I started reading fiction again after realizing I needed to transition and wanted to see myself represented. Teenage stories help me imagine what my life would have been like had I transitioned earlier, and learning about other trans experiences helps me feel closer to the larger community. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was surrounded by other closeted queer teens when it wasn’t safe to be out. Writing essays evolved into memoir and eventually fiction, and reading others’ work was a critical part of learning to write my own. The books on this list laid the foundation for my debut novel.
I couldn’t believe how immersive it was and how I couldn’t put it down—probably the fastest read of any 368-page book!
This was the first trans teen coming-of-age book I read, and it became a gateway to the others. It took me back to my own high school life, with all its highs and lows, and it also reflected many of my adult experiences.
Enby girls like me have more in common with a demiboy like Felix than I imagined.
A Stonewall Honor Book * A Time Magazine Best YA Book of All Time
From Stonewall and Lambda Award–winning author Kacen Callender comes a revelatory YA novel about a transgender teen grappling with identity and self-discovery while falling in love for the first time.
Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too…
The plot of a trans kid in stealth at a new school, falling in love for the first time, hooked me.
Spencer had to walk the same line I’ve had to walk, balancing living in stealth with the pull to be more open and come out to the wider world. Justice’s story was equally relatable, coming from a religious family and having to fight to be himself and love who he wants to love.
Love, Simon meets Bend It Like Beckham in this feel-good contemporary romance about a trans athlete who must decide between fighting for his right to play and staying stealth.
“A sharply observant and vividly drawn debut. I loved every minute I spent in this story, and I’ve never rooted harder for a jock in my life.” – New York Times bestselling author Becky Albertalli
Fifteen-year-old Spencer Harris is a proud nerd, an awesome big brother, and a David Beckham in training. He's also transgender. After transitioning at his old school leads to a year of isolation and bullying, Spencer gets…
Quinton Wyatt's summer break before high school should be nothing but wall-to-wall fun. Instead, his best friend has stopped talking to him; his fiendish older sister has filled his head with tales of a sadistic high school ritual called "The Freshman Stomp"; and his divorced father has started dating the…
As a trans woman seeking representation in teen stories, this was my first.
It broke barriers when it was published in 2016—the first widely published trans YA book by a trans woman—and nothing has come close since. Amanda is the complex girl I would have been, minus the opposite-sex attraction.
If I Was Your Girl is the best blend of sweet and bittersweet, with a realistic portrayal of messy, conflicted characters.
If I Was Your Girl
By
Meredith Russo,
What is this book about?
'Important and brave. Read this wonderful book. Just read it' Jennifer Niven
'So powerful and poignant... I honestly just think this book will change a lot of people's lives' Zoe Sugg
Amanda Hardy is the new girl at school.
Like everyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is holding back. Even from Grant, the guy she's falling in love with.
Amanda has a secret.
At her old school, she used to be called Andrew. And secrets always have a way of getting out...
A book about loving yourself and being loved for who…
It’s really hard to find trans girls represented in contemporary YA literature, but when I read Between Perfect and Real, I realized that the plot matters more than the gender.
The closeted trans-masc protagonist, Dean, looks like a lesbian on the surface, and he was a mirror for me, appearing as the closeted trans-femme straight opposite. I couldn’t help but see and love the high school nerds I met in my own high school.
A moving YA debut about a trans boy finding his voice--and himself
Dean Foster knows he's a trans guy. He's watched enough YouTube videos and done enough questioning to be sure. But everyone at his high school thinks he's a lesbian--including his girlfriend Zoe, and his theater director, who just cast him as a "nontraditional" Romeo. He wonders if maybe it would be easier to wait until college to come out. But as he plays Romeo every day in rehearsals, Dean realizes he wants everyone to see him as he really is now--not just on the stage, but everywhere in…
Quinton Wyatt's summer break before high school should be nothing but wall-to-wall fun. Instead, his best friend has stopped talking to him; his fiendish older sister has filled his head with tales of a sadistic high school ritual called "The Freshman Stomp"; and his divorced father has started dating the…
Rachel Gold’s story about a trans girl’s struggle to come out and transition is the OG of all trans girl coming-of-age stories.
It rings so true that I nearly gave up on the novel I’d spent three years writing when I discovered it! It’s got my chilly Minnesota roots, a conservative therapist, and a religious friend who struggles to accept her.
This book is about me, published three years before my own awakening, and it revealed itself to me only after I’d done my best to capture my transition through teenage eyes. It’s simply mind-blowing how universal a trans-femme experience can be.
Being Emily
By
Rachel Gold,
What is this book about?
They say that whoever you are it’s okay, you were born that way. Those words don’t comfort Emily, because she was born Christopher and her insides know that her outsides are all wrong.
They say that it gets better, be who you are and it’ll be fine. For Emily, telling her parents who she really is means a therapist who insists Christopher is normal and Emily is sick. Telling her girlfriend means lectures about how God doesn’t make that kind of mistake.
Emily desperately wants high school in her small Minnesota town to get better. She wants to be the…
Jennie’s awkward teenage life is upended when she discovers she’s not a boy. With her parents divorced, her father missing, and finding herself falling in love with Gabby, she’s got enough to deal with already. The only way out of spiraling anxiety is to learn about gender identity and become Jenny Heckenlaible.
With help from her girlfriend, school counselor, doctor, and mother, she charts a path to self-discovery and gender euphoria while secretly blogging about what led to her revelation and everything it took to become a Heckenlaible. Jenny’s transformation spans four years, from her gender awakening to becoming a visible advocate for her trans community.
