79 pages 2 hours read

Becoming Nicole

Nonfiction | Biography | Adult | Published in 2015

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Themes

The Subversion of Expectations

The subversion of expectations is an important part of the character development in Becoming Nicole. Kelly’s birthmother didn’t expect to become pregnant so young, so she gives Kelly to a relative to raise. Kelly’s cousin finds herself in a similar situation and gives her twin boys to Kelly. Donna, the woman who raises Kelly, isn’t passionate about being a mom. She makes sure the children in her care are fed and safe, but she often isn’t available to play or nurture them in other ways. The cousin who grows up in the same household as Kelly has emotional problems that make family life difficult as well. Through these experiences, Kelly learns not to expect much from one’s family. When one of her boys turns out to be transgender, she is able to cope with the shock quite quickly because she doesn’t have many preconceived notions about what a family should be like.

Wayne, on the other hand, has many preconceived notions about family. Learning that one of his little boys wants to be a girl is a source of confusion, frustration, anger, and sadness. He is disappointed when Wyatt shows little interest in masculine activities such as fishing and baseball, instead gravitating toward tutus and Barbie dolls. He winces when Wyatt begs to wear dresses, sparkles, and lots of pink to school. It takes Wayne years to accept that Wyatt is his daughter, and to mourn the loss of the son he expected to have. This process of growth and acceptance is the subject of one of the book’s story arcs.

Being a Problem

Though Wyatt is generally a confident child, he senses that his desire to be a girl is a problem for certain people in his life, especially his dad. Since being a girl is such an important part of his identity, it can seem like people who don’t understand his gender identification view him as a problem. He is also aware that many of his desires and demands, such as his plea to wear skirts in public, cause stress for his parents. When it comes to expressing himself, Wyatt is constantly forced to compromise, whereas his brother, Jonas, is not, as he views himself as a boy. At one point, Wyatt writes his mother a letter complaining that she and his dad always view him as a problem child. He tells her that he’s tired of them assuming that he’s the “bad guy” when conflicts arise with his brother, which he seems to suspect has something to do with the stress his parents experience when facing his transgender identity.

The mismatch between Wyatt’s physical appearance and the person he believes himself to be inside sometimes makes him feel like a freak as he grows older and starts going as Nicole. Because this mismatch makes him miserable and anxious, he sometimes assumes that he makes others miserable and anxious by extension. Nicole worries that a boy will never fall in love with her because no one will be able to look past the problem that her anatomy is male and her identity is female. She also feels like a burden and an outcast when the elementary school starts making her use a staff bathroom so she won’t spend time in the girls’ restroom. It’s a clear example of a phenomenon Nutt introduces in the book’s Prologue: how the “misfits of society must bear the burden of a single unspoken question on the lips of even the most polite members of society: ‘What does it feel like to be a problem?’” (xix).

Public Life Versus Private life

Nutt demonstrates how public life and private life have different rules and expectations, even for young children. This difference is one reason Kelly and Wayne don’t let Wyatt fully express his femininity in public. They worry that others will not accept him and will therefore hassle or exclude him. Wayne also worries that people will judge their family and assume that he and Kelly are bad parents. When Wyatt tries to wear a pink princess outfit to a party the family throws to meet their new neighbors, Wayne reprimands the child in front of the guests. This greatly upsets Wyatt and seems to make a more negative impression on the guests than the little boy in the pink dress did. Private life is portrayed as a space with more freedom to relax, experiment, and express how one truly feels about things, including the many facets of one’s identity. Public life is shaped by the perceptions and assumptions of others, so behaving in a way that cultivates positive perceptions and assumptions is often preferable.

Placing too many limits on one’s public life can be detrimental, though. The Maineses learn this when Kelly and the kids move to Portland and go to great lengths to keep Nicole’s transgender identity a secret. Though they bury this information to keep the family safe and prevent the type of harassment they experienced in Orono, they don’t feel that their private lives compensate for what they have lost. In other words, even if they have freedom to express themselves privately, it doesn’t feel right to only be open and honest behind closed doors. The Maineses gradually begin to take their story public when they see how it can help other transgender people gain rights and fair treatment. They are willing to accept the consequences that come with public scrutiny—hateful messages from groups such as the Christian Civic League, for example—to fight for something that matters.

For the Maineses, one of the most troubling aspects of the bully-and-bathroom problem at Nicole’s elementary school is that an adult, Paul Melanson, finds it appropriate to expose a child to such intense public scrutiny simply for choosing the bathroom that feels like the right one for her. Once he makes Nicole’s use of the girls’ bathroom into a contentious issue, he robs her of much of her privacy, and the safety that accompanies it. Melanson seems to think this privacy doesn’t matter because in his opinion, any boy who thinks they are a girl is a freak who doesn’t deserve to be treated like other people.

Safety and Surveillance

The Maineses go to great lengths to make sure their children are safe, especially as Nicole gets older and encounters more harassment. But their focus on safety doesn’t start with Nicole. Wayne’s academic and professional specialty is safety, so he has spent years thinking about the topic before the twins become part of the family. Kelly is also described as a cautious person who carefully weighs risks and benefits. When Jacob starts bullying and stalking Nicole at school, Kelly searches for ways to guarantee her children’s safety, but the school does little to allay her concerns. Instead of working with the Maineses to create a plan that promotes safety, the school shuts down communication with the family and focuses on protecting itself from a lawsuit. It uses surveillance tactics, including an “eyes-on” policy that involves a staff member constantly tracking Nicole’s whereabouts, to create the illusion of safety, but this does little to make the family feel calm or secure.

In addition to being ineffective, the “eyes-on” policy feels unfair to the Maineses and suffocating to Nicole, who “couldn’t take another year of looking over her shoulder for Jacob, of being trailed by a teacher through the school halls and being banished to the staff bathroom” (172). Kelly thinks that if there’s going to be such a policy, it should be “eyes on Jacob” (151). Wayne urges Nicole to constantly keep an eye on her safety: “You have to watch where you go and who you are with at all times. Never go anywhere alone” (179). Though Nicole enjoys attention, she doesn’t enjoy constant monitoring. Being denied privacy makes her feel depressed and disoriented.

Control

Melanson’s desire to control how others act and define themselves seems to be an important part of his anger at LGBT people. As a white, middle-aged man, he is used to having power, including the power to tell others who they ought to be. Letting others make that decision for themselves feels like a slight to him. He also seems to fear that letting others define themselves as they please will lead to a slippery slope where fewer people identify with him and the groups he belongs to. This could further erode the power that he and these groups hold.

Control is also an important component of the Maineses’ struggle with Bob Lucy and other Orono School District administrators. According to Nutt, Lucy treats the role of acting principal much like the role of football coach. He expects that he can devise strategies and shout orders at others, and that the people around him will comply when he does these things. In other words, he thinks that his role at the school comes with a license to control others, including concerned parents like Kelly and Wayne. But the more he tries to control the bully-and-bathroom situation, the more chaotic it seems to become.

Nutt also uses the concept of control to depict some of the differences between Nicole and her brother, Jonas. While Nicole tends to have strong opinions and share them freely, Jonas tends to process his feelings quietly and develop opinions internally. Nicole is the more physical and aggressive of the two, whereas Jonas is the more cerebral and self-controlled child. Even when he struggles with strong, negative reactions to other kids’ cruelty, he finds it important to maintain control of himself and the situation. 

Doubt Versus Certainty

Wyatt/Nicole and Jonas are also opposites when it comes to doubt and certainty. Wyatt knows himself well and asserts his identity with confidence as a young child. He tends to know how he feels about things right away, and he’s not afraid to tell others about it. Jonas is more of a doubter, and he is slower to form and express opinions, in part because he is so analytical:

Wyatt […] knew what he liked, who he liked, and what he wanted to be. Jonas was so unlike him. He knew he was a boy, of course, but that was about it. He didn’t seem to fit the mold of other boys his age, and the more he retreated into himself, the less confident he became. He was curious, a questioner, dissatisfied with simple explanations and therefore more comfortable being alone (68).

The theme of doubt versus certainty is also important in Nutt’s analysis of the science surrounding sexual anatomy, gender identity, and the process of developing into a transgender person. Nutt explains how some aspects of this process either can’t be known with certainty or are unlikely to be known. One reason for this is that it’s nearly impossible to study gender identity in lab animals. Unless researchers find ways to understand what animals are thinking and feeling with much more precision, they aren’t able to learn much about gender identity from them.

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