Review: This Is How It Always Is

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Five big gold stars for one of the most thought-provoking, inspired and touching books I’ve read in a very, very long time. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must come forward as the mom of a transgender child. Because of that, and in spite of that, I loved every chapter, every page, every word. The messages here were bold; the questions posed often difficult; the answers to those questions, messy. What was consistent, however, was the glorious beauty of the story itself.

Claude is born male, into a family that is already burgeoning with testosterone. Four brothers who run the gamut from creative spirit to nerdy bookworm inhabit the space into which Claude is born. It isn’t long before Rosie and Penn, Claude’s parents, are met with a request from their precocious youngest child: he wants to wear a dress to school. From there, Claude’s tendency to gravitate to all things “girl” progresses from garments to the name by which he then wishes to be called—Poppy. As the pages turn, this family explores the transformation of the child they had always identified as their little boy to the emergence of Poppy, whom they as a family begin to see as simply their little girl with a penis. As Rosie and Penn pave the way for Poppy to grow into a happy and content child, they inadvertently fail to prepare her for the way many will perceive her. Not as a “girl with a penis” but as a confused little anomaly of a boy, abused by his parents into believing it’s ok to pretend to be a girl. Traversing this unfamiliar landscape is both frightening and fraught with mistakes, but through it all, this family maintains not only love for one another but also a sense of humor that helps salve the sting of rejection and the ignorance of an unenlightened society.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough for parents of transgender children, people wishing to understand gender dysphoria or even those open-minded folks who just enjoy a good book. I so wish I could give this author a huge hug. Not only does she “get it”, but she did enough homework to present the frustration, tears and sense of loss that can accompany the gender transformation of one’s child. Well done, Ms. Frankel. Well done, indeed.

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