When I began writing Analyzing the Prescotts, I was knee deep in research for my Ph.D. dissertation. I studied works (fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir) written by transgender authors, pre- and post-transition. The stories that arose from each of the writers’ works often revealed a fear of revealing their true selves, primarily because the pain they endured ranged from being disowned by their families to being brutally beaten by thugs. I knew the only way to share the story with readers was to write a novel and to anchor the tale with characters they could relate to and to relate statistics that were real and recognizable.
In a report released by the U.S. Department of Justice in June 2022, the researchers stated that “[P]ersons who identified as lesbian or gay experienced 43.5 victimizations per 1,000 persons age 16 or older, more than twice the rate among persons who identified as straight….” and that, against transgender persons, the number rises to 51.5 victimizations. Half of trans people have been brutalized and reported it. I would suspect the number to be even higher since some transgender people do not report the abuse they experience (or that members of their community do), because of fear of reprisal.
Not only are members of the LGBTQ community some of the most maligned, but trans people have an extremely high attempted suicide rate (80% or more). More than 50% have considered it while 28% attempt suicide. These rates differ drastically, depending upon the region gathering the statistics.
These figures are simply tragic.
In a recent New York Times article, a control group of transgender people mentioned that they do want to be safe, whether or not they are understood. That is a simple request, and one that I actively considered when writing my new novel. The Prescott family, the central characters in the novel, suffers individual cases of identity issues, each of them struggling to understand their role as members of a fractured family, but Hailey (the trans father) is the one who knows best what she wants: to live as her female self.
There are few trans people who live happily-ever-after stories. Most of the stories are rollercoasters of an emotional life. Struggle is the name of the game. However, as a writer, I realized that the reading public would not understand those stories unless they were drawn into a tale populated by people with whom they might identify. And I needed to reveal the regularity of abuse the trans community experiences.
North Carolina, where my story is set, has been besieged by hate crimes against the LGBTQ communities and in an article written for IndyWeek, a newspaper based in Durham, the author Joe Killian points out that a series of bills that would protect members of the trans community were filed but never came to a vote. The issue has become a political one, and the control is held by the majority political party.
Analyzing the Prescotts attempts to not only expose the ways families cope when one member changes their role within the family but also to offer the reader the opportunity to see how the understanding of gender changes depending on one’s perspective. Perhaps, the novel can help open lines of communication about the abuse and violence happening on a daily basis to members of the LGBTQ+ community. And maybe, just maybe, once people begin to understand that a person’s gender is their own concern and not a threat to others, the rate of violence and suicide will go down.
