Bad Elephants
Review of Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby (One World, 2021), pp. 341
Midway through his explanation of why he detransitioned, Ames (formerly Amy), one of the main characters in Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby, likens his struggles and that of his trans cohort to the predicament of orphaned baby African elephants. Habitat destruction, poaching, and thousands of micro-encroachments on elephant culture caused orphaned elephants to become violent and uncontrollable. Ames explains:
Throughout their long history, elephants have lived in intricately ordered social structures. Young elephants learned their place and healthy behavior in concentric societal rings of caregivers — birth mother, aunts, grandmothers, friends — relationships that might last a lifetime: seventy years or more . . . This millennial generation of elephants is an orphan generation. In the last few decades, humans have murdered, mutilated, or displaced an entire generation of older elephants who might have bestowed upon this generation the familial, societal, and emotional skills required to handle one’s individual fifteen thousand pounds of muscle and bone, through which courses intolerable memories of pain, trauma, and grief. (p. 100).
Ames then unpacks this elephant metaphor:
Trans women are juvenile elephants. We are much stronger and more powerful than we understand. We…
