TRANS GIRL SUICIDE MUSEUM - HANNAH BAER

This is the second book I’ve read in the last months that comes from a meme-account admin. Perhaps I’ll seek out one more and make it a trifecta sometime soon. That being said, this book is much more famous in its own right, as well as much better, than THE LIFESTYLE ZOO. Both books are mostly memoir with some musing on modern online life and contemporary lifeways thrown in for good measure, which seems to be the dominant genre of book these days. TGSM is, as you might expect from the title, largely about the author’s life and experiences as a young trans woman. As a very specific type of young trans woman. The book opens with a sort of disclaimer, about how rich and privileged Baer is and how her experience is not like the experience of the vast, vast majority of trans people, either in the US or abroad, but it still reads, to me, as quite shocking throughout the book. I’m guessing it came off that way to Baer as well, and she put in the disclaimer after reading a draft and seeing how she comes off. Baer is the child of two rich YT people, a “marxist” college professor at a ivy league school and a professional of some type (I forgot what exactly), they aren’t transphobic in any traditional since, they come off as confused and clueless and Baer does a good job rendering the tension she has with being annoyed with them while also being aware how much worse the majority of trans people have with their parents (of all the trans people I’ve known or know in my life well enough to know what their relationship is with their parents, a sample size of about half a dozen, I only know one who even speaks with their parents). Baer travels around the US, from Philly to NYC to New Orleans and beyond and parties and fucks people and does lots of drugs. She’s smart enough, and socialized in the right ways, to get into grad school (business school for organizations, which struck me as a supremely weird choice) off an interview she attends directly after a bender. She doesn’t seem worried about money at all, which again is different that literally every single trans person I’ve ever met (and, like, 90% of the people I know period) and seems really connected to and valued by this sort of rich kid-cool, queer, artsy, activist-y scene she’s built up. She comes off, to me, as pretty unlikable, which isn’t really a problem, I don’t mind an annoying or unlikable main character. The book was still pretty engaging. There is a long passage about wandering around, very high on K trying to find a Juul which is incredibly well written and vivid and one of the best things I’ve read in a while. In fact, all the stuff about K is good and engaging and insightful. The disconnect for me has to do with how quickly she shifts into self-loathing or feeling like she needs to kill herself since, from the evidence she’s given us in this book, her life seems objectively very cool and fun and without the sorts of issues that plague most young people, let alone most trans people. That aspect did not connect for me. Either way, she’s a good writer, the book was short and punchy, her memes are good and I hope she writes another book, just one where she isn’t the main character.