There are so many beautiful and valid trans identities and we wish that we could make a recommendation post for every single one of them. We would also love to be able to offer you a separate post for books dealing with Intersexuality. But alas, we have found an alarming lack of good (by trans reviewer standard) books… We want MORE!

We are very happy about the development that more and more books that incorporate trans, non-binary, genderqueer, and intersex characters are reaching us in 2020, but our wish for 2021 is: WE WANT EVEN MORE DIVERSE CHARACTERS!

We cannot wait to see what’s coming for us in the next year, but for now we hope you can forgive us for making one post with characters who are not cisgendered, and we hope you enjoy.

Adult

Mr. March Names The Stars by Rivka Aarons-Hughes

Wes loves his life traveling the Pagan festival circuit, but he loved it more when he wasn’t harangued by women a little too fond of his picture in a popular charity calendar—a calendar that mucked up his bio by stating that he’s single, but leaving out that he’s not straight.

This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

 To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction.

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

Five years after a suspicious fire killed his ornithologist mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. He has been unable to paint since his mother’s ghost has begun to visit him each evening.

Vanishing Monuments by John Elizabeth Stintzi

Alani Baum, a non-binary photographer and teacher, hasn’t seen their mother since they ran away with their girlfriend when they were seventeen – almost thirty years ago. But when Alani gets a call from a doctor at the assisted living facility where their mother has been for the last five years, they learn that their mother’s dementia has worsened and appears to have taken away her ability to speak. As a result, Alani suddenly find themselves running away again – only this time, they’re running back to their mother.

Young Adult

Coffee Boy by Austin Chant

After graduation, Kieran expected to go straight into a career of flipping burgers—only to be offered the internship of his dreams at a political campaign. But the pressure of being an out trans man in the workplace quickly sucks the joy out of things, as does Seth, the humorless campaign strategist who watches his every move.

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender

Felix Love has never been in love—and, yes, he’s painfully aware of the irony. He desperately wants to know what it’s like and why it seems so easy for everyone but him to find someone. What’s worse is that, even though he is proud of his identity, Felix also secretly fears that he’s one marginalization too many—Black, queer, and transgender—to ever get his own happily-ever-after.

The Truth Is by NoNieqa Ramos

Fifteen-year-old Verdad doesn’t think she has time for love. She’s still struggling to process the recent death of her best friend, Blanca; dealing with the high expectations of her hardworking Puerto Rican mother and the absence of her remarried father; and keeping everyone at a distance. But when she meets Danny, a new guy at school–who happens to be trans–all bets are off.

None of the Above by I.W. Gregorio

A groundbreaking story about a teenage girl who discovers she was born intersex… and what happens when her secret is revealed to the entire school. Incredibly compelling and sensitively told, None of the Above is a thought-provoking novel that explores what it means to be a boy, a girl, or something in between.

Fantasy & Sci-Fi

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his 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.

Dark and Deepest Red by Anna-Marie McLemore

Summer, 1518. A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg: women dance in the streets, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves.

The Mermaid, the Witch and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

A desperate orphan turned pirate and a rebellious imperial daughter find a connection on the high seas in a world divided by colonialism and threaded with magic.

Dreadnought by April Daniels

Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of Dreadnought, the world’s greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, Danny was trying to keep people from finding out she’s transgender. But before he expired, Dreadnought passed his mantle to her, and those secondhand superpowers transformed Danny’s body into what she’s always thought it should be. Now there’s no hiding that she’s a girl.

Middle-Grade Fiction

George by Alex Gino

BE WHO YOU ARE. When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she’s not a boy. She knows she’s a girl.

Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart

Lily Jo McGrother, born Timothy McGrother, is a girl. But being a girl is not so easy when you look like a boy. Especially when you’re in the eighth grade.

Zenobia July by Lisa Bunker

Zenobia July is starting a new life. She used to live in Arizona with her father; now she’s in Maine with her aunts. She used to spend most of her time behind a computer screen, improving her impressive coding and hacking skills; now she’s coming out of her shell and discovering a community of friends at Monarch Middle School. People used to tell her she was a boy; now she’s able to live openly as the girl she always knew she was.

Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polonsky

Alone at home, twelve-year-old Grayson Sender glows, immersed in beautiful thoughts and dreams. But at school, Grayson grasps at shadows, determined to fly under the radar. Because Grayson has been holding onto a secret for what seems like forever: “he” is a girl on the inside, stuck in the wrong gender’s body.

Do you have any other recommendations? Tell us in the comments below!

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Check out the upcoming releases and tell us if you will be reading any in the comments below! 

The Disappearances by Emily Bain Murphy | Goodreads
Aila Quinn’s mother has always been a mystery. When she dies, Aila and brother are sent to Sterling, a rural town where her mother grew up. With mysteries of its own, the experiences that weave life together vanish every seven years. Sterling always suspected Mrs Quinn was somehow responsible for these “Disappearances” so Aila must bear the brunt of their blame. As the next Disappearance nears, she begins to unravel the dual mystery of why the Disappearances happen and who her mother truly was.

Who’s That Girl by Blair Thornburgh | Goodreads
Nattie McCullough has always been that under-the-radar girl, but when last summer’s crush, smoking-hot musician Sebastian Delacroix writes a chart-topping single called “Natalie”, she second guesses their awkward non-kiss. To help keep her mind off of Sebastian, she throws herself into planning the school’s LGBTQIA dance where Nattie begins to develop feelings for her good friend Zach. Nattie is determined to figure out once and for all if her brief moment with Sebastian was the stuff love songs are made of—or just a one-hit wonder.

Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy | Goodreads
In this unique YA anthology, thirteen acclaimed, bestselling authors team up with thirteen influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the often misunderstood villains’ points of view. These fractured, unconventional spins on classics like “Medusa,” Sherlock Holmes, and “Jack and the Beanstalk” provide a behind-the-curtain look at villains’ acts of vengeance, defiance, and rage–and the pain, heartbreak, and sorrow that spurned them on. No fairy tale will ever seem quite the same again!

Dream Me by Kathryn Berla | Goodreads
Zat, a dreamer from the future where most no longer dream and Earth is a desolate wasteland. Dreams of Earth and a fiery-haired beauty named Babe, Zat risks everything to travel back in time and live in Babe’s dreams… Babe begins to have strange dreams of a boy named Zat, but they come at the cost of nearly crippling migraines. Outside of the dreams, her life pales in comparison to her growing love for Zat. As they spend together in her dreams, her pain increases, and Zat begins to question the reality of his existence.

Solo by Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess | Goodreads
Told in poetic verse, Solo tells the story of seventeen-year-old Blade Morrison, whose life is bombarded with scathing tabloids and a father struggling with just about every addiction under the sun—including a desperate desire to make a comeback. Haunted by memories of his mother and his family’s ruin, Blade’s only hope is in the forbidden love of his girlfriend. But when he discovers a deeply protected family secret, Blade sets out on a journey across the globe that will change everything he thought to be true.

Words on Bathroom Walls by Julia Walton | Goodreads
Adam has just been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He sees and hears people who aren’t there: Rebecca, a beautiful girl who understands him; the Mob Boss, who harasses him; and Jason, the naked guy who’s unfailingly polite. It should be easy to separate the real from the not real, but he can’t. As Adam starts fresh, he begins a drug trial that helps him ignore his visions and when he meets Maya, he wants to be the great guy that she thinks he is. But the miracle drug begins to fail, and Adam will do anything to keep Maya from discovering his secret.

Sovereign by April Daniels | Goodreads
Only nine months after her debut fighting under the name Dreadnought, Danny Tozer is already a scarred veteran. Between her newfound celebrity and her demanding cape duties, Dreadnought is stretched thin, and it’s only going to get worse. From her troubled family life to her disintegrating friendship with Calamity, there’s no trick too dirty for a new villain to use against her. Dreadnought will be forced to confront parts of herself she never wanted to acknowledge while an old enemy waits in the wings to unleash a plot that will scar the world forever.

The Color Project by Sierra Abrams | Goodreads
Bernice Aurora Wescott has one thing she doesn’t want anyone to know her name, until she meets Levi. But while Levi is everything she never knew she needed, giving up her name would feel like a stamp on forever. When unexpected news of an illness in the family occurs, she is pushed to the breaking point. She loses herself in a charity organization called The Color Project, but Bee must hold together her family, but to do that, she needs Levi. She’ll have to give up her name and let him in completely or lose the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy | Goodreads
It started for pranks, fun, and forever memories. A secret society – for the four of us. We made the pledge and danced under the blood moon on the meteorite in the orchard. In the spot we found the dead girl five years earlier. And discovered the ancient drawings way before that. But then, others wanted in. Our seaside town had secrets. History. What started as a secret society, ended as justice. Revenge. Death. Rebellion.

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas | Goodreads
Kacey is the new girl in Broken Falls. When she moved in with her father, she stepped into a brand-new life, which is eerily charming compared with the wild highs and lows of the old one. Her new circle of friends start acting distant and when they don’t invite her to a party, one of her friends never makes it home. The town starts looking to the new girl for answers and she’s about to learn some very important lessons: Sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes when you’re the new girl, you shouldn’t trust anyone.

Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody | Goodreads
Sorina is amongst many unusual members of the traveling circus and stands apart as the only illusion-worker born in hundreds of years. Her rare talent creates illusions that others can see, feel and touch, with personalities all their own. But when one is murdered, Sorina must track down the culprit which leads her to self-proclaimed gossip-worker Luca and into a haze of political turmoil and forbidden romance. But as the killer continues murdering Sorina’s illusions, she must unravel the horrifying truth before they all disappear.

What To Say Next by Julie Buxbaum | Goodreads
When an unlikely friendship is sparked between relatively popular Kit Lowell and socially isolated David Drucker, everyone is surprised, most of all Kit and David. Kit appreciates David’s blunt honesty—in fact, she finds it bizarrely refreshing. David welcomes Kit’s attention and her inquisitive nature. When she asks for his help figuring out the how and why of her dad’s tragic car accident, David is all in. But neither of them can predict what they’ll find. Can their friendship survive the truth?

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