Arts & Entertainment

Transitions in parenting

New memoir tells of marriage and family that survived

Published

13 years ago

May 16, 2013

Terri Schlichenmeyer

‘Stuck in the Middle with You’
By Jennifer Finney Boylan
Crown
$24
288 pages

Stuck in the Middle With You, Jennifer Finney Boylan, gay news, Washington Blade

(Image courtesy of Crown)

When you were younger, you wanted nothing to do with parenthood.

Life was a party then and having a family was the farthest thing from your mind. Kids changed people and who wants that? Being a parent was something that happened to somebody else.

Once upon a time, Jennifer Finney Boylan thought that, too. But then she became a father. And then she became a woman and in her new memoir “Stuck in the Middle with You,” she writes about finding love, discovering life’s sweet spot and being both a mommy and a daddy.

Well over 25 years ago, James Boylan fell in love at first sight.

He remembered seeing Deirdre’s blue eyes from the audience as she performed onstage. He knew he had to ask her out, that he wanted to be her boyfriend. After she finally said yes to a date, it wasn’t long before she said yes to marriage and yes to a family. They welcomed son Zach first and Sean a few years later.

And then James Boylan told his wife something that he’d been struggling with for his entire life: deep inside, he was really a woman. He could no longer tolerate life in hiding. After six years of being a father, James needed to live as Jennifer.

So how does a woman teach her son about being a man? Would the boys be teased, ostracized or ashamed? Would they feel as though they lost a parent?

“What kind of men would my children become,” Boylan writes. “… having been raised by a father who became a woman?”

As it turns out, Boylan shouldn’t have worried. Her eldest became an activist and works for justice. Her youngest is a fine musician. Their lives weren’t much different from that of their friends, and everyone generally “forgot that there was anything extraordinary about our family.”

Today, Boylan is still married to her wife of a quarter-century. It’s as “nontraditional” a union as you can imagine but then again, “traditional” families are no longer the norm anyhow. And besides, says Deirdre, “No matter what else you say about my husband, she’s an amazing woman.”

And though parenting memoirs replicate like rabbits these days, “Stuck in the Middle with You” is a pretty amazing book.

With her slightly askew humor and a grateful sense of awe for her family’s relative ease in her transition, author Jennifer Finney Boylan writes from the heart on the subjects of being father and mother, son and daughter. Those four roles were obviously played out by the same person, but it’s interesting to note how Boylan sees herself differently (and similarly) in each of them, pre- and post-transition. I also enjoyed her observations on connections between past and present, which nicely accompany interviews with friends and colleagues about family, children and being a child.

Readers looking for scandal won’t find it here, but if you want something that’ll bring you to the brink of tears again and again, this is your book.

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Online Culture

Clavicular charged in alleged rape of teenage influencer

Online personality’s real name is Braden Peters

Published

48 minutes ago

September 23, 2026

Joe Reberkenny

Braden Peters a.k.a. "Clavicular" (Screen capture via NBC News/YouTube)

Online personality Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Peters, has been accused of rape.

According to NBC, Aleksandra Vasilevna Mendoza, an 18-year-old influencer known online as Alorah or Alorah Ziva, accused Peters of sexual assault, and the case is making its way through the court system.

The alleged incident occurred on May 23, 2025, when Mendoza was 17.

According to a criminal complaint from the Chatham (Mass.) Police Department, Peters called her an Uber to his family’s home. Once there, he allegedly got her drunk on vodka while they livestreamed on Twitch and then raped her. His mother and grandmother were allegedly in the house.

The documents allege Clavicular committed rape, drugging a person for sexual intercourse, and procuring and providing liquor to a person under 21.

According to court documents acquired by NPR, Mendoza began communicating with Peters on Instagram, where he paid her to appear on his livestreams to help her “make her name known on social media.”

According to those documents, Peters arranged for the minor to come to Cape Cod home to participate in a videostream for his 437,000 followers on Kick, 1.2 million followers on TikTok, and more than 1 million followers on Instagram.

At his home, Peters allegedly instructed Mendoza to say she was 18 on his videostream and to claim the alcohol on camera was water instead of vodka. Mendoza said she felt peer-pressured to drink the spirit and that she became noticeably intoxicated after a couple of drinks.

The allegations go on to state that after stopping the stream, Peters and Mendoza kissed on a couch and then had sex in his bed without her consent. Mendoza said she did not receive a sexual assault forensic exam after the incident. NPR does not name alleged victims of sexual assault.

The charges come months after Mendoza sued Peters in Miami, accusing him of sexual battery in connection with the events of May 2025. The civil lawsuit also separately alleges that he injected her face with a non-FDA-approved fat-dissolving substance during a November livestream in Florida.

Peters is known for his “looksmaxxing” concept of vanity, which is at the core of his online presence. The “looksmaxxing” culture he has helped cultivate combines elements of incel culture and heterosexuality, with the stated goal of attracting the opposite sex. He has gone as far as to say he has undergone “bonesmashing,” or hitting his own face with a hammer; taken anabolic steroids to more rapidly grow muscle; and used crystal meth as an appetite suppressant.

At the same time, looksmaxxing has been described as having elements of homoeroticism, with “looksmaxxers” appearing more concerned with impressing other men than women. Peters has multiple times pointed to openly gay actor Matt Bomer as the gold standard for male facial aesthetics.

Peters’s arraignment is scheduled for Oct. 14.