EXCLUSIVE: Tommy Dorfman’s Good Girl Productions has acquired the rights to Detransition, Baby, the bestselling novel from Torrey Peters, for big-screen development.
Kevin Cotter (The Savant, Little House on the Prairie) will produce alongside Good Girl. The search for a writer and director for the project is currently underway.
Named one of The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, Detransition, Baby explores the lives of three women —transgender and cisgender — which collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires. Since its 2021 publication via Random House, the book has won numerous major accolades, including the PEN/Hemingway Award. It was also named a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards, the National Book Critics Circle Awards, and the Gotham Book Prize.
“When I read DETRANSITION, BABY, Torrey Peters’ story instantly resonated with me,” said Dorfman in a statement to Deadline. “The novel is smart, accessible, and filled with complex characters and plot lines never explored on screen. And like all the greatest stories, the story finds universality in its specificity.”
Continued Dorfman, “Whether it’s divorce/heartbreak, infertility/the struggles of family planning, or how our sense of self relies heavily on gendered stereotypes, this story captures the most relatable and human moments. I couldn’t be more thrilled to bring Torrey’s extraordinary story to the big screen.”
For her part, Peters said, “Kevin and Tommy have put so much work into figuring out how this story could work as a film and I’m excited to hand off the story of Reese, Ames, and Katrina for a new iteration in a changing era.”
An actress, writer, director, and producer whose work spans film, television, and theater, Dorfman followed up her breakout role in the hit Netflix series 13 Reasons Why by making her feature directorial debut with, I Wish You All the Best, an adaptation of the Mason Deaver novel starring starring Corey Fogelmanis, Alexandra Daddario, Cole Sprouse, and Lena Dunham, which will release theatrically through Lionsgate beginning November 7, after premiering at SXSW.
Consistently shining a light on the experiences of the LGBTQ+IA community, as well as her personal experiences as a trans woman in Hollywood, Dorfman published her debut nationally bestselling memoir, Maybe This Will Save Me, with HarperCollins on May 27th. This past fall, she made her Broadway debut in Sam Gold’s adaptation of Romeo + Juliet, starring alongside Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler. The production marked her return to the New York stage and her first acting role since publicly coming out as transgender. Dorfman also starred in Becoming Eve, a New York Theatre Workshop production based on Abby Chava Stein’s memoir. The production opened April 7th to critical acclaim, with Dorfman earning a Drama League Award nomination for her performance. The multi-hyphenate is represented by 2AM, UTA, and Yorn, Levine, Barnes.
Releasing the novel Stag Dance with Random House in March, Peters holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Masters in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She is repped by UTA, Neon Literary, and Myman Greenspan Fox.
