Gender Identity In Thomas Wyatt's Becoming Nicole

Becoming Nicole was a really excellent story about a young child Wyatt and his journey to being his true self. What I learned is that the Maineses deeply care about Nicole and always were supportive. In the beginning of the book Kelly was being very supportive of Wyatt being different by shopping for girls’ clothes to dress her child in. All though the book they demonstrated they were trying to make sure that Nicole was happy. On page 79 Kelly got a phone call from Mrs. Kreutz asking if it was right that Wyatt was asking the children to use female pronouns and Kelly responded by saying that that was fine as long as everyone was comfortable. To be completely honest this book really taught me about gender identity. Gender itself seems to be

The terrible and hateful people, their children, and the school’s officials completely disgusted me. They stood against Nicole to deny her a basic human right to go to the bathroom of the gender she identifies with. (chapter 19, page 121-122). The later part of the book in chapter 25, I believe, the book mentions a case in 2001 in Minnesota where the supreme court rules against a trans woman’s right to use the woman’s restroom at her place of work. This made me wonder if someone only complained once they realized this woman was transgender. Again in 2013 a conservative group fabricated a story of a 15-year-old trans girl had harassed other girls in the school restroom. It later came out that the group had lied about everything, in fact they admitted the girl hadn’t done anything at all, but the just objected to her presence. Just thinking to Facebook, Twitter, or even the news the issue of public restroom usage by trans people, I think it nearly universal that any “incidents” related to their presence are not actually the result of any misbehavior by a trans person. Instead, these confrontations are typically provoked by hostile people who simply don’t think they should have to be around transgender people at all. I can’t recall any true story about a trans person abusing anyone at all. I think what most suppressed me is that so many people

Through death threat, terrible families, schools, court system, they stood by and fought by Nicole’s side. It sounds corny but the Maineses really do love each other. At first Wayne found it hard to accept Wyatt, later, Nicole. In chapter two he didn’t like Wyatt wearing girl shoes and as the book went on her was much more accepting. The bond that this family had truly made it possible for Nicole to grow up thinking that she would eventually get to be fully the person that she knew she was already. In the book, they truly did everything together. Form the doctor’s appointments, courtrooms for legal decisions, to finally her sex-reassignment surgery (chapter 42) Nicole’s family was there. They were so close it must have made the giant obstacle they faced seem smaller. Becoming Nicole isn’t just about one person really, but rather a whole family and the importance for the world in sharing the lessons of the families lives in raising a transgender child and her brother. What made the story so wonderful is that they are a typical middle-class American family that are forced to face an extraordinary situation. Not every family has a transgender child but all families will have to deal with crisis at one time or another. Nearly every family will deal with stress and the challenges to understand and accept each other In conclusion the most valuable for this story was