Becoming Nicole is a non-fiction book written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Amy Ellis Nutt published in October 2015. The book is about the transgender girl Nicole Maines and tackles the subject of gender identity and the LGBTQ community.
Overall, the book chronicles Nicole’s journey from a traditional American family after her adoption alongside her twin brother by Kelly and Wayne Maines. It explores both the public and private spheres in her extraordinary journey including the complex dynamics that her family has to contend with in their local community. The book also centers on Doe v. Regional School Unit 26, of which she was the anonymous plaintiff that argued against the school district on denying her access to the girl’s bathroom.
The author compiles various official documents and personal accounts through the Maineses' life-changing experience while in the middle of a nationwide cultural and legal debate. The Washington Post reviewed the book as “‘Exceptional . . . ‘Stories move the walls that need to be moved,’ Nicole told her father last year. In telling Nicole’s story and those of her brother and parents luminously, and with great compassion and intelligence, that is exactly what Amy Ellis Nutt has done here.”
