100 books like Neo-/Victorian Biographilia and James Miranda Barry

If you’re wondering in practical ways how to do trans history, Manion’s book is a great place to start. It takes one of the categories that preceded a transgender identity (the name typically given to people affirmed female at birth who identified as men and married women) and reimagines how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century lives might look with the benefit of the tools of our modern politics. The book is boldly inclusive, resisting deciding ahead of time how the category should be defined and who should be ruled in or out. Manion is also a role model in respecting the ambiguities of the past, mostly using neutral pronouns and offering non-judgmental speculations about what these subjects and their partners might have thought at key moments in their courageous and inspiring lives. 

This is a great place to begin thinking about trans history. Feinberg, who died in 2014, crisscrossed the line between butch lesbian and trans man and was not particular about what pronouns they preferred. In that spirit of inclusiveness, some readers might find her book outdated or too loose in some of the people it includes—any book that ranges from Joan of Arc to NBA star Rodman is covering a lot of ground, but what’s less visible from that subtitle is the work Feinberg has done in crosscultural, anthropological, and comparative mythology studies. What results is a daring and provocative re-reading of world history that puts gender nonconformity at the center, and a stirring call to activism and solidarity that is if anything more needed since its original publication.

Nobody has done more than Stryker to document the modern history of trans people or to fashion trans studies into an academic field. Transgender History is a work of substantial scholarship and also an accessible introduction to the field and the issues on which it’s centered. Each chapter of this short-ish book is really valuable, whether it’s the opening that explains important terms and concepts or the final one assessing what Time declared the “transgender tipping point” in 2014. Stryker is a historian of twentieth-century America, so that’s the focus of her central chapter documenting a century of trans history. Understanding that early history is crucial for the liberatory gains and backlashes that follow, and Transgender History concludes with resources that can help turn its readers into informed and committed activists.

As a parent (and a researcher), I’m so happy this book exists! It’s the best response to the argument that trans kids are new and, therefore, how we raise them is dangerously experimental. Where Gill-Peterson finds such kids historically is mainly in medical archives, where treatments were directed mostly at intersex children, many of whom we’d see as trans. She shows a fascination with the “plasticity” of the body in the early twentieth century, although predictably, possibilities for transforming bodies were viewed differently across racial lines. The best counter to conservative attacks, though, is his research into Val, a 1920s teen in rural Wisconsin who went to school as the gender she affirmed and had negotiated agreements about things like which bathroom she could use, over which we’re fighting a century later!

This superb biography is an engrossing account of the mysterious title surgeon and the doctor’s fascinating world. James Miranda Barry joined the British Army in 1813 as a regimental surgeon and served in colonial posts for the next fifty years. But Barry had been born Margaret Bulkley, an anatomical female—a surprise revealed after the doctor’s death.

Was Barry’s masquerade strategic, the doctor’s only route to a medical career? Was Barry a transgender person? I wondered if the “truth” would remain a mystery. Rachel Holmes persuaded me that the probable answer lies in a document “gathering dust” in Edinburgh’s medical school archives, a revelation she saves for the last chapter. 

As one of the founding fathers of Nanopunk, Neal Stephenson’s writings form a straightforward bridge between Postcyberpunk and Neon Science-Fiction. His novel is a collection of exotic technologies like matter compilers, smart paper, immunity-enhancing particles, and foldable transportable mech-horses. Eventually, I found myself inspired to create exotic tech of my own (e.g. foods, arts, weapons, and technologies fully based on “Dark”, an unconstructed area of “empty space” featured somewhat heavily in my neon sci-fi novel). Stephenson’s novel also depicts an extremely globalized future, founded on molecular nanotech, rapidly assembled usable goods, and socio-cultural division. The title’s allusion to a “Diamond Age” fully based on nanotechnology (diamonds can be assembled from individual carbon atoms) is a complex commentary on economics and how an object loses its value through mass production.

As a big fan of cryptids like Nessie, mermaids, and catamounts, I was all in when I saw there was a book about Mothman.

This novel-in-verse is about grief, growing into who you truly are, being confused by friendship and crushes, and of course, Mothman! Noah is a trans boy whose best friend Lewis died in a car crash, and since his passing, Noah’s begun writing letters to Mothman, a cryptid that looks like a big moth with big red glowing eyes. And maybe Mothman is answering?

I was crossing my fingers with every page and hoping with Noah that Mothman was real. This is a wonderfully warm book about queerness, feeling monstrous and misunderstood, and how beautiful we all are in our weirdness. 

I may be biased about this book because I happened to read it during a really dark time in my life. It was exactly what I needed to get me back on my feet and lighten my mood. I loved being able to escape into Noah’s messy and hilarious love story and forget about the world around me. 10/10 I highly recommend this book!

Lucy Sante’s memoir is about discovering something she’s always known - that while she was born Luc Sante, she has always been Lucy Sante. I found the book transcendent.

As my young friends began to question their sexuality and crave a non-binary world, I became curious about how that felt from the inside. As a journalist, when I’m confronted by something complex, I turn to original sources and voices. When Lucy Sante, one of the greatest wordsmiths of our time, began her transition, I knew this was a book for me. Her story took me on a tender, brutal, intimate journey that ultimately had me wondering: Am I living my true life?

I read this book to my son when he was in second grade because his classroom was paired with a seventh-grade classroom in his school buddy system.

One of the seventh graders was transgender, and the school recommended this book. In simple prose, the book introduces the concept of being transgender in a way that both my son and I could understand, and we both appreciated that it is based on the author’s real-life experience.

Two favorite lines: “Be who you are.” And, “Different is special!”