Bridging the Gap’s
Summer Reading List
This summer we want to celebrate the diversity of transgender, gender diverse, intersex and identities. Join us in reading and learning from our favorite Queer Black, Indigenous and POC authors and advocates!
Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon
We love Alok’s bold and beautiful style, truth telling, and work to push back on the gender binary to create more freedom for everyone.
In this new book published by Penguin Alok Vaid-Menon provides an accessible primer to gender fluidity, showing how a world beyond the gender binary of man and woman creates more freedom for everyone. They equip readers with the knowledge to counter the rise of anti-trans discrimination. This book invites the world to see gender not in black and white, but in full color.
The Body is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
Activist, educator, artist and author Sonya Renee Taylor has gifted us with powerful tools for cultivating radical self-love and body empowerment.
Humans are a varied and divergent bunch with all manner of beliefs, morals, and bodies. Systems of oppression thrive off our inability to make peace with difference and injure the relationship we have with our own bodies.
The Body Is Not an Apology offers radical self-love as the balm to heal the wounds inflicted by these violent systems. World-renowned activist and poet Sonya Renee Taylor invites us to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength. As we awaken to our own indoctrinated body shame, we feel inspired to awaken others and to interrupt the systems that perpetuate body shame and oppression against all bodies. When we act from this truth on a global scale, we usher in the transformative opportunity of radical self-love, which is the opportunity for a more just, equitable, and compassionate world--for us all.
Your Body Is Not An Apology Workbook by Sonya Renee Taylor
Loved The Body is Not an Apology, but not sure how to bring it to your own life? This workbook uses self love to create an accessible conversation with your body, your mind, and your heart.
Your Body Is Not an Apology Workbook is the action guide that gives them tools and structured frameworks they can begin using immediately to deepen their radical self-love journey—such as Taylor's four pillars of practice, which help readers dismantle body shame and give them access to a lifestyle rooted in love. Taylor guides readers to move beyond theory and into doing and being radical self-love change agents in the world.
"In this book, you will be asked to draw, color, doodle, talk to friends, take risks, and perhaps step outside of what feels like your natural gifts and talents," Taylor writes. "I encourage you to release the need to be 'good' at what you are doing and instead strive to be authentic. Perfection is the enemy of radical self-love because it is an impossible illusion. When the voice of perfectionism chimes in, take a deep breath, remember that the work is about the process, not about the product, and give yourself permission to be fabulously unapologetically imperfect.”
decolonizing trans/gender 101 by B Binaohan
Binaohan does a stellar job of bringing global, non-white queer and trans histories and studies into a quick and digestible 136 pages. A must read for anyone looking to expand their gender horizons.
tired of reading yet another trans/gender 101 entirely centered around white people and their normative narratives? tired of feeling like you must be _this_ tall to be trans enough to belong in the community ? tired of feeling like the white trans community is erasing your experiences? having gender feels but not understanding how they fit into the current white hegemonic discourse on gender? decolonizing trans/gender 101 is a short, accessible (and non-academic) critique of many of the fundamental concepts in white trans/gender theory and discourse. written for the indigenous and/or person of colour trying to understand how their gender is/has been impacted by whiteness and colonialism.
This Book Is Anti-Racist: 20 Lessons on How to Wake Up, Take Action, and Do The Work by Tiffany Jewell with illustrations by Aurélia Durand
This is the book I wish I could have had growing up! Tiffany Jewell is gifted at breaking down different aspects of identity and providing concrete strategies for youth and adults to become more anti-racist and anti-oppressive.
Who are you? What is racism? Where does it come from? Why does it exist? What can you do to disrupt it? Learn about social identities, the history of racism and resistance against it, and how you can use your anti-racist lens and voice to move the world toward equity and liberation.
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callendar
A must have for lovers of rom coms, this digital age story of love, revenge, and trans glory makes unexpected twists and turns following Felix’s journey to discover love, happiness, and ultimately himself.
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.
When an anonymous student begins sending him transphobic messages—after publicly posting Felix’s deadname alongside images of him before he transitioned—Felix comes up with a plan for revenge. What he didn’t count on: his catfish scenario landing him in a quasi–love triangle....
The Boy & The Bindi by Vivek Shraya with illustrations by Rajni Perera
Shraya and Perera create a beautiful story about what trans affirmation can look like by exploring gendered South Asian traditions as a source of joy.
In this beautiful children's picture book by Vivek Shraya, author of the acclaimed God Loves Hair, a five-year-old boy becomes fascinated with his mother's bindi, the red dot commonly worn by South Asian women to indicate the point at which creation begins, and wishes to have one of his own. Rather than chastise her son, she agrees to it, and teaches him about its cultural significance, allowing the boy to discover the magic of the bindi, which in turn gives him permission to be more fully himself.
Beautifully illustrated with hand paintings by Rajni Perera, The Boy & the Bindi is a joyful celebration of gender and cultural difference.
Ages 4 to 8.
The Gender Wheel: a story about bodies and gender for every body by Maya Christina Gonzalez
A beautiful and accessible representation of what the term “gender expansive” really means. Gonzalez takes care to make this book easily digestible, and even offers online resources for those who need a little more!
This book is a powerful opportunity for a supportive adult and child to see a range of bodies, understand the roots of the current binary gender system, how we can learn from nature to see the truth that has always existed and revision a new story that includes room for all bodies and genders. The Gender Wheel offers a queer centric, holistic framework of radical gender inclusion in a kid-friendly way for the budding activists who will change our world. This is our world!
All ages.
When Aidan Became a Brother by Kyle Lukoff with illustrations by Kaylani Juanita
This book provides a simple and relatable way to talk with young kids about being trans, but also introduces the idea of raising new babies without gender expectations as a way to be a good family member.
When Aidan was born, everyone thought he was a girl. His parents gave him a pretty name, his room looked like a girl’s room, and he wore clothes that other girls liked wearing. After he realized he was a trans boy, Aidan and his parents fixed the parts of life that didn’t fit anymore, and he settled happily into his new life.
Then Mom and Dad announce that they’re going to have another baby, and Aidan wants to do everything he can to make things right for his new sibling from the beginning—from choosing the perfect name to creating a beautiful room to picking out the cutest onesie. But what does “making things right” actually mean? And what happens if he messes up? With a little help, Aidan comes to understand that mistakes can be fixed with honesty and communication, and that he already knows the most important thing about being a big brother: how to love with his whole self.
Ages 4-10.
My Princess Boy By Cheryl Kilodavis with illustrations by Suzanne DeSimone
My Princess Boy has a great visual for kids learning the differences between gender and gender expression. The faceless protagonist also allows for youth to imagine themselves in his stylish, sparkly shoes.
Dyson loves pink, sparkly things. Sometimes he wears dresses. Sometimes he wears jeans. He likes to wear his princess tiara, even when climbing trees. He’s a Princess Boy.
Inspired by the author’s son, and by her own initial struggles to understand, this heartwarming book is a call for tolerance and an end to bullying and judgments. The world is a brighter place when we accept everyone for who they are.
Ages 3-8.
Zara’s Big Messy Day (That Turned Out Okay) by Rebekah Borucki with Art by Danielle Pioli
This is the first in a series of awesome children’s books by author, publisher and meditation guide Rebekah Borucki teaches children strategies for calming and destressing. This is the book I gift to all of the kids and families in my life.
Meet Zara, a clever, responsible, and sometimes anxious seven-year-old girl who lives with her mother (Mama) and four-year-old little brother (Sam). Like a lot of kids her age, Zara sometimes struggles with managing her emotions when confronted with stressful situations.
In Zara's Big Messy Day (That Turned Out Okay), a hardcover picture book for young readers ages 4-8, children will join her for an ordinary day where she faces three obstacles. Guided by Zara's mother, both Zara and the reader will learn a simple breathing technique—a short visualization meditation—that will help them find peace and calm in any moment.
Ages 4-8.
