Newly Toronto-based author Rowan Jetté Knox has had an eventful few years.
In 2014, his second child came out as trans at the age of 11. A year later, his spouse followed suit. Jetté Knox wrote about his family in “Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family,” a book which quickly skyrocketed to national acclaim, topping bestseller lists across Canada.
Close to a decade after his child, Jetté Knox has now come out as trans himself, in an announcement timed with the release of his newest memoir, “One Sunny Afternoon: A Memoir of Trauma and Healing.”
“It’s a lot more personal than the first one,” Jetté Knox, who recently moved to the GTA after living in Ottawa for decades, said in an interview with CP24.com. “This one’s a lot deeper into my own psyche.” The book details Jetté Knox’s lived experience with a generalized anxiety disorder, investigating trauma through a lens of compassion and self-reflection.
“I had to write this book from my heart,” he said. “I’m not an expert in trauma. There are doctors and psychiatrists who can provide you with medical guidance, and I can’t do that. But I can tell you my story and what I do every day. That’s how I had to write the book.”
While Jetté Knox has found success as an author and advocate since the publishing of his first book, he says he has had to deal with internet trolls at an unprecedented level, a daily tribulation which has taken its toll.
“I’ve had some very big personalities go after me,” he said. “And there are some highly critical trans people who weren’t happy I wrote my first book, because they felt I was taking space away from the trans community. As it turns out, I’m trans. But unfortunately, because of the nature of social media, those conversations snowballed into outright attacks on my character, and not just from alt-right figures.
“I pleaded for support and understanding, because I wasn’t in a good place, and that request wasn’t met with compassion but with further accusations. That was a very dark time for me,” he continued.
“I knew it was going to be a little bit controversial. But ultimately, my family and I decided that telling the story was more important than not telling it. We knew it would do more good than harm. And I still stand by that four years later.”
Readers will get to know a new, more personal side of Jetté Knox in his new book, which he says is a “larger conversation about compassion for ourselves and others.”
“It’s about hope after healing,” he said. “It’s a continuation of ‘Love Lives Here.’ It’s what happened after the book came out. But it’s also more nuanced than that – it’s about trauma, which can happen to anyone. I’m hoping it’s a book that will resonate with people who are struggling.”
