieces, portray an interesting dynamic between parent and transgender child. We often see a parent’s support for their transgender child (or any LGBT+ child for that matter) as completely black and white – either they’re furious and kick their child out, or they’re completely supportive and accept their child with open arms. But for some reason, what people don’t seem to acknowledge are the gray areas: the parents who are supportive in some areas, but unsupportive in others. This gray area is much more common than the black and white, so I’m actually surprised that books and websites don’t talk about it more.
When I read things like this, I try to put myself in the headspace of a younger me. A “straight, cis girl” who knew absolutely nothing about being transgender and had incredibly limited information on the LGBT+ community to begin with. I try to remember what it was like to be an outsider looking in. While I read this book, I was surprised to find how easy it was to understand what Donald was talking about. This may be because I know at least a little bit about the LGBT+ community, but I’d like to attribute it to Donald just knowing what he was talking about. I felt myself relating a lot to what he had to say. Especially when it came to his relationship with his mother. Going back to that gray area I was talking about earlier, our parents seemed to have similar reactions after we began transitioning – being supportive in some areas, and unsupportive in others, especially when it came to pronouns and names and the like.
When it came to his mother, Mary, I found myself not liking her as much as I liked Donald. This is most definitely my own bias, and as this was merely what she felt and was thinking about. I can’t really blame her for anything. Mary talks about how she dealt with “the loss of her daughter,” how she felt when her child came out, changed his name, got top surgery, etcetera. Her experiences give another side to the story that we don’t see often enough. Parents of transgender children rarely get to share their own experiences with raising a transgender child – at least that I’ve seen, anyway. As far as I know, Mary and my mother have similar sentiments, both having a bit of their fathers’ names in their child’s name (Mary giving her child the same initials as her father and my mother giving me the same middle name). Both were upset when the child expressed a want to change said name.
The interviews with the other people were, if I can be blunt: boring. While they did add some variety to the book, I can’t help but feel like that variety wasn’t really needed. Each interview was relatively the same, but with a thing or two changed: “My parent(s)/I was/were a bit unsupportive of me/my child for a while, but they/I warmed up to it.” Each interview got repetitive to the point where reading through them all felt like more like a chore. When I saw that there were going to be interviews, I expected to see stories ranging from dark grey to nearly white – instead I saw basically only regular gray. However, pushing that aside, I enjoyed the majority of the book. There was clearly a lot of passion put into it, and I can certainly appreciate the differing sides that it shows the reader.