Detransition, Baby

The chapter opens with a depiction of Reese and her latest romantic relationship. One of Detransition, Baby’s three protagonists, Reese is a transgender woman in her mid-thirties currently living in Brooklyn. Though Reese had long-term relationships in the past, she currently has a pattern of entering into short-lived flings, especially affairs with married men. Reese’s current romantic relationship is with a married man who is HIV positive due to a previous affair with another transgender woman, and who is only referred to as “the cowboy,” due to his traditionally masculine look. Though the cowboy has told Reese his HIV status is undetectable, meaning that his viral load is so low he cannot spread HIV through sex, Reese feels that his HIV status adds an element of risk to her relationship. Reese enjoys such risk, and she imagines that it is analogous to “the risk, the thrill” of becoming pregnant that she imagines to be at the core of cis women’s sexual relationships (7). Reese and her cowboy integrate this motherhood fantasy into their sexual roleplay, with the two playfully calling Reese’s PrEP—medication that protects against contracting HIV—“birth control” (8).

One night, as Reese is waiting to pick up Thai food for a date with her cowboy, she receives a phone call from Ames, her ex.