Her Name Is Alice: My Daughter, Her Transition and Why We Must Remember Her
My Daughter, Her Transition and Why We Must Remember Her
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Her Name Is Alice: My Daughter, Her Transition and Why We Must Remember Her
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Caroline Litman
About this listen
'Thoughtful, beautiful, incredibly necessary. People need to read this book, especially if they feel a resistance to. I wish everyone would.' Sofie Hagen
‘Uncompromising, anguished, combative: culture wars have victims, and this is an agonising story told with honesty and passion.’ Richard Beard
'An intimate, beautifully told memoir' Elinor Cleghorn
When my third child was born, I was told I had a boy. The baby was given a boy’s name and raised in that gender. But when she died, twenty years later, she died as my daughter, and will forever be remembered that way.
Alice Litman died by suicide in May 2022, aged just twenty years old, having already waited almost three years for her first appointment at a gender identity clinic.
In stunningly beautiful prose, Caroline Litman captures the realities of an often-messy journey navigating both her daughter’s transition and the days, weeks and months after Alice’s death.
Searing, urgent and utterly unique, Her Name is Alice is the raw, human story of a mother’s love and grief for her child – and of a young trans woman who is impossible to forget and who must be remembered.
©2025 Caroline Litman (P)2025 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
'An inspirational mother, story and book' Ella Morgan
'A mother-daughter love story about fighting a world stacked against you. Brilliant and super relevant.' India Willoughby
‘A tragic, defiant story beautifully and deftly told. A timely reminder that the victims of the relentless culture wars are real people with real lives who love each other with unimaginable intensity. Life's complicated, and we do it a disservice to reduce it to cheap soundbites. Caroline's elegy illustrates this perfectly.’ Paul Sinha
'An urgent, powerful call for people to be trusted, supported and cared for – in their gender identities, and as themselves. With searing honesty, Litman reveals the damage done to people and their loved ones when uninformed hostility subsumes understanding, and kindness.' Elinor Cleghorn
'It feels inadequate to say how brave she is, in the living of the experience and then the honest, raw recounting of it. Her voice is as clear as a bell and she shares a powerful insight into a system so ineffective and broken it feels pointless. Breathtakingly awful and compelling with glimmers of hope in the conclusion.' Lucy Brazier
'Heart-breaking – also incredibly important. By telling frankly the story of her daughter's life, Caroline shines an unyielding, necessary light on the devastating impact of transphobia, and the urgent need for broader understanding of the emotional reality of trans lives.' John McCullough
'An intimate reflection on a mother-daughter relationship that is frank and heartbreaking. Caroline bravely shares how her own prejudice towards transgender people impacted how she treated Alice when she came out, showing us that it is possible for people to change their views. While the NHS trans healthcare system is moving in the wrong direction to prevent further tragedies like Alice's death, we can still hope that this book helps other parents to love their trans kids as fiercely as Caroline loves Alice.' Vic Parsons
Profoundly moving, a must-read
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A deeply moving testament
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It would be a vast understatement to say that things have only become more hostile since. Today the British establishment is united: the government, and its opposition, and its likely successor; the courts; the NHS; the media. All are engaged in a coordinated, multifaceted attack on trans people's rights, their access to healthcare and their right to exist in public. In the end this will prove to simply be another period of history where the public was encouraged to oppress a minority. Getting there means cutting through to those that are blithely ignoring what is happening, and to those who have had their hearts hardened. Her Name is Alice is well placed to do just that.
As a cis man with no children, this book encompasses many things that are alien to my life. I do not know what it is to have a child, nor to lose one, but this book gives a devastating glimpse. Yet for all the moments where it is sad, and had me in tears, it also had me laughing, and fuming, and depressed, and hopeful. The emotional messiness of it all is brought to life by the author's brutally honest memoir. This is an important book, I only wish those that most need to read it would dare to open their minds and their hearts to it.
A beautifully written memoir that the UK needs now
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Listening to Alice's story on audiobook, narrated by her mum, was particularly powerful, highlighting with brutal honesty the family's sadness, helplessness and frustration over so many years; however there are also the most beautiful, and heartwarming moments making the book quite uplifting at times.
Through the story I also learned a lot more about trans issues and the ongoing struggles people may face to get the treatment they need .
I would highly recommend this wonderful memoir of Alice's life -it has made me realise that we can all learn to be better, kinder, more tolerant individuals and embrace everyone's differences.
This book will live with me for a long time.
A beautifully written memoir
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Everyone should read this book
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