Differentiation, Triangulation and Family Projection: Exploring Emotional Systems in Detransition, Baby

Abstract

This study examines Torrey Peters’s Detransition, Baby (2021) through Bowen Family Systems Theory, focusing on differentiation of self, triangulation and the family projection process. The paper discusses the way Reese, Ames and Katrina bargain identity, emotional independence, intimacy, parenthood and belonging in a new non-traditional family. The study shows that emotional relationships are connected and influence individual identities and choices using qualitative textual analysis and close reading. Differentiation illustrates the characters’ struggle to maintain individuality while preserving emotional bonds; triangulation demonstrates how emotional tension is redistributed among the three characters; and family projection explains how parental expectations and anxieties are projected onto the unborn child. The paper contends that Peters posits family as an evolving emotional system, which is influenced by negotiation, accommodation and emotional dependency as opposed to biological relationships.

Keywords: Detransition baby, torrey peters, Bowen family systems theory, differentiation of self, triangulation, family projection process, queer kinship, family formation

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21979898