Mauve · 5y

I've asked my other two retrospring friends this, so I'm curious to see how you'll answer this one: if you could give a younger gay trans man one book (without knowing his tastes), what book would you give him?

oof starting off with a hard one!! I think the books that have been the most important to me in terms of gay trans stuff have been:
-Lou Sullivan: Daring to be a Man Among Men by Brice D. Smith (not especially well-written, but Brice isnt a writer as much as hes an historian, and the archival work he did on Lou is really valuable and interesting)
-My New Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein (this was a huge help to me when I was still in the closet, and like, new to trans stuff)
-Transgender History by Susan Stryker (nothing comforts me more than reading about our history, also its important to understand our history if you're gonna engage with the community)
-The Velvet Rage by Alan Downs (this one is one that was very helpful to me in terms of my emotional growth and development, but it's probably most useful to people who are a little farther along in their transition + growing-up process)

The thing is, depending on his tastes and depending on his needs, I'd recommend any of the four of these. If I really know nothing about him...... My New Gender Workbook is probably the best catch-all? But for selfish reasons I'm settling on Transgender History, because it just makes it easier for me if everyone has some baseline knowledge of where we've come from.

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