Today is Trans Day of Visibility, and we’re celebrating as we do by highlighting a whole bunch of wonderful trans books! For even more recs, check out previous years’ posts.
Children’s Fiction
Sebastian Metzger Solves a Sticky Situation by Kyle Lukoff and Kat Fajardo
This is the 11th book in the The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class series
Meet the kids in Mrs. Z’s wacky and wonderful third grade class! Sebastian Metzger is overjoyed when he checks out a brand-new book on octopodes from the school library, but everything goes awry when the book gets ruined.
Sebastian Metzger loves learning new things, especially about animals. He’s actually been experiencing many new things recently: third grade marks his first year living as a boy. Some things don’t change, though. His imaginary friend, Jimothy the chipmunk, is always by his side!
When Sebastian spots a new book in the school library on octopodes, he just knows he has to check it out. The only problem is: this book is so new, the librarian hasn’t even prepared it to be checked out! Sebastian promises to take great care of it, and the librarian makes an exception.
But when his little sister accidentally ruins the book, Sebastian is devastated. Will Sebastian find a way to save the library book and redeem himself?
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
Middle Grade Fiction
Ice Apprentices by Jacob North
Tundra is the last settlement in a world of ice. Oswin Fields is its only stray—a foundling rescued from the ice who many think is a drain on scarce resources meant for Tundrans. Then Oswin is summoned to Corridor by Grandmaster Yarrow to learn magic, finally giving him a chance to prove his worth.
But Oswin barely has time to embrace his new role before his fellow apprentices start being attacked by monsters. Perhaps even worse, he learns his deceased adopted uncle is considered the most infamous Tundran to ever have lived and might have left followers behind who want to destroy the settlement.
Now grappling with an unwanted legacy and mysterious foes, Oswin must look deep inside himself for the strength to prove he belongs in Tundra.
Realmsweep by H.E. Edgmon (October 13, 2026)
In a fantastical version of the United States filled to the brim with magic and dragons, the tween prince of Texas must compete in a notoriously dangerous scavenger hunt.
Rowdy Buckner, the twelve-year-old prince of Texas, has a problem. More than anything, he wants access to the transfiguration tonics that will transform him from head to toe into the prince he is, in a body that feels more his down. His parents are skeptical–not because they aren’t supportive, but because they don’t believe that self-absorbed, spoiled Rowdy is responsible enough to be trusted with such powerful magic just yet.
In order prove himself, Rowdy signs up to compete in Realmsweep, a notoriously dangerous scavenger hunt held across the Allied Lands every five years, and sends his personal guard to assemble a team. The resulting ragtag crew of preteens isn’t exactly impressive at first glance, but they’re all Rowdy has. With them, he’ll face off against everything from monstrous creatures to the monstrosity of humans, and maybe, if he’s lucky, become the person he so desperately wants to be.
Young Adult Fiction
Time-Tripping Over You by Brennon Lane
College freshman Silas Turner is a scientific anomaly. Thrown back in time uncontrollably, he’s forced into his pre-transition body for hours to days at a time, reliving random events in his past. Why? Every cell in his astrophysics major brain is straining to figure it out. But the “time trips” just keep on coming, disrupting Silas’s life, and he’s certain he’s a one-of-a-kind phenomenon—until brash, guitar-playing Jude Forrester barges into his life, exhibiting the same symptoms.
He claims a future version of Silas visited him, and that, according to future-Silas, they’re meant to help each other stop the time trips. If working together can really lead to finding a cure, Silas can handle Jude’s tortured-artist attitude; Jude can humor Silas’s nerdy obsession with the stars.
As they get closer to a solution, they grow closer to each other. But Jude is still grieving an old connection that broke his heart, and he can’t help but wonder if changing the past might save himself and Silas a lot of heartache. Amidst cataclysmic consequences, Silas and Jude must face the cosmic circumstances that brought them together if they hope to protect their timeline—and the future they seem destined to share.
Queen of Faces by Petra Lord
Anabelle Gage is trapped in a male body, and it’s rotting from the inside out. In Caimor, where the magical elite buy and swap designer bodies like clothes, Ana can’t afford to escape her tattered form. When she fails the entrance exam to the prestigious Paragon Academy, her last hope of earning a new body implodes. As the clock ticks down to her last breath, she’s forced to use her illusion magic to steal a healthy chassis—before her own kills her.
But Ana is caught by none other than the headmaster of Paragon Academy, who poses a brutal ultimatum: face execution for her crime or become a mercenary at his command. Revolt brews in Caimor’s smog-choked underworld, and the wealthy and powerful will stop at nothing to take down the rebels and the infamous dark witch at their helm, the Black Wraith.
With no choice but to accept, Ana will steal, fight, and kill her way to salvation. But her survival depends on a dangerous band of renegades: an impulsive assassin, a brooding bombmaker, and an alluring exile who might just spell her ruin. As Ana is drawn into a tangled web of secrets, the line between villain and hero shatters—and Ana must decide which side is worth dying for.
This Wretched Beauty by Elle Grenier
Happiness needs to be earned in the face of impossible odds, or there’s no beauty in it.
London, 1867. Dorian Gray is the heir to a title and their family’s estate, but they’ve never been given the chance to decide whether that’s actually what they want out of life. Forcibly estranged from their father by their manipulative grandfather, Dorian feels trapped in the life that has been decided for them.
Then one night they sneak out of their grandfather’s house, they meet a sweet and talented young painter named Basil, who immediately recognizes Dorian as his new muse. They agree to sit for Basil for a portrait, and Dorian is struck by the beauty and depth that Basil paints into their likeness―and they dare to begin hoping there might be more to life than being their grandfather’s perfect, empty-headed heir.
Dorian is further elated when Basil introduces them to the world of molly houses and drag performers―they’ve never seen such joyful variety of humanity and gender expression. But Dorian’s rosy outlook is shattered when a police investigation into Dorian’s favorite performer, Sybil Vane, implicates them in “indecent” activities. Terrified of their grandfather’s wrath, Dorian offers evidence against Sybil in a panic, and immediately hates themself for turning on a new friend. Finally breaking free of their grandfather’s control, Dorian flees to a country estate, but the damage has been done.
Dorian falls into a terrible downward spiral, torn between guilt over their own actions and hatred for the suffocating expectations of society. They push away Basil and their father, surrounding themself instead with vapid courtiers and decadent socialites. And as Dorian’s spiral of self-loathing deepens, something strange happens―Basil’s portrait of them begins to change. Their smile becomes a little sharper, the glint in their eyes a little colder.
Dorian will have to choose―embrace the wickedness within and allow themself to become what they were always meant to be, or dare to try for something far more fragile and dangerous: a life of their own making.
The Beast You Let In by Dana Mele (April 7, 2026)
There is no one Hazel trusts less than her self-centered twin, Beth. So when Beth abandons her at a party she didn’t want to attend in the first place, Hazel decides not to let it ruin her night. She throws herself into flirting and telling ghost stories over a Ouija board. Hazel might not be the popular twin, but she is going to have fun if it kills her.
Except Beth doesn’t come home that night, and Hazel’s anger morphs into anxiety. It only sharpens when Beth reappears a day later, disoriented and claiming to be Veronica Green, a teen who was murdered in their small town years before. If it isn’t a possession, Beth is really good at faking it. Did they accidentally release a vengeful horror during the party?
Hazel must uncover what happened to Veronica all those years ago if she’s going to save Beth. But the truth may destroy them both―if they don’t destroy each other first.
Meet Me at the Picket Line by Jasper Sanchez (May 26, 2026)
All’s fair in love and solidarity…
Eli Goldstein might be the only teenager looking forward to earning minimum wage at his objectively terrible summer job. Not only will he be working at the kitschy roadside museum he loves, he’ll finally have the down payment for his top surgery with a first-class surgeon.
But the museum really is a late-stage capitalist hellscape, and Eli’s co-workers—led by his irritatingly self-righteous and annoyingly attractive school rival, Efraín—plan to unionize. With his sanity and safety at risk on the job, Eli knows he has to join their campaign.
If he and Efraín can stop bickering long enough to keep their ragtag union together, they might actually have a shot. But when management begins to grow suspicious, Eli will have to make a choice: Is he willing to stand in solidarity with his friends and the boy he’s starting to fall for, even if it means risking his job and the key to his life-changing surgery?
The Names We Buried by Mia Siegert (June 2, 2026)
Jaden’s seventeenth birthday was meant to be monumental. As a surprise, his dad and Jaden’s boyfriend, Andy, arranged to take him to the courthouse to get his name changed to reflect his gender. But, horrifyingly, the clerk accuses Jaden’s dad of forging Jaden’s original birth certificate, and due to his criminal past, he’s arrested.
Heartbroken but also suspicious, Jaden secretly takes a DNA test and makes an even more shocking discovery: he’s not biologically related to his dad. Jaden can’t imagine his mother cheating, but the truth might be worse — further DNA testing also identifies Jaden as a perfect genetic match for a couple who have spent the last seventeen years searching for their kidnapped child.
Their kidnapped daughter.
After years of struggling to come to terms with his gender identity as well as his parents’ complicated pasts, Jaden is forced to re-evaluate everything. Who is he really? And where does he belong? With the dad who raised and loved him, and supported his transition without question? Or with the parents Jaden’s never met, who might never be able to accept Jaden as their son?
Where You’ll Find Us by Jen St. Jude (June 2, 2026)
Calla Quick has no future. At least, that’s how it feels. Her parents disowned her via text message, and now she can’t afford to go to an all-women’s college with her girlfriend Ramona like they planned. But Calla wonders if maybe that’s for the best-because even though Calla told Ramona her parents disowned her because they found out she’s gay, the truth is, Calla has been questioning whether she’s a girl at all.
Calla wishes she had more time to figure everything out, and one night, her wish is seemingly granted. When Calla and Ramona stumble upon a mysterious farmhouse the woods, they meet five teens who claim they’ve lived there for decades. The land, which they call Amaranth, acts as a safe haven for queer kids throughout history-a place free of hate, free of violence, free of time itself. Here, Calla can be Cal, and they feel instantly accepted. They don’t have to worry about the future because at Amaranth, it will never come-until one night when the clock strikes twelve. Now under a literal ticking clock, the housemates must find a way to stop time again or face going back to their harsh realities, but as Cal learns everyone’s story, they begin to wonder what queer people lose when their history is lost to time.
Devils We Know by L.T. Thompson (June 9, 2026)
This is the sequel to Devils Like Us
We need to find Death.
Cas, Remy, and Finn are on the run from the Order of Lazarus, a secret society that wants to use Cas’s prophetic powers to capture Death and ensure that only the “unworthy” and “immoral” will meet their ends. Which will not only upend nature’s balance but also tear apart the only place the friends have ever felt safe to be themselves: Aboard the Mori, where Cas can live openly as a trans boy, and where Remy and Finn are beginning to fall for each other. No matter what, they can’t let that happen.
To protect their found family of queer sailors, the three teens will need to find Death first and strike a bargain of their own. But the society is hot on their heels-and so is a demon who’s determined to claim the soul he’s owed.
But I Hate Him by Page Powars (August 25, 2026)
Rory is academic royalty.
As the heir to the most successful tutoring company in the world, he can be nothing less than perfect if he wants to gain his parents’ approval. So it’s simple. Rory studies harder than anyone else. He does not make mistakes. And he never loses.
Except to Luca Melendez. The infuriatingly good-looking hockey player who wins every academic competition without even trying.
When Rory has a very public meltdown, throwing a smoothie at Luca and shattering his own public image in the process – it feels like one more thing Luca ruined.
To salvage his reputation, Rory has his sights set on winning the most cutthroat academic camp in the country, BRAIN. There is nothing standing between Rory and the final medal.
Until, Luca Melendez shows up.
This means war and Rory has the perfect plan: Make Luca fall in love with him.
And then break Luca’s heart right before the final competition.
Cemetery Boys:
Julian used to be a ghost and now he can’t stop seeing them.
Ever since being sacrificed as part of a forbidden ritual, Julian has been able to see and communicate with the spirits of passed brujx. And that would be okay, if it allowed him to be part of his new boyfriend’s community. But Julian’s also seeing other things: shadows in the corner of his eyes, glowing eyes in the dark, and “dark spots” on people – gaping, black gashes that are somehow wrong. He did ask his new magical boyfriend about it, but Yadriel has never heard of anything like it either, and he’s so busy with his new Brujx responsibilities, trying to figure out where all the new malingos are coming from, that Julian hates for his problems to ruin what little time together they have.
Then, a strange new brujx shows up. Ángel, as a nonbinary brujx, can heal the living and release the dead, but more than that, they can also see the same dark spots as Julian. Despite Yadriel’s reservations, Julian eagerly accepts their help. But, Ángel’s ruthless methods feel wrong to Julian, who wants to move away from hurting others.
With the shadows growing darker, and the discovery of a gaping dark spot on his friend Luca, Julian has to decide who he wants to put his trust in, and just how far he’s willing to go to save what is his.
To Our Untamed Core by Sonido Reyes (September 22, 2026)
Centuries after the conquistadors claimed the Afueras for their own, Temo spends his life obeying the Holy Order’s decree, undergoing their sacraments to tame his supposedly violent nature.
The only rule he breaks: hiding that he’s trans. If that fact is discovered, Temo will face El Torneo, a brutal, fight-to-the-death game pitting the untamed against one another. No Afuereño who enters El Torneo ever escapes with their life.
But when Temo’s boyfriend is unexpectedly arrested and thrown into the deadly tournament, he’ll do anything to rescue Ollin from his gruesome fate, even if it means entering El Torneo himself.
Only there’s far more to this tournament than meets the eye—survival is just the beginning. When the cost of saving the one he loves the most might be higher than he ever imagined, is Temo willing to pay it?
You’re No Better by Andrew Joseph White (October 20, 2026)
Morgan Slaughter, a seventeen-year-old trans boy with autism, put his serial killer father in prison years ago. Despite that, everyone thinks Morgan will grow up to be just like his dad: including his volatile mother, the documentary crew following their family, and maybe himself.
Desperately, Morgan latches onto his father’s final victim—the only one who was never identified—hoping that if he unravels the mystery, he’ll finally prove he’s better than the man who hurt him. But this puts Morgan in the crosshairs of classmate Felicity Keating, who knows the truth about Morgan’s childhood—that he wasn’t just a witness to his father’s brutality, he was an accomplice. And if he doesn’t let them help with his investigation? They’ll tell everyone.
Forced to confront his past, Morgan’s ugly but carefully controlled world unravels. The film crew is manipulative. His mother’s temper spirals into malice, then violence. And Morgan and Felicity may be more tightly intertwined than either of them can stomach . . .
The Unpoetic Life of August Grey by Max Fischer (October 20, 2026)
You can only hold your breath underwater for three minutes before you go unconscious. For seventeen-year-old August Grey, life in his small Nebraska town has felt like that endless third minute ever since his best friend Waylon died.
When August earns a coveted spot at a prestigious summer writing program in New York, he believes it’s his one chance to heal – and to keep the promise made to Waylon to pursue his dream. But New York brings its own challenges: a strained reunion with an estranged father, the weight of trying to write without Waylon there, and the unexpected arrival of Levi, August’s old crush who knows nothing of his failed coming out.
As August wrestles with grief, secrets, and the tentative spark of new love, he must decide if he can finally surface – embracing his queer identity and the joy of being himself before the past threatens to drown his future.
Buy it: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N
Should I Stay or Should You Go? by Kyle Lukoff (February 9, 2027)
For Thomas, matriculating at Erikson, the storied Ivy League University on New York’s Upper West Side, is about more than trading in small-town Vermont for life in the big city. It’s about returning to the place he was born, walking the same streets his late uncle did in his early 20s, and finally, finally getting a chance to ditch the “nice trans boy” persona he’s been carrying since coming out in middle school. Not that Thomas isn’t nice or trans, but he longs to be just one of the guys, another face in the crowd.
Blending in has never been Annabelle’s aim, but ever since her most recent (and most disastrous) breakup, she’s been counting down the days until she can escape Seattle’s claustrophobic queer scene for the relative anonymity of NYC. No one at Gilman College, or its sibling school Erikson, knows anything about Annabelle or her exes. It’s the perfect fresh start, and this time, everything will be different.
When Thomas and Annabelle meet, their connection is electric. Neither one can believe they’ve found someone so perfect before classes even start. But as the heady thrill of new love (and lust) begins to fade, both teens will discover that what you think you want isn’t always what you need.
Adult Fiction
Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky
In 1977, a group called The Spiritual Association of Peers decamps to the woods of the Catskills, taking over an abandoned summer camp. They name their new home Simplicity.
In 2081, scholar Lucius Pasternak, a fastidiously organized trans man, tries to keep his head down living in the New York City Administrative and Security Territory, which was founded after the formal dissolution of the United States in 2041. Then, he’s offered a job by the mayor, billionaire real estate developer Dennis Van Wervel, to complete an anthropological survey of the people of Simplicity for a history museum he’s financing. A wary Lucius is nevertheless drawn in by the people of the small wooded community, intrigued by its strange rituals and in particular by the charming acolyte Amity Crown-Shy. Born and raised on the compound, Amity is comfortable in their own skin, a striking contrast to Lucius’ repressed reserve. But Lucius’ control starts to slip when he begins to suffer visions both terrifying and sensual—visits from beautiful but nightmarish creatures.
Then, just as Lucius discovers that Van Wervel’s project is more sinister than it seemed, members of the community begin to disappear, leaving behind grisly signs of struggle. The denizens of Simplicity believe that a being they call “The Lamentation” is responsible for the attacks. Amity and Lucius set out to hunt for the creature in the dangerous Exurb Zones, a wild wood full of libertarian doomsday preppers, wealthy isolationists, and worse. There, they’ll finally discover the true threat to their way of life—and what they’re willing to do to stop it.
Pumped by K.M. Neuhold
I’m just a nerd, standing in front of a bench press, asking it not to humiliate me in front of my gym crush
I’ve never walked into a gym on purpose in my life, and I’m not sure which part is more shocking, the massive beefcake who immediately challenges me to arm wrestle or the fact that I kind of want to come back.
I spent years of my life refusing to lift anything heavier than a textbook, and it shows. I never expected that coming to the gym and bulking up would give me more gender euphoria than all the T shots in the world.
The crush I’m developing on my Golden Retriever of a personal trainer, Butch, though? Yeah, I should have seen that one coming.
Butch is a guy’s guy. Jockstraps, armpit licking, Sweat enthusiast… what could he possibly find exciting about a scrawny, book-ish nerd like me?
I’m just going to try not to drool on him too hard while he helps me get pumped. And I’m for sure not going to do anything stupid like falling in love with him…
Buy it: Amazon
Crawl: Stories by Max Delsohn
A darkly comic, introspective debut collection that looks beneath the surface of trans life in 2010s Seattle
People called it paradise, but baby, it wasn’t.
What to do when starting testosterone unlocks a newfound desire for men? How to respond when your boss’s boss asks if you’ve had “the surgery” and then requests you talk her niece out of transitioning? What obligation do you have to intervene in the faltering mental health of the baby trans drug dealer you’ve met only once while tripping on the acid he sold you?
The young transmasculine characters in Crawl navigate these and other questions in the dive bars, bathhouses, parks, workplaces, music venues, beaches, and college campuses of 2010s Seattle. Max Delsohn’s stories―by turns exuberant, heartfelt, tragic, and wry―portray the pleasures and pains of sex and romance, the possibilities and ambivalences of gender expression, and the joys and failures of community in a city and a time that has branded itself a radical queer utopia but proves much more complicated in reality.
As Old As Thyme by Alix Nicoud
Brunehaut lives a dangerous existence as her village wise woman, brewing abortion potions and body-altering elixirs for women like her, despite the townsfolk’s growing suspicion of her unconventional ways. When her childhood best friend Théoderic suddenly crashes back into her life after years of separation, everything she’s built threatens to crumble.
Like Brunehaut, Théoderic has shed his past, but he’s chosen a more dangerous path, now posing as nobility while peddling false remedies to her very clients, threatening to shatter the delicate trust she’s worked years to build. Yet beneath his deception, Théoderic is captivated by Brunehaut’s transformation into the woman she was always meant to be, and desperately longs for the same miraculous change for himself.
As Brunehaut rediscovers the boy she once loved in the man he’s become, they must navigate a world that would condemn them both. Together, they’ll risk everything for love, authenticity, and the chance to build a life where they can finally be themselves.
As Théoderic embraces his true identity, Brunehaut finds herself drawn to her old friend in ways she never expected, rediscovering the boy she once knew in the man he’s becoming. Their time together reawakens feelings long buried, but as their bond deepens, they must navigate a world that would condemn them both for daring to live as their authentic selves.
Buy it: Amazon
Crush by L. Dreamer
When Mia Torwood’s husband Tom buys a winery on a whim, she decides to make the best of it. But when he dies of a heart attack during their first grape harvest, Mia is left grief-stricken. She also finds out that the winery is in debt and she must replace her indispensable vineyard manager, Jose.
All Cal Sanders wants is to grow grapes and make great wine. When an opportunity arises to manage a vineyard on the central coast of California, he jumps at the chance—happy to get away from his transphobic, small-minded conservative town. He just wants to live the life he’s always wanted to, as the man he’s always been.
As Mia and Cal navigate the challenges of running a winery, they encounter a disgruntled employee, unravel an extraordinary mystery, and find a deep connection growing between them that takes them both by surprise.
The Iridescents: Stories by Emrys Donaldson
Steeped in a fabulist version of the American South, The Iridescents highlights how the LGBTQ+ community transforms everyday acts of support and survival into miracles, redefining sainthood and spiritual history through the lens of queer resilience and fierce joy. A trans man visits a donut shop with his ailing dog to pray for advice. Genderqueer lovers search the desert for a ballerina saint. Three-hundred-year-old crustacean oracles predict the future of our oceans. Blending irreverence with reverence, these stories explore the contemporary yearning to find meaning in something larger than ourselves.
Work to Do by Jules Wernersbach (April 7, 2026)
When Eleanor founded Guadalupe Street Co-op in the early 1980s, she was in her mid-twenties and madly in love with her girlfriend, Meg. Together, they envisioned an idyllic grocery store owned by its workers and customers.
Forty years later, Guadalupe Street Co-op is an iconic Austin business with a loyal customer base, an antiquated business model, and a disgruntled staff. Roz, one of the store’s senior managers, is too caught up stalking her ex-wife online to notice that her girlfriend, Molly, is plotting with her coworkers to unionize. Roz also doesn’t see that Molly is not-so-secretly in a situationship with Randy, the dairy manager leading their collective.
Unfolding over the course of a single week during Texas hurricane season, Work to Do pings between the co-op’s first year and present day, as the unionization bid reaches fever pitch. The wind howls, the power goes out, and water creeps through the front door as questions of who owns the grocery store and who has a right to its future are posed. And will the workers ever be paid enough to buy the organic groceries they shelve?
Afternoon Hours of a Hermit by Patrick Cottrell (April 21, 2026)
And who did I think I was, trying to teach the troubled youth how to write?…
I would say I was Dan Moran, a Korean adoptee, single, approaching forty, once plain-in-appearance as a woman, now ugly as a man, that’s who or what I thought I was.
Most importantly, I was no longer useless, I was a writer.
Five years after the death of his youngest brother, Dan Moran is now the published trans author of the autofictional novel Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. He is teaching fiction in Brooklyn and working on his next book–a psychological thriller–when a mysterious envelope arrives for him in the mail. Addressed to the wrong name, it includes a childhood photo of his deceased brother. But who would send such a thing, and why?
Against his better judgment, Dan returns to his childhood home on the eve of his brother’s memorial dinner. His estranged family is surprised to see him, but he ignores them. He drives around in his brother’s Honda Accord, believing he is a detective. He searches for a constellation of unidentified women who may have been involved with his brother, all while being mistaken for another man. He hopes his investigation will reveal exactly who he was to his brother, but in a series of unsettling and destabilizing encounters, what he discovers is the irrevocable distance between who we are and how we are perceived.
Shy Trans Banshee by Tony Santorella (May 5, 2026)
Brian, Nik, and Darby—three friends well-versed in battling supernatural crime (when Brian isn’t busy committing it once a month as a werewolf)—are dispatched to London to track down a missing colleague. But prowling the city leads them straight into a clairvoyancy smuggling ring.
Who is kidnapping all the fortune tellers in Soho, and why? And is it a coincidence, fate, or something far more sinister that Maeve—a timid trans woman searching for her birth mother—arrives on their doorstep with the uncanny ability to predict what’s coming next?
Ignore All Previous Instructions by Ada Hoffman (May 12, 2026)
Kelli Reynolds loves creating stories more than anything in the world. But on Callisto, a generative AI company called Inspiration owns everything, including all the media, and only Inspiration determines which stories can be told.
Kelli has a rare and coveted job where her autism is to her advantage: She precisely edits AI output into “appropriate” stories for Inspiration’s massive TV audience. Her proudest creation is the pirate Orlando―a dashing do-gooder based on stories she used to tell friends.
Reenter Kelli’s ex-boyfriend Rowan, the person Kelli based Orlando on. Back when they were teenagers, their relationship was a secret. Kelli had thought that Rowan, a trans man, was her schoolmate Am, a girl.
Rowan is tangled up in the black market after he needed to get money for gender reassignment surgery. He needs Kelli’s help with something . . . illegal. So, now Kelli has to decide: Will she risk the safe, tidy story of her life now for the world she once wished for? What would Orlando do?
Again, Harder by Alice Stoehr (May 12, 2026)
Cult author Alice Stoehr’s debut short fiction collection about the messy, intersecting lives of a community of Midwestern trans women.
Again, Harder gathers the uncompromising short fiction of Alice Stoehr, which investigates the inner lives, evolving relationships, and often violent marginalization of a community of trans women in a large Midwestern town.
In these stories, a commune of trans separatists seduces a suicidal writer. An obsessive TERF and the trans woman she’s fixated on circle one another with building intensity. Polyamorous triads bloom and wilt, hookup app messages fly, friends sit for post-surgical care, and women fall to the toxic allure of Dorothy Lipko, the worst ex-girlfriend you have ever known.
Among this, there is regret, there is poverty, there is depression and sexual anxiety and despair; there is also fleeting, shared joy.
The House of Now and Then by Edward Underhill (May 19, 2026)
Harlowe could use a break. With his academic future over, just like his relationship with his long-term boyfriend Jackson, a suspiciously cheap summer rental on the Cape feels like just the escape he needs.
But when he arrives at the picturesque seaside cottage, he’s alarmed to find his discouraging former professor in the living room. His father making coffee in the kitchen. And a handsome young repairman fixing things in the bedroom. Worst of all, Jackson is in the bathroom. None of them will leave. No one else can see them. And they won’t leave him alone.
The house isn’t magic only for Harlowe, and as the summer grows hot and thick with tourists, old wounds and fresh secrets—both in and outside its walls—begin to transform him. It’s clear the house is trying to tell him something, and he’s sure it has to do with the mysterious repairman who suddenly seems to be everywhere he looks… But can Harlowe let go of the past long enough to listen?
Plastic, Prism, Void by Violet Allen (May 19, 2026)
Acrasia is in the ultimate long-distance relationship: with Opus Zhao, a man from another universe. She was a trans girl who was also an intergalactic moth-goddess. He was a trans guy who piloted a giant robotic tiger. They hated each other, then fell in love, then their universes moved apart. Now, years later, he’s turned up in her dimension again. What won’t she do to keep him there?
All Us Saints by Katherine Packert Burke (May 19, 2026
Exactly 19 years ago, in May of 1992, 17-year-old Roland St. Cloud fatally stabbed his twin sister Edna’s three best friends. The slaying became instant tabloid fodder leading to a bestselling true-crime book and horror movie franchise. Each year on the anniversary of her family’s undoing, Edna reenacts the murders. She is joined by her husband, Roger, the night’s definitive chronicler; her younger sister Calla, a failed playwright who spends her days lost in online gaming; her younger brother James and his girlfriend Heather; and her teenage daughter Wren. Together, the St. Cloud family seals the windows and doors of the house and lights a grim candle. After their macabre theatrics there’s nothing to do but wait for dawn, talk among themselves, and remember.
The Dinner Party by Cat Fitzpatrick (May 19, 2026)
The Dinner Party returns to the chaotic and adorable world of trans femme. The title piece begins… “The ‘Rona being now at last abated,” and continues with cameo portraits of the seven guests she plans to invite, including:
Together, as we had in days gone by.
I asked Rakshasi, clad in black, so thin,
So eager for some trouble to get in,
Of any kind, and Sophie, blunt and dry,
Who often ended up the night so pissed
She’d trip and fall when climbing up the stairs,
And learned Bridget, sweet, beset by cares,
Who always talks about her therapist ––
My besties. Plus I asked along a pair
Of mascs: Adonis, such a charming youth,
More interested in beauty than in truth
Who drives a motorbike and braids his hair,
And Dominic, less young, but full of poise,
A trickster with a most provoking grin,
More pleased with contradiction than with sin,
And even more with argument than boys,
Joining “The Dinner Party” are several other themed pieces, including “A Stay in the Country,” a short arcadian pageant, “Baby Book,” about the trials and tribulations of making babies as queer and transsexual couples, “Letter to Crabstick,” an epistolatory friendship, and “Uxorious Sonnets,” a collection of eight love poems, among them Sonnet 6 in which she writes:
it’s almost terrifying when we fuck
how there I am, how in that jostle and shove
of flesh, my thoughts, that mostly run amuck,
contract to simply shouting Love You Love.
The Body Riddle by Sam MacKinnon (May 19, 2026)
The body riddle—What if the body you fought for no longer fits the life you built before it?
When Lex finally receives a date for their chest surgery, they’re not sure if they want to go through with it. But it’s been a year since they’ve had sex with their cis partner, Ada, who believes Lex’s surgery will rekindle their kinky dynamic.
When surgery doesn’t have the outcome either expects, Lex, in the spirit of their non-monogamous relationship, tries to support Ada’s new romance with Noah, a cis man. But Lex’s jealousy spirals—Is Ada replacing them? And does she prefer cis masculinity after all?
Then Lex meets Sadie, a magnetic nonbinary coworker who awakens a new attraction. Lex thought they were only attracted to women and has never dated another trans person. Unsure about their changing sexuality, Lex hides the budding romance from Ada. As secrets build, Lex must decide what kind of love—and life—they really want.
Misery’s Wife by Joan Tierney (July 14, 2026)
A queer and cli-fi reimagining of a Portuguese folktale about a young trans woman who must save her elder sisters from the King of the Air, the King of the Sea, and the King of Misery
Elixane lives in a village ravaged by waves, storms, and the encroaching forest. When she was too young to remember, her elder sisters each picked a flower and were whisked away: Borboleta to marry the King of the Air, Adelina to marry the King of the Sea, and her favorite sister Dores to marry the King of Misery, who promised: No one will ever love you as I will.
So when Elixane receives a mysterious message from a toad, she sets out to rescue Dores from the Kingdom of Misery. She is aided by the jester-like Marquês of Luck and his sister Jinx, the contrary and beautiful Marquesa of Misfortune. On the way, she’ll have to reunite with her sisters and their magical husbands, break several unbreakable curses―and, perhaps, find a magical love of her own.
All We Hide by Robyn Gigl (August 4, 2026)
A trans detective working for the District Attorney’s Office takes on the twisty, poignant cold case murder of a local trans woman, and her investigation unravels the threads of a mystery that’s haunted her since she was a child: her mother’s disappearance.
When Lieutenant Lauren Kelly is exiled to the Homicide Cold Case Unit at the DA’s office, she knows her superiors are sticking her there as punishment until she can quietly retire in two years. That way, no one can claim they discriminated against the only trans detective in Donn County.
Even though Lauren has enough on her plate already—a teenage daughter struggling with Lauren’s transition, an ex-wife Lauren hasn’t gotten over, a former detective father with Alzheimer’s—she starts looking into the murder of Sherry Darling, a trans sex worker and Lauren’s former high school classmate. As Lauren looks deeper into Sherry’s case, she finds evidence of a cover-up with far-reaching implications that may or may not be tied to her own mother’s disappearance four decades before.
Ship Happens by Mason Deaver (August 18, 2026)
A year ago, Owen Henson had a close-knit group of friends who felt like family and a boyfriend who made his heart race just by walking into the room. But now? Everything’s unraveling. His friends seem to be moving forward without him, and his happily-ever-after shattered when his boyfriend Jacob packed up and left for the United Kingdom to join a research team.
The last thing Owen needs is for Jacob to waltz back into the city like nothing happened, showing up at their friends’ annual Christmas party looking just as annoyingly handsome as the day he left. Or for their friends to spring a surprise six-day, seven-night cruise up the West Coast to Alaska as a bonding trip for the group. How is Owen supposed to keep it together around the man who broke his heart, all while pretending he’s fine? Totally fine. But then Jacob tells Owen that he’d like to be something even more complicated than exes. He wants to be friends. Skeptical, Owen agrees to the plan but as they spend time together among the gorgeous Alaskan backdrop and cruise-mandated activities, Owen feels his walls coming down and he might just discover that he can’t help but fall in love again.
Thoughts Be Bloody by Auden Patrick (September 15, 2026)
The summer before his sophomore year, Horatio Bithersea walks into the university library to find Carson Hamlett, resident golden boy and master magician, cradling his father’s dead body. Life at Elsinore, one of the most prestigious universities in the secretive magical world, simply goes on when the professor’s death is ruled an accident—despite the mysterious circumstances and the bloody scene.
A year later, Horatio is keeping his head down, attempting to graduate without his out-of-control magic harming his classmates. That changes when the ghost of Hamlett’s father appears and places a curse on Horatio and Hamlett: avenge his death by destroying Elsinore and its heart, lest the ghost robs them of their minds, memories, and their very souls.
Elsinore has given Horatio everything—knowledge of his magical ability, an escape from his abusive family, and freedom to pursue his life as a transgender man—and now he’s to be its doom. As the two uncover more of Elsinore’s secrets Horatio finds himself becoming more and more ensnared in Hamlett’s dark but charismatic web.
The question is not if Horatio will manage to destroy Elsinore. The question is if Hamlett will destroy him first.
Carrying by Samantha Josephs (October 6, 2026)
Everything Martha’s wanted, she’s made for herself.
Meet Martha: perfect wife, perfect stepmother, perfect woman. She’s got an adoring husband who wants more kids with her, a loving stepdaughter who looks up to her, and a body to die for. She’s an absolute pro: Salon-quality blowouts at home? Done. Perfectly plated meals on the table every day? Effortless. Meticulously faked miscarriages so her husband won’t suspect the truth? Just hand over the Oscar now.
Martha is trans, so stealth even her family has no idea. She carved the woman she is out of the marble of a boy, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect what she’s built. When a mysterious chronic illness and its debilitating symptoms threaten to upend her existence, she starts experimental treatments and gives in to her new, unsettling cravings. She’s even more shocked to discover that she’s undeniably, impossibly pregnant.
With her body changing rapidly outside of her control and her choices dwindling, Martha struggles to maintain the life she’s fought so hard to live while preparing for the motherhood she never thought she’d have.
Non-Fiction
Let Us Play: Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes by Harrison Browne and Rachel Browne
The debate over the inclusion of gender diverse people in sport has become the latest battleground in the fight for basic human rights and equality. Trans and nonbinary people around the world are facing physical harm and violence—including death—at unprecedented rates. In Let Us Play, trans athlete Harrison Browne and investigative journalist Rachel Browne reveal how the opposition towards gender diverse athletes is fueled by fear and a moral panic as opposed to facts around what makes “a level playing field.”
Interweaving Harrison’s first-hand experience as a transgender athlete with exclusive accounts—from athletes, coaches, policymakers, and advocates on the front lines—Let Us Play dismantles the illusion that sports have ever been fair, that trans athletes pose a threat to women’s sports, and that gender-affirming healthcare for athletes should be prohibitive to play.
Calling for a reframing of the binaries from youth and high school levels all the way to the national leagues, Browne and Browne offer a new path forward, led by solutions proposed by gender diverse athletes themselves.
Uncanny Valley Girls: Essays on Horror, Survival, and Love by Zefyr Lisowski
This is how it worked: first I loved them, and then I loved myself.
At twenty-seven, poet Zefyr Lisowski found herself in the place she feared most: a locked psych ward. While inside, she turned to horror movies—her deepest, most constant comfort.
Rather than disturb, scary movies have always provided solace and connection for Lisowski, as they do many others—offering a vision of a world filled equally with beauty and pain, and a reason to reach out to others and hold them tight. After all, as Lisowski argues, what terrifies us most about these movies is our own uncanny reflection—and at the root of that fear, a desperate desire to love and be loved.
In these wide-ranging essays, Lisowski weaves theory and memoir into nuanced critiques of films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Saint Maud. From fears about sickness and disability, to trans narratives and the predator/victim complex, to the struggle to live in a world that wants you dead, she explores horror’s reciprocal impact on our culture and—by extension—our lives. Through it all, Lisowski lays bare her own complex biography—spanning from a trans childhood in the South to the sweaty dancefloors of Brooklyn—and the family, friends, and lovers that have bloomed with her into the present.
Fair Play: Trans Athletes and the Fight for Fairness by Katie Barnes (June 2, 2026)
For decades women have been playing competitive sports, thanks in large part to the protective cover of Title IX. Since the passage of that law, the number of women participating in sports and the level of competition in high school and college and professionally, has risen dramatically. In Fair Play, award-winning journalist Katie Barnes traces the evolution of women’s sports as a pastime and a political arena where equality and fairness have been fought over for generations.
As attitudes toward gender have shifted to embrace more fluidity in recent decades, sex continues to be viewed as a static binary that is easily determined: male or female. It is on the very idea of static sex that we have built an entire sporting apparatus. Now that foundation is being hotly debated as a result of intense culture wars. Many transgender and intersex athletes, including a South African runner, a wrestler in Texas, a Connecticut track star, and a swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania, have captured the attention of law and policymakers who want to decide how and when they compete. Women’s sports, since their inception, have been seen as a separate class of competition that requires protection and rules for entry. But what are those rules and who gets to make them? Fair Play looks at all sides of the issue and presents a reasoned and much-needed solution that seeks to preserve opportunities for all going forward.
Trans Book Rec Posts
- Fave Five: Speculative Fiction Starring Trans Men
- Fave Five: MG Starring Trans Girls
- Fave Five: New and Upcoming YA Starring Trans Girls
- Fave Five: Fantasy with Transfem MCs
- Fave Five: Adult M/F Romance Starring Trans Men
- Fave Five: Historical Romance with Trans Men
- Fave Five: Trans F/F Romance, Part II
- Fave Five: Adult Trans M/M Romance
- Fave Five: Trans Fiction with M/NB Pairings
- Fave Five: Trans F/F Romance
- Fave Five: Trans Historical Fiction
- Fave Five: Horror with Trans and/or Nonbinary MCs
- Fave Five: Trans and Nonbinary Witches in YA
- Fave Five: Adult M/F Romance Starring Trans Women
- Fave Five: MG/YA Starring Trans Athletes
- Fave Five: Trans M/F Romance
