As the title says, what are your favorite books with trans protagonists?
I just finished Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki and thoroughly enjoyed it. The main character is a runaway trans girl who wants to be a violinist. Without spoiling too much it’s also a sci-fi/fantasy story and has a lesbian side-romance. TW for rape and general transphobia.
What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher is another favorite of mine. It has a nonbinary protagonist and is a SFF horror rewrite of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe. If you like an alt-history Victorian setting with the undead this is straight up your alley.
That’s fair, I feel. It’s admittedly written in a way that can be very hard to parse or follow and it could be a bit hard to connect with if you’re not within a few years of the protag’s age.
I do, however, still feel that one should give it another try eventually if it doesn’t connect right away. It’s a book after all and will not be going anywhere.
I’m not going to hold it up as some kind of trans bible, but Nevada holds a good amount of insight and thoughtful discussion of the way trans women navigate life and social situations both post- and pre-transition. The protagonist is dirty and complicated and arguably ‘bad’ representation and yet she’s a beautiful look into being a trans woman that’s not shown, and will never be shown, in popular media.
It’s also available as an audiobook and it’s read by the author which is a really awesome thing.
I think you’re on to something there. I’m not American and I’m a lot older than the protagonist. Her life felt very removed from mine, so I didn’t get the feeling of resonating with her experiences the way many people seem to. But you make a good point about coming back to it at some point! I should do that