I hadn't finished the writeup of A World Worth Saving, but everything else is mostly as I'd written it by TDOV.]
Continuing to make this an annual thing, even though I haven't necessarily been doing a ton of reading (or loving what I have been reading).
You can also check out my "trans micro-library starter kit" post from [last] November, if you'd like to catch up.
The usual introduction:
March 2021, after my [then-]partner asked me, "I’m proofing a Transgender Day of Visibility doc for someone in [a Facebook group]. Do you have particular kid or adult books you’d recommend? (And how is it that I don’t actually have any?)" I pulled a bunch of book recs and made a post. I've continued to make a list each year, which you can check out on the trans tag.
I included the publication year (and publisher), since I know queer lit can often feel dated as Discourse, language, etc. changes. I also tried to flag the identities of the authors as far as I knew, since I want to mainly center trans voices.
I feel like I didn't come across many new picturebooks this past year about trans/non-binary characters? Though I haven't yet gotten my hands on Tourmaline's new Marsha P. Johnson book. [Edit: I have since read it and didn't love it.]
I had a short period (in late 2024) of reading more work by trans-fem authors thanks to following The Transfeminine Review on Bluesky, but then got maxed out with book club books.
middle grade
A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff (2025, Dial Books for Young Readers) -- author is a Jewish trans manA, our protagonist, is a 14-year-old Jewish trans boy in mid-covid times. His parents drag him to an anti-trans family support group -- which turns out to be run by a literal demon.I love the Jewishness of this book. And how it explores liminality.
It's a Kyle Lukoff book, so there's a lot in here. Like, yeah, there's a casually polyamorous sales clerk at a thrift store, because those people exist in the world. A gets exposed to some different examples of queerness/queer community and does some micro-aggressions of his own, and that's all very real -- there is no singular way to be queer and/or trans, and being any of those things doesn't automatically grant you all the relevant knowledge and understanding.
As with other "what if conversion therapy but literal demons" books (e.g., 2023's Camp Damascus), real humans have varying degrees of agency in the badness that's going on; it's not as simple as "demons made them do it."
A is sometimes unlikable -- which is realistic, though also sometimes a struggle for the reader. The narrative explicitly wrestles some with why someone is Chosen and what that means. It isn't necessarily entirely satisfactory, but I appreciate the engagement.
The book doesn't engage as much as I had expected with the question in the jacket blurb of, "is a world that seems hellbent on rejecting him even worth saving at all?" so I kind of wish it had kept its early title of The Golem of Refuse.
young adult
Lucy, Uncensored by Mel & Teghan Hammond (2024, Alfred A. Knopf) -- Mel and Teghan are sisters; Teghan is trans-fem (she/they)Lucy (trans) and her best friend Callie (cis) are theater kids and seniors in high school. Lucy is already fully out as trans, but looking ahead to college, she wonders about the possibility of a fresh start -- where everyone would see her as a woman first and she could disclose her trans status later, at her own choice. The book covers various tensions around that question of disclosure, as well as various big and small instances of transphobia -- including the tensions at historically women's colleges (a topic close to my heart!). There's a lot of joy, and plenty of stuff that's not About Being Trans.
adult
[non-fiction/memoir] Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H. (2023, Dial Press) -- author name is a pseudonym, pronouns she/they
This had been on my TBR for a while, so I started reading it after my partner started listening to it on audiobook (I didn't know the author had been on Gender Reveal) -- "a memoir in which I retell stories from the Quran as queer brown immigrant narratives alongside stories from my queer brown immigrant life." Very much my jam.
[non-fiction/memoir] It Gets Better... Except When It Gets Worse: And Other Unsolicited Truths I Wish Someone Had Told Me by Nicole Maines (2024, PenguinRandomHouse) -- author is a white USian trans woman
I had put a library hold on this approximately for the title alone after I saw it on a BookRiot Our Queerest Shelves "The 10 Biggest and Buzziest New Queer Books Out in Fall 2024," in large part because I feel like queer (esp trans) memoirs are dictated to have to be So Inspiring.Despite the titular warning, this book is fucking fun. (In contrast to Elliot Page's memoir Pageboy [2023, Flatiron Books], which I had read shortly before it for an LGBTQ+ book club, and which had so much more trauma than I was expecting -- abuse, self-harm, restricted eating, etc. on top of queer- and trans-phobia.)
Maines doesn't coddle the reader, and the subject matter isn't all light, but her narrative voice carries you through (shout-out to her ghostwriter, Mya Spalter, who I appreciate that she explicitly thanks in the Acknowledgements at the end).
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