Bonnie Thompson’s memoir Left opens with a realization no child is prepared to have. At nine years old, Bonnie understands that her father does not simply want a different life, he wants to become her mother. This awareness arrives quietly but lands with seismic force, reshaping everything she knows about family, safety, and belonging. At the same time, her actual mother is emotionally unreachable, dulled by her own pain and unable to meet Bonnie or her older sister where they are. From the very beginning, Left makes it clear that this is not a story about a child being protected by adults, it is about a child learning, far too early, that survival will be her own responsibility.
It is important to state plainly that Left is not Bonnie’s story of being transgender. Bonnie is not transgender. Her father is. The memoir centers on the ripple effects of that transition within a family already fraying at the edges, and on how a young girl is left to navigate emotional abandonment, instability, and loss with little guidance. Bonnie writes with a stark and unsentimental voice, refusing to soften the truth for comfort’s sake. The result is a gritty portrait of childhood shaped by upheaval rather than innocence.
