The best gender variance books

Stacey Abrams: Lift Every Voice follows Stacey's life from her girlhood to the present, but it also portrays the ordinary people that Stacey fights for—the beautiful and diverse America that shows up to stand with one another. Backmatter includes a timeline of changes in US voting-rights law from the Constitution through the present day, demonstrating both how far the country has come and how far we have to go. With its spirited text and vivid illustrations, Stacey Abrams: Lift Every Voice will inspire readers to take their own steps forward.

LGBT Victorians re-visits nineteenth-century thinking about gender and sexual identity at a time when queer alliances are fraying. We consider those whose primary self-definition is in terms of sexuality (LGB) and those for whom it is gender identity (TI, genderqueers) as both in coalition and distinct, on the assumption that these are independent aspects of self-identification. Re-examining how the Victorians thought such categories shaped each other can ground a durable basis for our LGBTQI+ coalition. The book draws on efforts to find transgender people in historical archives, in the gaps between what were termed the sodomite and the hermaphrodite. I highlight a range of individuals, thinkers and activist, and writers like Walt Whitman and John Addington Symonds to re-map the landscape of gender and sexuality in the Victorian period. 

Bea’s parents think she can accomplish absolutely anything. But at the end of seventh grade, on the day she makes a play to send her softball team to the league championships and Xander, the boy she likes, makes it clear that he likes her too, a scandal shakes up her world. Bea’s dad took money that belonged to a client. He’s now suspended from practicing law, and another lawyer spread the news online. To make matters worse, that lawyer is Xander’s dad.

The thing she was best at seems to be slipping out of her fingers along with her formerly happy family. She's not sure what's going to be harder—learning to throw again or forgiving her dad. How can she be the best version of herself when everything she loves is falling apart?

If you give a smuggler a secret he’ll demand a kiss to keep it...A lady plots her way out of an arranged marriage. A rakish smuggler discovers her disguised as a boy. A band of pirates seeks revenge. When his secrets collide with hers, it’s the perfect storm.

If you love charming rakes, strong heroines, and adventure, you’ll love this action-packed historical romance!

LGBT Victorians re-visits nineteenth-century thinking about gender and sexual identity at a time when queer alliances are fraying. We consider those whose primary self-definition is in terms of sexuality (LGB) and those for whom it is gender identity (TI, genderqueers) as both in coalition and distinct, on the assumption that these are independent aspects of self-identification. Re-examining how the Victorians thought such categories shaped each other can ground a durable basis for our LGBTQI+ coalition. The book draws on efforts to find transgender people in historical archives, in the gaps between what were termed the sodomite and the hermaphrodite. I highlight a range of individuals, thinkers and activist, and writers like Walt Whitman and John Addington Symonds to re-map the landscape of gender and sexuality in the Victorian period. 

LGBT Victorians re-visits nineteenth-century thinking about gender and sexual identity at a time when queer alliances are fraying. We consider those whose primary self-definition is in terms of sexuality (LGB) and those for whom it is gender identity (TI, genderqueers) as both in coalition and distinct, on the assumption that these are independent aspects of self-identification. Re-examining how the Victorians thought such categories shaped each other can ground a durable basis for our LGBTQI+ coalition. The book draws on efforts to find transgender people in historical archives, in the gaps between what were termed the sodomite and the hermaphrodite. I highlight a range of individuals, thinkers and activist, and writers like Walt Whitman and John Addington Symonds to re-map the landscape of gender and sexuality in the Victorian period. 

In 1999, when most people think that the world is about to end with the Y2K crash, Jet is just trying to get through high school. When their Mom moves to another country to work on fixing the Millennium bug, Jet is forced to stay at a boarding house while they finish the school year.

But something’s not quite right, and it’s not just the out-of-control kids that Jet has to live with, or the staff who look after the boarding house who act super suspiciously. As Jet slowly starts to feel overwhelmed by their peers, they begin to notice that they don’t feel like other girls. As new feelings start to emerge, Jet slowly begins to realise they may be more of a boy than a girl.

Two kids team up to save a dog…and wind up saving each other.

Some days Ash is undoubtedly girl; other times, 100% guy. Daniel can’t help how sensitive he is, and he wishes someone would accept him for it. When Daniel’s big heart leads him to rescue a dog, he’s relieved to find Ash willing to help. But when they catch feelings for each other, things get complicated. Daniel thinks Ash is all girl. What happens when he finds out there’s more to Ash’s story? With truth, identity, acceptance, and the life of a lovable dog on the line, will Ash and Daniel forever struggle to fit into the world’s binaries? Or can they embrace the beauty of living in between?

As eighth grade begins, no one knows it's Zenobia’s first day going to school as the girl she has always known herself to be. Zen grew up in a family that did not accept or support her gender identity. One way she survived was by taking refuge online, where she discovered her natural genius for coding and hacking. 

Now she finds herself in a new city with a new family, and a chance to be her real self in the world. She makes friends, but also tangles with a queen-bee girl and a cyber rival. Then when someone vandalizes the school website, she has to decide whether to hide her gifts, or offer to help and risk exposure.

Our ideas about the long histories of young couples' relationships and women's efforts to manage their reproductive health are often premised on the notion of a powerful sexual double standard. Yet in seventeenth and eighteenth-century France, young workers had the freedom to experiment with intimacy as part of courtships, they routinely had sex before marriage, and their communities were quick to support young women whose beaus refused to marry them when they became pregnant. Young couples were sometimes not ready to get married when they became pregnant. They tried a wide variety of ways to interrupt reproduction, or in our terms to get an abortion, or to move the baby off the scene after its birth.

The voices, pleasures, perils, and reproductive challenges of young couples are vividly captured. Local courts, Catholic clergy, and neighbors, kin, and co-workers all pragmatically supported young couples in these relationship and reproductive struggles.