A Reading List for Trans Teens
Curated by Hal Schrieve, as seen in Shapeless Press's TEEN ZINE.
Big Resources
A vast collection of PDFs of trans novels and works of nonfiction.
An interactive, magic-tinged art piece/video game that is therapy, prayer, and a tool for reflecting on and connecting to the history of Black trans people,
Curated by Bridgett Pride at the New York Public Library. Warning for audio voiceover and flashing colors at times.
"In Flamboyants, George M. Johnson celebrates writers, performers, and activists from 1920s Black America whose sexualities have been obscured throughout history. Through 14 essays, Johnson reveals how American culture has been shaped by icons who are both Black andQueer - and whose stories deserve to be celebrated in their entirety." - Rep.Club
"In June 2012, Ms. McDonald was sentenced to forty-one months in prison for stabbing an assailant during a racist, transphobic attack against her in Minneapolis (detailed in letters that follow). Her arrest for an act of self-defense and subsequent placement in men’s correctional facilities galvanized local, national, and transnational communities of support who protested that McDonald 'was the victim of a hate crime, a broken justice system, and a transphobic, violent prison complex,' in the words of the National LGBTQ Task Force (2016)." - Omise’eke Natasha Tinsely
A collection of old-as-balls trans magazines and archival materials online for free until someone takes Internet Archive down.
Audio
A history podcast by Morgan M Page, bringing you all the dirt, gossip, and glamour from trans history.
A podcast run by four Melbourne-based queer people with a background in history and a passion for sharing queer stories, exploring topics and figures from around the world, and examining their place in the wider context of queer history.
Tuck Woodstock’s trans interview podcast covering everyone from writers to lawyers to performance artists who are real and doing things right now.
An NYC based collection of interviews with trans people young and old, important and self-important.
Texts I Specifically (As Just Some Motherfucker) Recommend
We are not natural; we are created in collaboration and stolen from our gatekeepers, monstrous, constructed, cyberpunk, beautiful.
About a runaway trans girl teen who gets involved in a street gang that fights abusive cops with magic and a manifesto on how to organize and build better futures without killing each other, the ones we are closest to.
"A collection of formally inventive writing by trans poets against capital and empire." - Nightboat Books
About a trans woman in her thirties having a crisis. Funny descriptions of depression; a model for how to blow your life to bits even after your initial trans drama is over.
About a demonic violin teacher whose heart is melted by a trans girl who loves video game music. Also, alien refugees and doughnuts. Super sentimental weirdo sci fi fantasy.
Capitalist generation spaceship, a healer-mechanic living in the wake of a foiled revolution, two genderfailed autists from different castes, a haunted, brutal culture that needs an end to hierarchy. Upsetting but with a pumping blood heart, indicating that the only path away from hell is back to Earth.
Cuts through a lot of the bullshit to clearly state a thesis about how trans womanhood has been engineered as a uniquely harm-able social category, how it hasn’t always been that way, and how it is in fact connected to colonialism.
Noble trans boy turns monstrosity into justice in the face of cartoonish one-dimensional villain violence linked to Evangelical America. I would say tone is like, Miyazaki Howl meets a little bit of horror. Cathartic.
Get loose with it, get funky, get funny; we need comics and cartoons operating on a ridiculous plane to get through this.
If you want to read about a Black trans demiboy being a chaotic twink, this is the book for you.
About three trans lesbians who love each other as teenagers online in the 90s and the magic they must come back together to complete.
Richly-illustrated science fiction comic short stories, one of which is about trans geographers reimagining South Asia by drawing a map with their blood.
Novelette about tmascs resisting transphobic violence with aggressive monstrosity in 1920s Appalachia. And being a freak.
Extremely useful zine compiled by trans women (and affiliates) who have lived through the 90s-00s.
About a genderqueer shapeshifting naif in the 1990s. If you’re a distractible but passionate queer who likes music, fashion, and romance, this is the most fun you will ever have while reading, I promise.
About being trans(masc), a dyke, also working class, romantic, sad and (at points) in a butch-femme dynamic that’s the bright spot of joy in a dark old time.
About how the Iraq War/American Empire is bad, it’s hard to be marginal and take a stand for justice, but antizionist Jews must, because solidarity saves our souls and our friends. Leslie says: cops are all our enemies and the young trans kids seem to be having fun now (in 2003).
Ranks your self harms and coping mechanisms from worstest deadliest to funnest and friendliest, and gives you full power to decide and talks really rationally about how anything at all, including getting a weird tattoo, being insane, eating a whole cake, etc, is better than the world losing you. And it is.