Susan Faludi comes to grips with father's gender transition
Susan Faludi has had to make sense of two fathers.
First: Steven, the rigidly masculine, tight-lipped, and at times abusive dad who raised her. Second: Stefánie, the traditionally feminine, often self-stereotyping woman who still wanted to be called her father.
The transition is rife with complicated questions, even for someone as well versed in feminism, gender and politics as Faludi.
For decades, the Pulitzer Prize winning author has explored identity politics without flinching, particularly in her 1992 bestselling book Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women. Now, more than 25 years later, she's exploring new angles on old tensions, forced into the light by her family situation.
Today the writer joins Rachel Giese to discuss In The Darkroom, her textured and candid new memoir about her father's late life transition, and what it what it means to change your gender without changing your gender politics.
"In many ways, my father's extreme presentation of femininity, right after her reassignment surgery, was perhaps what she needed to do to release herself from the carapace of this extreme masculinity," says Faludi. "She needed one false image to knock down another."
Excerpt from In The Darkroom; opening paragraph.
"In the summer of 2004 I set out to investigate someone I scarcely knew, my father. The project began with a grievance, the grievance of a daughter whose parent had absconded from her life. I was in pursuit of a scofflaw, an artful dodger who had skipped out on so many things— obligation, affection, culpability, contrition. I was preparing an indictment, amassing discovery for a trial. But somewhere along the line, the prosecutor became a witness."