Books by trans and gender non-conforming writers to check out

My never-ending list of books to check out is perhaps unsurprisingly (because #TransIsBrilliant) full of ones by trans and gender non-conforming writers. Many of them are included in my ambitious book-buying ventures, seeing as I can't resist buying them when I see them in real life - especially if I get to support an independent/queer/feminist bookstore at the same time. They're just so pretty! Anywho... here is a smidgen of that list, some of which I've actually managed to read a bit. You'll undoubtedly recognize a few names, and I'm hoping hear about some folks you didn't know are out here living out Toni Morrison's quote, "If there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."

For those of you looking to bring some amazing speakers to campus for LGBT History Month in October or Trans Awareness Month in November, this is a pretty good list to work through too.

Before I get started, a note that this is just a quick short list that doesn't involve any particular type of ranking, nor does it imply anything if your favorite TGNC author happens to not be on it. Feel free to comment and share some of your faves below... or your own books if you're a writer that's TGNC. I've also tried to find links where you can buy copies of their books and support the publishers directly, many of which as you'll see are independent ones and/or ones ran by trans people themselves.

I have to start with Leslie Feinberg. Leslie's work was among the first I ever read written by a trans person - that I know of or can remember. I came upon the legendary Stone Butch Blues (1993, republished 2003) in undergrad, which changed my entire life, and then quickly went through Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue (1998), Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman (1999), and my favorite of Leslie's Drag King Dreams (2006). I still shake a little when I remember that I got to introduce Leslie Feinberg at the 2001 Midwest BLGTA Colleges Conference when we hosted it at Michigan State.

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Another early trans author for me was Julia Serano and her book Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, the second edition having just been released this year! It was probably the first real challenge to understanding how masculine privilege was operating in my life that I can remember hearing and not feeling completely erased as a trans person. Her follow up, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, is obviously the next must-read after that one and an obvious choice to add to your campus gender and sexuality centers' shelves.

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There's no way this list is not going to include Janet Mock. Because Janet redefines everything. Janet IS everything. And I still flinch any time I realize the person I'm talking to hasn't heard of, let alone read, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love, & So Much More. Come again?! The fact that she coordinates an annual Trans Book Drive to support LGBT Books to Prisoners, send hundreds of copies to trans prisoners, and promote books written by and about queer and trans people of color, just makes me love her even more.  As an incisive cultural critic, some of Janet's best work is on her blog, talking about everything from Beyonce's Lemonade to Jaden Smith's Louis Vuitton ad, and in her entirely-too-short-lived MSNBC show So Popular! so be sure to check those out too. I can't wait to get my hands on FIRSTS: A Memoir of the Twenties Experience when that comes out next year.

It's actually through Janet Mock's Trans Book Drive that I've come across these next 3 writers (and shamefully still haven't read). Relevant, read Janet's piece on Not All Memoirs Are Created Equal: The Gatekeeping of Trans Women of Color's Stories.
First is Lovemme Corazón's debut book Trauma Queen, a memoir about their childhood trauma of rape and abuse has shaped their life. It is currently only available in e-version, with the few printed versions out there selling for $100+.  The next one is Morgan Robyn Collado's collection of selected poems entitled Make Love to Rage. I mean, I just love even reading that title over and over again. And of course b. binaohan's book decolonizing trans/gender 101, which is actually a pretty short read. She is also the founder of biyuti publishing that publishes all 3 of these books!

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Two poets that I adore are Kit Yan and Kay Ulanday Barrett. They are both phenomenal, not just at the craft of poetry, but also in their delivery, which is why I go to every show of theirs that I can. So of course, their books are on my list too. In fact, I've already pre-ordered Kay's When the Chant Comes which is out next month, and just bookmarked Kit's Queer Heartache to buy as soon as I'm done writing this!

A poet I haven't had the pleasure to see perform is Charles Theonia, whose book Which One Is the Bridge came with a raving review by Reina Gossett ("Charles Theonia's poems are everything!"), so of course I snatched it up when I saw it at the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference last year. Again, no clue who Theonia is, but Reina's recommendations are not to be ignored.

This next one has by far one of the prettiest covers on a book I've ever seen, and it's Ryka Aoki's He Mele A Hilo: A Hilo Song. I actually want to read pretty much everything Aoki has written, since I've only ever seen raving reviews of her books. He Mele A Hilo is definitely on the top of that list though.

As more folks are beginning to move away from an accommodation based model to a justice model when doing dis/ability related work, and understanding its intersections with class, race, sexuality, gender, etc. Eli Clare's part-memoir-part-analysis-giving Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation is just magnificent and beautiful. And a real challenge to single-issue politics and movements.

Speaking of challenging single-issue anything, meet Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, the ancient jazz priestess of Mother Africa, a prolific artist who has penned 5 books thus far. The ones I hear the most about are Brew and Baltimore: A Love Letter. Her latest are Yemaya's Daughters and Wither: A Novella, with her book of intimate poems collected in Remains: A Gathering of Bones. And with a name like Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, how can you deny yourself the pleasures of her words?

One that almost always gets a citation in anything academic I write and has been instrumental in how I frame most of my consulting and training work on trans 'inclusion' in higher education is Dean Spade's Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. A law professor, Spade consistently pushes against the notions that policy work, especially ones that involve adding terms to nondiscrimination policies, do much of anything to fundamentally shift the realities of trans people, especially those most marginalized. His videos with Reina Gossett are just one of many reasons I have intellectual (and maybe not-just-intellectual) crushes on both of these brilliant humans.

I got to meet Sophie Labelle at this past year's Creating Change conference as she was selling copies of some of her comics and I ended up buying Dear Cis People and Gender Euphoria (couldn't find a copy of this online), both of which I absolutely loved. When I found Sophie's etsy store I also noticed this really cool one that I'm bookmarking called The Genderific Coloring Book! How awesome does that sound?

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is one of those people who writes brilliant thing after brilliant thing and makes you question everything you thought you knew or believed with each piece. She is also hella funny in person! I got to hear her read from her latest book, which is actually her first memoir, entitled The End of San Francisco, a searing collection of observations and stories chronicling the demise of a qutopian promise that never was.  Mattilda is better known for her edited volumes, particularly the still all-too relevant That's Revolting: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation, Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform and Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity. I wanna PokemonGO them and catch'em all!

Speaking of edited volumes, these next three are just that. Trans Bodies, Trans Selves: A Resource for the Transgender Community is exactly what it advertises and it is a huge tome attempting to be just that. It includes contributions from dozens of trans experts in matters such as law, employment, health, transition, relationships, and activism to name a few. So a good reference book to have handy. The other one I'm really excited about is Outside the XY: Queer Black and Brown Masculinity which is an anthology gathered by bklyn boihood and was an amazingly community-driven effort. I'll be pre-ordering that as soon as it's up on the 25th later this month. Another one on my list is Nia King's collection of 16 "unique and honest conversations" entitled Queer and Trans Artists of Color: Stories of Some of Our Lives. Although I believe Nia herself does not identify as trans and/or gender nonconforming, many of the folks she's in conversation with do and their words are important as artists of color.

While I was googling and finding the links for the books on this list I (of course) found tons more that tried to sneak onto this list. I'm holding myself back and ONLY adding two more that are really intriguing me, especially because I don't see much out there by and about trans and gender nonconforming Middle Eastern folks. One is an edited volume entitled Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices and the other is Trish Salah's collection of poems in Wanting in Arabic. These will definitely make it onto my shelves sooner or later.

Of course this list could go on forever, so I just gotta stop somewhere. If your appetite is unquenched (and who could blame you?), here are a couple of other lists to peruse:
Finding Trans Writers in Your Favorite Genres
15 Books By Transgender Women You Need to Read Immediately

HAPPY READING!!