How to be a Girl (Paperback)
A Mother’s Memoir of Raising her Transgender Daughter
Marlo Mack
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'ESSENTIAL READING' DIVA magazine
** Includes foreword from Susie Green, CEO of charity Mermaids **
Mama, something went wrong in your tummy. And it made me come out as a boy instead of a girl.
Marlo Mack gave birth to M, a beautiful baby boy. Or so she believed. At two years old, M started insisting on wearing only pink clothes. At three, M begged his mum to buy him pretty dresses, and to grow his hair long.
Friends, family, experts and Marlo herself had been able to brush these behaviours aside as a young child's playful experimentation with gender, but when her son begs to be put back in her tummy because he came out wrong, she knows she must listen more closely.
How to Be a Girl is a raw and unflinching memoir of a mother grappling with her child's transition from male to female. Always wanting to support M, Marlo – whose podcast of the same name has over 1.3 million downloads – finds her liberal values surprisingly challenged, and as she learns more about gender and its varied expressions, she questions what being a girl – or a boy, or something else entirely – really means.
For every copy of this book sold in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, Icon Books will donate 50p to Mermaids (1160575), a charity that is committed to supporting trans, non-binary and gender diverse children and their families.
Marlo Mack (a pen name) produces the How to Be a Girl podcast, chronicling life with her transgender daughter, 'M'. She has been interviewed and featured in, and written for such outlets as the New York Times, National Geographic, Scientific American, TIME magazine, People, and Refinery29. In May 2021 a BBC World Service two-part documentary Marlo helped produce and featured in was aired. This is her first book.
Marlo Mack's How to Be a Girl is an extraordinary mother-daughter story and also a wondrously ordinary one, not just about a mother's unconditional love but also about listening to one another, learning together, following your mama-gut as well as your mama-heart, and leaping into the unknown with a child – your child – as your guide.
