Trans Book Recs For The Trans Rights Readathon
- Mar 6
- 18 min read
Updated: Mar 8
It's that time of year again: the Trans Rights Readathon is back for 2026. This year, it runs from the 17th of March to the 31st of March, in the lead-up to Trans Day of Visibility 2026.
The Trans Rights Readathon is an annual campaign for readers & book lovers to read more books written by and featuring trans, genderqueer, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and 2Spirit authors and characters.
Each year, they create a new Trans Rights Readathon bingo card to help readers read more diversely. This year's bingo card includes nine prompts and we thought it might be a good idea to give you some recommendations for each prompt.
From books about trans elders to comics about trans joy, genderqueer adventure and non-binary memoirs, here are a few suggestions of trans books to help you get started on your reading journey this Trans Rights Readathon:
If you're taking part in the Trans Rights Readathon this year, feel free to tag @transrightsreadathon on socials or use the hashtags #trr26 and #transrightsreadathon.
Nonbinary and Gender Expansive Rep with Diverse Bodies
Books by an author or featuring a main character who exists outside of the gender binary.
Genre: YA Fantasy Graphic Novel
Reading age: 14+
Can this road trip get any worse? Yes, Mom (Audrey) wanted to spend time with Misha. And yes, she’s never around and they don’t even live together, so this is a rare opportunity. But Audrey still thinks of Misha as her daughter, despite Misha being non-binary and trying to talk to her openly about it. Misha even tries to write how they feel in a letter, but that isn’t going well either.
Then a wrong turn down a forest road leads the mother-child duo straight into the Realm of Spirits! Suddenly in peril and without a clue how to return to their world, Misha and Audrey will have to work together to find their way back home. But can they find a way back to each other?
It's a great little graphic novel about family schism and reconciliation that effortlessly enriches the complex dynamics of mother and child.
Genre: Erotic Rom-Com
Reading age: 18+
Elsie Hoffman has been engaged to her college boyfriend for a year and a half. Ginny Holtz has been in love with Elsie for almost a decade and a half.
When Elsie discovers her fiancé already planned their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise and she’s expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she’s let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted. She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to the Caribbean for her non-refundable honeymoon with her best friend Ginny instead.
Ginny thinks it’s high time Elise learned how to speak up for herself. So, they make a deal with her. For the next week, Elsie can have whatever she wants, wherever, however, and whenever she wants it, as long as she asks. They never expected Elsie to want them.
Genre: YA Coming-Of-Age Novel In Verse
Reading age: 14+
Prema knows exactly who they are. Coming out as non-binary to their queer parents and best friend? A total non-event. Catching feelings for Blessing - the boy in drama club whose smile makes their heart race? That’s trickier.
As their final year of school unfolds and the two of them grow closer, Prema starts to question: Does Blessing really see them? Or just a version of them that doesn’t exist? They’d ask their best friend for advice, but she’s busy falling in love too...
With gorgeous illustrations throughout, Bad Queer draws us deeply into queer friendship, family secrets, and the necessary act of loving yourself. Perfect for fans of Alice Oseman, Dean Atta, and Sarah Crossan.
A Book About Trans+ Youth or that Imagines the Future
Books focusing on trans youth or imagining trans futures.
Genre: YA Graphic Memoir
Reading age: 14+
Lewis has a few things to say to his younger teen self. He knows she hates her body. He knows she's confused about who to snog. He knows she's really a he and will ultimately realize this... but she's going to go through a whole lot of mess (some of it funny, some of it not funny at all) to get to that point. Lewis is trying to tell her this... but she's refusing to listen.
In Welcome To St. Hell, author-illustrator Lewis Hancox takes readers on the hilarious, heartbreaking, and healing path he took to make it past trauma, confusion, hurt, and dubious fashion choices in order to become the man he was meant to be. It's a remarkable, groundbreaking graphic memoir from an unmistakably bold new voice in comics.
There's also a second volume for anyone interested in following up of Lewis's life called Escape From St Hell.
Genre: YA Paranormal Horror
Reading age: 14+
Elsie Hoffman has been engaged to her college boyfriend for a year and a half. Ginny Holtz has been in love with Elsie for almost a decade and a half.
When Elsie discovers her fiancé already planned their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise and she’s expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she’s let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted. She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to the Caribbean for her non-refundable honeymoon with her best friend Ginny instead.
Ginny thinks it’s high time Elise learned how to speak up for herself. So, they make a deal with her. For the next week, Elsie can have whatever she wants, wherever, however, and whenever she wants it, as long as she asks. They never expected Elsie to want them.
Genre: YA Fantasy Adventure Graphic Novel
Reading age: 10+
Six kids search for a new place to call home in this middle-grade graphic novel.
Tucked away in a government facility nicknamed the Playroom, six not-quite-human kids learn to control their strange and unpredictable abilities. Life is good - or safe, at least - hidden from the prying eyes of a judgmental world.
That is, until a security breach forces them out of their home and into the path of the Collector, a mysterious being with leech-like powers.
Can the group band together to thwart the Collector's devious plan, or will they wind up the newest addition to his collection?
A Trans+ Book someone recommended to you
Books by trans authors with trans main characters that I loved and would recommend to you.
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Reading age: 18+
Her Majesty's Royal Coven follows a topsecret government department of witches and the deadly threat to the nation that they must confront. Hidden among us is a secret coven of witches. They are Her Majesty's Royal Coven.
They protect crown and country from magical forces and otherworldly evil. But their greatest enemy will come from within. There are whisperings of a prophecy that will bring the coven to its knees, and five best friends are about to be caught at the centre.
Life as a modern witch was never simple... but now it's about to get apocalyptic. Prepare to be bewitched by Juno Dawson's first adult series.
A story of ancient prophecies and modern dating, of sacred sisterhood and demonic frenemies.
Genre: YA Sci-Fi Graphic Novel
Reading age: 13+
It takes strength to live as your true self, and one alien princess disguised as a human boy is about to test her power. A vibrant story about gender identity, romance, and shining as bright as the stars.
Taylor Barzelay has the perfect life. Good looks, good grades, a starting position on the basketball team, a loving family, even an adorable corgi. Every day in Taylor’s life is perfect. And every day is torture.
Taylor is actually the Galaxy Crowned, an alien princess from the planet Cyandii, and one of the few survivors of an intergalactic war. For six long, painful years, Taylor has accepted her duty to remain in hiding as a boy on Earth.
That all changes when Taylor meets Metropolis girl Katherine “call me Kat” Silverberg, whose confidence is electrifying. Suddenly, Taylor no longer wants to hide, even if exposing her true identity could attract her greatest enemies.
Genre: YA Fantasy Adventure
Reading age: 13+
As each new decade begins, the Sun’s power must be replenished so that Sol can keep traveling along the sky and keep the evil Obsidian gods at bay. Ten semidioses between the ages of thirteen and eighteen are selected by Sol as the most worthy to compete in The Sunbearer Trials. The winner carries light and life to all the temples of Reino del Sol, but the loser has the greatest honor of all - they will be sacrificed to Sol.
Teo, a 17-year-old Jade semidiós and the trans son of Quetzal, goddess of birds, has never worried about the Trials… or rather, he’s only worried for others. His best friend Niya - daughter of Tierra, the god of earth - is one of the strongest heroes of their generation and is much too likely to be chosen this year. He also can’t help but worry (reluctantly, and under protest) for Aurelio, a powerful Gold semidiós and Teo’s friend-turned-rival who is a shoo-in for the Trials.
But then, for the first time in over a century, Sol chooses a semidiós who isn’t a Gold. In fact, he chooses two: Xio, the 13-year-old child of Mala Suerte, god of bad luck, and… Teo. Now they must compete in five mysterious trials, against opponents who are both more powerful and better trained, for fame, glory, and their own survival.
A Book About Trans Elders or Trans History
Books by or about trans elders, like a memoir or biography, or a trans history book.
Genre: Memoir - Non-Fiction
Reading age: 18+
In this extraordinarily compelling trans memoir, Avi, a bearish trans man and Psychology Professor, navigates sex and dating in a phallic-centric universe of men who love men.
But something is missing. To become the man he aspires to be, he needs to reconnect with Talia, his hyper-feminine straight female past, and invite her back in. This memoir explores what it means to come home to oneself with brutal honesty, humour, and self-compassion, going well beyond gender.
From growing up in a working-class right-wing Israeli family and barely finishing high school to pro-Palestinian activism and escaping compulsory military service by faking madness, to attaining a PhD from Yale-a triumph after poor schooling. Told in three episodes, early transition, later transition and Talia's story, this memoir tackles contemporary gender and social issues. At its heart is a universal theme: to become who we already are, we must integrate the past into the present.
Genre: Trans History & Essays - Non-Fiction
Reading age: 18+
Over the last five years, transgender people have seemed to burst into the public eye: Time declared 2014 a 'trans tipping point', while American Vogue named 2015 'the year of trans visibility'. From our television screens to the ballot box, transgender people have suddenly become part of the zeitgeist. This apparently overnight emergence, though, is just the latest stage in a long and varied history.
The renown of Paris Lees and Hari Nef has its roots in the efforts of those who struggled for equality before them, but were met with indifference - and often outright hostility - from mainstream society. Trans Britain chronicles this journey in the words of those who were there to witness a marginalised community grow into the visible phenomenon we recognise today: activists, film-makers, broadcasters, parents, an actress, a rock musician and a priest, among many others. Here is everything you always wanted to know about the background of the trans community, but never knew how to ask.
Genre: Trans History - Non-fiction
Reading age: 18+
Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives.
Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans transports us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to early America, and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures.
Trans+ Book Featuring Joy/Love/Resistance
Books focusing on trans joy, love or resistance by or about trans people.
Genre: Adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Reading age: 18+
A poignant and enchanting novel about a magical bookstore that transports a trans man through time and brings him face-to-face with his teenage self, offering him the chance of a lifetime to examine his life and identity to find a new beginning.
When Darby finds himself unemployed and in need of a fresh start, he moves back to the small Illinois town he left behind. But Oak Falls has changed almost as much as he has since he left.
One thing is familiar: In Between Books, Darby’s refuge growing up and eventual high school job. When he walks into the bookstore now, Darby feels an eerie sense of déjà vu - everything is exactly the same. Even the newspapers are dated 2009. And behind the register is a teen who looks a lot like Darby did at sixteen... who just might give Darby the opportunity to change his own present for the better—if he can figure out how before his connection to the past vanishes forever.
Genre: YA Fantasy Anthology
Reading age: 14+
Perfect for fans of All Out and Cemetery Boys, this anthology claims a seat at the table of fantasy literature for trans and gender-nonconforming stories.
Transness is as varied and colorful as magic can be. In Transmogrify!, you’ll embark on fourteen different adventures alongside unforgettable characters who embody many different genders and expressions and experiences - because magic is for everyone, and that is cause for celebration.
It's a great little collection of fourteen fantastical tales of trans magic. Featuring stories from people like AR Capetta and Cory McCarthy, G. Haron Davis, Mason Deaver, Jonathan Lenore Kastin, Emery Lee, Saundra Mitchell, Cam Montgomery, Ash Nouveau, Sonora Reyes, Renee Reynolds, Dove Salvatierra, Ayida Shonibar, Francesca Tacchi and Nik Traxler.
Genre: Adult Historical Romance
Reading age: 18+
When Viola Caroll was presumed dead at Waterloo she took the opportunity to live, at last, as herself. But freedom does not come without a price, and Viola paid for hers with the loss of her wealth, her title, and her closest companion, Justin de Vere, the Duke of Gracewood.
Only when their families reconnect, years after the war, does Viola learn how deep that loss truly was. Shattered without her, Gracewood has retreated so far into grief that Viola barely recognises her old friend in the lonely, brooding man he has become.
As Viola strives to bring Gracewood back to himself, fresh desires give new names to old feelings. Feelings that would have been impossible once and may be impossible still, but which Viola cannot deny. Even if they cost her everything, all over again.
Transfemme/Transwoman Rep with multiple trans characters
Books with a trans author or main character who identifies as a trans woman or on the feminine side of the trans experience.
Genre: Adult Dystopian Horror
Reading age: 18+
An explosive post-apocalyptic novel that follows trans women and men on a grotesque journey of survival.
Beth and Fran spend their days travelling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.
After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics - all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.
Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.
Genre: Adult Lit-Fic
Reading age: 18+
It is 1998; Lilith, Sash, and Abraxa are teenagers, and they are making Saga of the Sorceress, a game that will change everything, if only for the three of them.
18 years later, Saga of the Sorceress still exists only on the scattered drives of its creators. Lilith might be the first trans woman to ever work as an Assistant Loan Underwriter at Dollarwise Investments in Brooklyn. Sash is in Brooklyn as well, working as a research assistant and part-time webcam dominatrix. Neither knows that the other is there, or that Abraxa, the third member of Invocation LLC, is just across the Hudson River, sleeping on the floor of a friend’s grandparents’ Jersey City home. They have never met in person, and have been out of touch for years, but none have forgotten the sorceress, or her quest, still far from finished.
Genre: Adult Horror
Reading age: 18+
Herculine’s narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob story - conversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exes - but she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse.
Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods.
The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narrator’s growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isn’t quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own.
Transmasc/Trans Man Rep by a BIPOC Author
Books with a trans author or main character who identifies as a trans man or on the masculine side of the trans experience.
Genre: YA Paranormal Fantasy
Reading age: 14+
A trans boy determined to prove his gender to his traditional Latinx family summons a ghost who refuses to leave
When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.
However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school's resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He's determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.
Genre: YA Slice-Of-Life Manga
Reading age: 14+
A transgender teen named Ryuu finds an escape from the expectations and anxieties of his daily life in the world of street fashion.
High schooler Ryuu knows he's transgender. But he doesn't have anyone to confide in about the confusion he feels. He can't tell his best friend, who he's secretly got a crush on, and he can't tell his mom, who's constantly asking why Ryuu is always dressing like a boy. He certainly can't tell Jin, the new transfer student who looks like just another bully.
The only time Ryuu feels at ease is when he's wearing his favorite clothes. Then, and only then, the world melts away, and he can be his true self. One day, while out shopping, Ryuu sees an unexpected sight: Jin. The kid who looked so tough in class is shopping for the same clothes that Ryuu loves. And Jin offers Ryuu a proposal: to start their own brand and create apparel to help everyone feel comfortable in their skin.
Genre: YA Magical Fantasy
Reading age: 13+
Only an elite few are legally permitted to study the science of magic - so when Ash is rejected by Lancaster College of Alchemic Science, he takes a job as the school’s groundskeeper instead, forced to learn alchemy in secret.
When he’s discovered by the condescending and brilliant apprentice Ramsay Thorne, Ash is sure he's about to be arrested - but instead of calling the reds, Ramsay surprises Ash by making him an offer: Ramsay will keep Ash's secret if he helps her find the legendary Book of Source, a sacred text that gives its reader extraordinary power.
As Ash and Ramsay work together and their feelings for each other grow, Ash discovers their mission is more dangerous than he imagined, pitting them against influential and powerful alchemists—Ash’s estranged father included. Ash’s journey takes him through the cities and wilds across New Anglia, forcing him to discover his own definition of true power and how far he and other alchemists will go to seize it.
2Spirit, Indigiqueer, and Indigenous Gender Expansive Rep
Books by an author or featuring a main character who holds a gender identity outside of the gender binary, and which exists outside of Western definitions of transness and/or queerness.
Genre: YA Dystopian Adventure
Reading age: 10+
One year ago, a solar flare scorched the Earth and destroyed life as we know it. With their parents gone and their supplies running low, grieving step-sisters Millie and Rose leave home with their infant half-brother in search of Millie’s grandma, a Seminole elder - who Millie knows in her gut is still alive, even if Rose isn't so sure.
Along the way, they meet a group of other surviving kids calling themselves the Lost Boys and their lone adult leader, who reluctantly agree to help them brave the hostile wasteland to make it to Millie's grandma safely.
But the landscape isn't the only threat - there's also the Hive, a villainous group that has spent the last year hoarding supplies and living in luxury... and will do anything to keep it that way. Expertly balancing heartbreak and hope, The Flicker is both a thrilling survival story and a tender exploration of Indigenous ideas of identity and found family.
Genre: Science Fiction/Crime Thriller
Reading age: 16+
Edie is done with crime. Eight years behind bars changes a person - costs them too much time with too many of the people who need them most.
And it's all Angel's fault. She sold Edie out in what should have been the greatest moment of their lives. Instead, Edie was shipped off to the icy prison planet spinning far below the soaring skybridges and neon catacombs of Kepler space station - of home - to spend the best part of a decade alone.
But then a chance for early parole appears out of nowhere and Edie steps into the pallid sunlight to find none other than Angel waiting - and she has an offer.
One last job. One last deal. One last target. The trillionaire tech god they failed to bring down last time. There's just one thing Edie needs to do - trust Angel again - which also happens to be the last thing Edie wants to do. What could possibly go all hammajang about this plan?
Genre: Speculative Fiction Anthology
Reading age: 15+
This exciting and groundbreaking fiction anthology showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer Indigenous) writers from across Turtle Island. These visionary authors show how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives that detail the vivacity and strength of 2SQness throughout its plight in the maw of settler colonialism’s histories.
Here, readers will discover bio-engineered AI rats, transplanted trees in space, the rise of a 2SQ resistance camp, a primer on how to survive Indigiqueerly, virtual reality applications, motherships at sea, and the very bending of space-time continuums queered through NDN time. Love after the End demonstrates the imaginatively queer Two-Spirit futurisms we have all been dreaming of since 1492.
Intersectional Trans+ Rep Outside Your Own Experience
Books by an author or featuring a main character who falls under the trans umbrella and also holds another intersectional identity.
Genre: Memoir - Non-Fiction
Reading age: 16+
When Lamya is fourteen, she decides to disappear. It seems easier to ease herself out of sight than to grapple with the difficulty of taking shape in a world that doesn't fit.
She is a queer teenager growing up in a Muslim household, a South Asian in a Middle Eastern country. But during her Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam, and suddenly everything shifts: if Maryam was never touched by any man, could Maryam be... like Lamya?
Written with deep intelligence and a fierce humour, Hijab Butch Blues follows Lamya as she travels to the United States, as she comes out, and as she navigates the complexities of the immigration system - and the queer dating scene. At each step, she turns to her faith to make sense of her life, weaving stories from the Quran together with her own experiences: Musa leading his people to freedom; Allah, who is neither male nor female; and Nuh, who built an ark, just as Lamya is finally able to become the architect of her own story.
Genre: YA Science Fiction Graphic Novel
Reading age: 10+
A heartwarming coming-of-age graphic novel about a young boy from the moon who discovers a home in the most unlikely places, from debut twin creators Jes and Cin Wibowo.
Indu, a boy from the moon, feels like he doesn't belong. He hasn't since he and his adoptive mom disembarked from their spaceship - their home - to live on Earth with their new blended family.
The kids at school think he's weird, he has a crush on his pen pal who might not like him back, and his stepfamily doesn't seem to know what to do with him. Worst of all, Indu can't even talk to his mom about how he's feeling because she's so busy. In a moment of loneliness, Indu calls out to the moon, begging them to take him back.
Genre: Memoir - Non-Fiction
Reading age: 18+
In None of the Above, Travis Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them about their gender identity.
These phrases have stayed with them over the years. Some are deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or offensive, some celebratory; sentences that have impacted them for better and for worse; sentences that speak to the broader issues raised by a world that insists that gender must be a binary.
Through these seven phrases, which include some of their most transformative experiences as a Black, mixed race, non binary person, Travis Alabanza turns a mirror back on society, giving us reason to question the very framework in which we live and the ways we treat each other.
‘When you are someone that falls outside of categories in so many ways, a lot of things are said to you. And I have had a lot of things said to me.’
Hopefully there's something in this list that's new to you. If you're taking part in the Trans Rights Readathon this year, feel free to tag @transrightsreadathon on socials or use the hashtags #trr26 and #transrightsreadathon
Happy reading!