What We Will Become

Starred review from August 19, 2019
Debut author and transgender rights advocate Lemay tells the story of her four-year-old child’s gender transformation in this engrossing and compassionate memoir. Born in 2010, “Em” (a pseudonym) was the middle daughter of Lemay and her husband, a software engineer. Lemay’s story segues between her past as an ultra-Orthodox Jew born in Israel in 1976 and her coming to grips with her child’s gender identity. While attending college in Boston, Lemay abandoned Orthodoxy and later married a man outside the faith. Their daughter, Lemay writes, changed clothes 10 times daily, threw tantrums, and declared she was a boy at the age of two. Lemay sought the help of a social worker and learned that persistence, insistence, and consistency are signs that an individual may be transgender. After a near car accident with her three children in tow, Lemay decided to embrace Em’s trans identity, a difficult choice, she writes, given her rigid religious upbringing. Lemay came to realize how vital it is to nurture a child’s true nature—a decision reinforced by statistics revealing the high rate of attempted suicides by transgender individuals who are not supported. Lemay eventually helped Em, now Jacob, as he entered kindergarten. This fascinating, heart-wrenching memoir offers invaluable insights into issues of gender identity.

September 15, 2019
A transgender rights advocate's account of how breaking with Orthodox Judaism helped her come to terms with her gender dysphoric daughter's wish to transition. When Lemay learned she was pregnant for the second time, she took an IntelliGender test that revealed she was carrying a boy. However, the child was born a girl, and the author and her husband named her Em. Stubborn and strong-willed, by age 2, her tantrums became as "epic" as her demands; she was, the author writes, a "force of nature." Em later developed an obsession with a dog sweater, which became the only thing she wanted to wear to preschool. For a time, Lemay believed that Em, who insisted she was male, had entered into a tomboy rebel phase. Yet her odd behavior, which included barking like a dog when people tried to talk to her, also persisted. It was only after consulting with a social worker friend that Lemay began to consider the possibility that her child was actually showing signs of gender dysphoria. In the author's parallel story about growing up in an Orthodox Jewish household, she recalls how her patriarchal faith sometimes left her longing to be free from the constraints of tradition. Her years at a female Orthodox seminary only confirmed that she could not willingly settle into a life where she would always be subservient to men and their ambitions. Empathizing with Em's identity crisis, Lemay allowed her daughter to choose a boy's name she could use around the house and present herself as a brother to two sisters on a family trip. Not long afterward, she and her husband allowed Em--who now went by the name Jacob--to transition into a happy, well-adjusted little boy. Compassionate, wise, and sensitively told, Lemay's narrative offers moving portraits of a mother and family willing to embrace radical change in order to unconditionally support their child. It will be helpful to any parent experiencing a similar situation. An intimate and clearly heartfelt memoir.

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Starred review from September 1, 2019
When Lemay's younger child, pronounced a girl at birth and named Em, turns three, she begins asserting that she is actually a boy ( I not pitending! ). The nonplussed parents hope this is just a phase, but there is more and more evidence of gender dysphoria. Is their child transforming? In alternating chapters, this heartfelt memoir also charts the author's own transformation. Raised an ultra-Orthodox Jew by a single mother, she seems to have been essentially joyless. Devout nevertheless, she attends a seminary for young Jewish women for three years and seems content with the prospect of an arranged marriage, which fails when her intended husband commits adultery. Gradually, her independence becomes more and more important, and by the time she is in her last year of graduate school, she has left home and her faith. To her mother's considerable distress, Lemay then marries outside the faith. Meanwhile, her second child continues to insist she is a boy named Jacob, and, finally, shortly after her fourth birthday, her parents decide to begin her transition. Aside from being a moving memoir, Lemay's is an important book because there is virtually nothing else available about transgender children as young as Jacob. Though most readers will view Jacob as the book's main character, his older, precocious sister says that love and kindness are. And who can argue with that?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Starred review from October 1, 2019

Raised in an ultra-Orthodox family, debut author Lemay struggled to reconcile the restrictions on daily life and women in general. Upon entering college in Boston, she gradually left her community and adapted to her new world. She later married a Catholic and raised three children. One of their offspring, Em, assigned female at birth, also embarked on a journey of transformation as Em increasingly identified as a boy. Stories are told in alternating chapters, and it's an effective technique as Lemay describes how a multigenerational family adjusts to parents' hopes and dreams for their children. Lemay shares difficult conversations with her mother about her growing discomfort with the strict rules of their faith community, then conveys her angst with her own child, who is struggling with gender identity. In each instance, parents are worried about the happiness and security of their children in a world they did not envision. Lemay's writing is superb--the family stories at once heartbreaking and inspiring. VERDICT This is a vital and engrossing book about how to live an authentic life. Well suited for readers interested in gender and generational family dynamics. [See Prepub Alert, 5/5/19.]--Jacqueline Parascandola, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2019

Lemay was raised in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family from which she eventually parted ways, leaving behind the religion and culture that had defined her. Then her toddler, Em, vigorously insisted that he was a boy, and she helped him cross his own border to become Jacob. Based on a letter Lemay wrote to Jacob in 2015 that went viral and inspired a much-viewed NBC News segment on transgender children; with a 35,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.