Brrrriing! What’s that? Another smiley-emoji-filled text from a distant cishet friend who read Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. Your freshman year dorm-mate Kelly Konley has been proudly and publicly reading the book on the train for weeks now, and finally finished it! In honor of the occasion, she decided to text you, a trans person, who she hasn’t talked to in years. You have not read the book, but Kelly wants you to know that she? Has!
You’ve been meaning to read the popular work of fiction, and probably still will, as it was written by a trans person for trans people. But right now, all you can do is reply, “haven’t read it yet!” Kelly will likely reply, “It’s suppperrrr interesting. Would love to know your thoughts!” It probably is interesting, and you probably will have thoughts, but you most likely will not text Kelly about it, or anything, ever again.
Brrrrriing! What’s that? Oh look, your cishet neighbor has read it too. Time to build out a template response that you can just copy and paste as these continue to rush in. Make sure the response is formal, but says something along the lines of, “Yes, I am trans and the book is trans, but I have not yet read the trans book.”
If you scroll up and find that your last text exchange with the cis person is from 2017, and that the cis person called your younger self something like a “drunken slut”, you do not have to be formal. Or nice. Text back, “you suck” or simply ask them to send you a mea-culpa-copy of this trans book so you, a trans person, can finally read it.
