November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors the memory of the transgender people whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. We’ve put together a list of books to spread awareness about the lives of transgender people and provide educational resources on gender.
Gender Outlaw was decades ahead of its time when it was first published in 1994. Now, some twenty-odd years later, this book stands as both a classic and a still-revolutionary work—one that continues to push us gently but profoundly to the furthest borders of the gender frontier.
Informative, heartbreaking, and profoundly empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is Sarah McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQIA+ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender.
In this extraordinary memoir, Akwaeke Emezi weaves through transformative decisions about their gender and body, their precipitous path to success as a writer, and the turmoil of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual plane, culminating in a book that is as tender as it is brutal.
In this powerful, timely, and eye-opening account, Arlene Stein documents the varied ways younger trans men see themselves, drawing from dozens of interviews with transgender people and their friends and families, as well as with activists and medical and psychological experts.
Here is the inspiring true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and an ordinary American family’s extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all. It’s a story of standing up for your beliefs and yourself—and it will inspire all of us to do the same.
A deeply personal story of trauma and healing, a powerful reflection on gender and self-acceptance, Sissy is a heart-wrenching and eye-opening memoir about what it’s like to grow up not sure if you’re (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above.
Here is a singular, beautifully written coming-of-age memoir of a Filipino boy with albinism whose story travels from an immigrant childhood to Harvard to a gender transition and navigates through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and the author’s place within the gay community.
She’s Not There is the unconventional memoir of a person who changes genders, a portrait of a loving marriage that withstands a radical change, and a revealing look at society’s folly in over-emphasizing the importance of fixed gender roles. Jennifer Boylan explores the dramatic outward changes and unexpected results of life as a woman.
Burn the Page is an inspirational memoir-meets-manifesto by Danica Roem, the nation’s first openly trans person elected to US state legislature, about how it’s possible to set fire to the stories you don’t want to be in anymore and rewrite your own future, whether that’s running for politics, in your work, or your personal life.
