Fresh Transgender and Non-binary Fiction

As readers’ interest in diverse voices and experiences continues to expand, it can be challenging to keep up. Here’s a variety of recent novels and stories that reflect on aspects of transgender and non-binary lives and identities; see our accompanying list for more.

• Homesick: Stories, by Nino Cipri. These surreal and often haunting tales explore human nature, inclusive of neurodiverse, queer, transgender and nonbinary selves.
• Shine of the Ever: Short Stories, by Claire Rudy Foster. A literary mixtape of queer and trans voices out of 1990s Portland.
• Trenton Makes, by Tadzio Koelb. Hardbitten factory worker Abe Kunstler has always been known as a man’s man, ever since she killed her abusive husband and stepped into his shoes.
• Continental Divide, by Alex Myers. Harvard graduate Ron Bancroft heads out west to work at a dude ranch in order to cement his newly emerging manhood.
• Little Fish, by Casey Plett. The author of the Lambda-award-winning collection A Safe Girl to Love tells the story of a Winnipeg trans woman who discovers her devout Mennonite grandfather may have felt trapped in his assigned gender.

• The Beatrix Gates, by Rachel Pollack. This fresh republication of a strange and captivating transgender cult classic combines science fiction, magic realism, memoir, and myth.
• The Seep, by Chana Porter. When aliens turn the earth into a seeming paradise of physical fluidity where anyone can become anything, one Indigenous trans woman sees the darker side.
• Small Beauty, by Jia Qing Wilson-Yang. In this acute and moving novel, the death of her cousin sends Mei into an interrogation of her own warring identities and heritage as a mixed-race trans person of Chinese descent.
• The Right Thing to Do At the Time, by Dov Zeller. Imagine all the wit and confusion of Pride and Prejudice transported to New York, through a Jewish genderqueer lens. < This.
• Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers, Casey Plett and Cat Fitzpatrick, eds. This diverse treasure trove embraces tech-heavy sci-fi, religious parody, zombie gorefest, high fantasy, postapocalyptic survival tale, and more.

We’ve only scratched the surface here: find still more recent trans and non-binary fiction in this list in our catalog.

     ~ Posted by David W.