What Becomes You (review)

The result of a ten-year collaboration between mother and son, What Becomes You innovatively blends narrative and confession with commentary on gender issues and family relationships. In their preface, the writers claim to have "become whole new people" in the years that have passed since the events described in the book. As Aaron Link later asks, "How do any of us recognize ourselves, given the changes we go through between birth and death?" This memoir reveals interconnected stories of transformation: Link's, of his surgical transformation from female to transsexual male, and Hilda Raz's, of her emotional transformation from grieving to celebratory mother.

Link's section, the lengthier of the two, offers a striking collage of personal anecdote, reportage, research and social critique. A scientist and performance artist, Link narrates his experiences as an androgynous-seeming child and as a young adult confused by how his body misaligned with his sense of self. He also chronicles the treacherous journey of hormone therapy and painful surgeries he undertook in his late twenties. With candor he distinguishes between "metoidoplasty," the surgery that gave him a penis, and "phalloplasty," the surgery used on men injured in war. After exposing the medical and legal barriers he overcame, Link scrutinizes how his identity as a gay male clashes with feminism: "I fought for 'he.' I got the word 'he,' complete with expectations about violence."

Link's prose gathers emotional intensity particularly toward the end of his section as he laments the family tradition that dictates a female heir for his mother's diamond ring. In the midst of his expressions of isolation, readers will welcome the joy with which he celebrates his scarred but beautiful male body.

In her shorter section, poet Raz (Trans) meditates on her complex emotional and intellectual response to Link's transsexual identity. A professor of women's studies, she mourns the loss of both a daughter and a future advocate for women's issues. With touching humility supported by graceful prose, she confesses that "[Sarah] was Aaron and I didn't know it. I can't think of anything more important I've failed to notice." Personal and intellectual guilt weigh upon her as she recalls the past and closely observes her son in the present, finally happy in his skin. By the end, she finds consolation in Aaron, her "true and cherished attachment to future generations of passionate rebels."

Some readers may consider this memoir disjointed due to its rejection of straightforward narrative in favor of collage. However, those interested in gender issues and family dynamics will find this work absolutely vital for the ways in which Link and Raz illuminate the transsexual experience. Their implicit conclusion exemplifies the astonishing humor with which they tell their painful stories of transformation: as with fashion, when it comes to identity, choose what becomes you.