Transgender Awareness Week is a time to celebrate and recognise the contributions of the transgender community and to raise awareness of the continued issues faced by transgender people everyday. The Library’s LGBTQIA+ Ally group has compiled a reading list which highlights transgender stories, lives and experiences from around the world.
Transgender Awareness Week, observed 13–19 November, is a one-week celebration leading up to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which memorialises victims of transphobic violence.
Stone Butch Blues: a novel
Author: Leslie Feinberg
Woman or man? This internationally acclaimed novel looks at the world through the eyes of Jess Goldberg, a masculine girl growing up in the “Ozzie and Harriet” McCarthy era and coming out as a young butch lesbian in the pre-Stonewall gay drag bars of a blue-collar town.
Gender Euphoria
Author: Laura Kate Dale
Nineteen trans, non-binary, agender, gender-fluid and intersex writers share their experiences of gender euphoria: an agender dominatrix being called ‘Daddy’, an Arab trans man getting his first tattoos, a trans woman embracing her inner fighter. What they have in common are their feelings of elation, pride, confidence, freedom and ecstasy as a direct result of coming out as non-cisgender, and how coming to terms with their gender has brought unimaginable joy into their lives.
Beyond Gender Binaries
Author: Cindy L. Griffin
Taking readers outside the familiar binary constructions of gender and identity, Cindy L. Griffin addresses—through a feminist intersectional lens—communication, identity, power and privilege, personhood and citizenship, safety in public and private spaces, and hegemony and colonialism.
Gender Pioneers
Author: Philippa Punchard
This inspiring collection of illustrated portraits celebrates the lives of influential transgender, non-binary and intersex figures throughout history. Showcasing the diversity of gender identities and expressions that have existed in all cultures alongside developments from recent years, the extraordinary stories in this book highlight the achievements and legacies of those who have fought to be themselves, whatever their gender.
Transgender Resistance: Socialism and the fight for trans liberation
Author: Laura Miles
Trans rights and trans lives have come under increasingly vicious ideological attack in recent times, from the ‘bathroom wars’ and Donald Trump’s anti-trans edicts in the United States, to attacks on proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act in Britain. Laura Miles’ book brings together key strands in the resistance to these attacks on the streets, in communities, in workplaces and in unions.
Transgender Warriors: making history from Joan of Arc to RuPaul
Author: Leslie Feinberg
A copiously illustrated survey of historical and contemporary figures who have resisted the gender conventions of their day, from the Welsh peasants who cross-dressed to protest taxes to today’s transsexual parents.
Redefining realness : my path to womanhood, identity, love & so much more
Author: Janet Mock
In this landmark book, an extraordinary young woman recounts her coming-of-age as a transgender teen. This is a deeply personal and empowering portrait of self-revelation, adversity, and heroism.