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2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Highly recommended Feb 19, 2008
Mom, I Need to be a Girl
by
Just Evelyn
Reviewed by Dave Parker
This heartwarming story describes the transition of Daniel to Danielle as a teenager with the incredible support of her courageous mother. Unlike many transition stories, it is told from the mother's viewpoint.
What do you say when your 15 year old son states "I need to be a girl?" How can a parent cope? Is love enough?
Daniel's dad and mother split when he was 5. With three boys to raise, Evelyn worked 2 jobs while the oldest took care of his younger brothers. Eventually she started her own business. The two older boys moved out and shared an apartment when the oldest started college, leaving Daniel and Evelyn to work through Daniel's transition together.
The book follows the usual steps of a parent confronted with a transsexual child - anguish and confusion; learning about transgender; acceptance; and finally, joy. Danielle transitioned during high school, with great help from both her mother and her school administration.
A single mother with no child support, Evelyn learned electrolysis in order to save money on treatments for Danielle and to earn money for doctors, medication, and sexual reassignment surgery. Evelyn relocated in order to put Danielle in a school willing to accommodate her transitioning daughter. When Danielle was 17, they traveled together to Wisconsin for surgery. Evelyn was her recovery nurse afterward.
The book discusses their journey together as they freed and welcomed Danielle as a new young girl. Both positive and negative experiences with medical professionals, school administrators, and family are reviewed. Suggestions for those following the same path are offered.
This book is the story of a very loving and dedicated mother helping her unhappy son become her outgoing, joyous daughter. There are important lessons here for all parents of transsexuals, but especially for parents of very young transgender children. The entire story exemplifies unconditional love for one's child.
2 of 2 found the following review helpful:
Great book about unconditional love Jan 06, 2008
This amazing book tells the story of one courageous mother who walks a difficult path with her child. The sacrifices she makes along the way for her daughter demonstrate her unconditional love. Every transgender child should be so lucky as to have Evelyn for their mother!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Definitely a children's, and parents' book Apr 10, 2006
The top featured reviewer of this book on Amazon at the time of my writing this was wrong, this book is very definitely correctly rated by Amazon as normally suited for children of nine and upwards, and younger in exceptional circumstances. It is also suited for, and most definitely not beneath, parents, teachers, and other caring professionals who might deal with with transsexual children or are interested in the rights and treatment of minorities.
Although the book is now long out of print some copies do get offered for resale and are worth securing for key libraries and collections. The author has also, for the sake of those who need the information, need to know, permitted the book to be made available on the Internet, for free, but without the photographs. For which there is a reason - the privacy of her daughter.
The book is real, rather than "heart-warming", although the outcome is good, candidly telling the problems, mostly with "caring professions", the family faced and largely overcame. Unfortunately many of those problems might still be the same today in many locations, eight years on from the date of publication, unless the right connections can be accessed, the wrong people avoided. But in some locations, with the right information, things can be rather better.
Some prescribers will intervene in time to prevent a child having to face the painful and prolonged facial hair removal detailed, or the pubertal drop of the voice, excess height, excess foot size, etc., that might have been suffered (or breast growth and menstruation in the case of transsexual boys). The best surgeons will now accept 16-year-olds for surgery if both parents agree, and there is utterly convincing evidence that the child has been living, including with the appropriate hormonal regime, as the sex of identity for a substantial time. In other words that the child absolutely needs and desires the surgery, has full support, and the surgeon's legal position is secure. Thus the tortured and exploitative need the family in the book suffered, trying to collect, as a "qualification", letters from a succession of "mental health professionals" who had no experience or ability in the field but basically wanted the fees and took advantage of the chance to project their uninformed opinions and prejudices upon the child and their family, can be avoided. Which is not to say there are no able and supportive professionals.
In a few countries public health services will handle the entire path, although none yet do it perfectly, entirely without anxiety or an approach of "testing" the child, as opposed to acceptance of their core and unchangeable identity, which is supposed to be every child's right.
No one should be astonished at this. Such children have been documented at least back to Roman times, and in many cultures. It is supported by some religions whilst being cruelly condemned by others. It is clearly a natural phenomenon.
So the book should be taken as a warning as well as an example, a very real and true example, indeed an historical record, of how a case of transsexuality (note: NOT transgender, this child was, from first asking her mother for help, always clear of her need to be physically female, and considerable effort and devotion was expended in securing the necessary surgery) can be experienced, treated, and survived. A very important and valuable book.
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
This is NOT a Children's Book!!! Feb 16, 2005
This out of print book is written by the mother of a young transsexual. Highly readable, it is the heartwarming account of how Evelyn helped her new daughter, Danielle, negotiate her way through the various social institutions in the USA. The book contains useful advice for parents and transgendered children on how to deal with family, schools, the medical profession, and day to day life. Evelyn wisely advises: "Let your teen make the decisions about his or her life whenever possible. Keep a sense of humour and use lots of hugging." She also notes that if transgendered kids see themselves as "brave and proud" others are less likely to view them as outcasts.Although Amazon.com seems to have placed this book in the Children's Section, it is definitely NOT a child's book. Written in a language that any high school student should be able to comprehend completely, it is primarily a book for the parent of a transsexual child to read. It chronicles the extreme difficulties faced by a single mother of a transsexual teenage boy transitioning to womanhood. The reader will quickly become angered at the politics which come into play at the local level and at the incompetence rampant within the medical establishment, particularly in the psychiatric arena where so-called experts, who seem to have little knowledge of the issues involved, don't blink an eye at charging exhorbitant fees for their incompetent services and advice. This book is a MUST READ for every adult with a transsexual child. I firmly believe there should be a copy in every public library, and it should be on the bookshelf of every counsellor, psychiatrist and psychologist.
5 of 6 found the following review helpful:
This is NOT a childrens's book! Apr 25, 2003
This book chronicles the problems faced by the single mother of a transsexual male child. The anguish, the heartache and the unnecessary turmoil, through which mother and child are forced to endure, caused by society at large and the professional medical establishment, makes compelling reading. Just because this outstanding work is written in language easily understandable by any high school level teenager, don't make the mistake that it is a child's book. Highly recommended for all who are facing the same life story, as well as for those who counsel and provide professional 'advice' to those having to deal with a transssexual life. Every public library should have a copy as should every professional dealing with the phenomenon of transsexuality.
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