Transgender literature is a collective term used to designate the literary production that addresses, has been written by or portrays people of diversegender identity.[1][2]
Representations in literature of transgender people have existed for millennia, withOvid'sMetamorphoses (written in the year 8 CE) containing some of the earliest accounts.[3] In the twentieth century, it is notable that the novelOrlando (1928), byVirginia Woolf, is considered one of the first transgender novels in English and whose plot follows abisexual poet who changes gender from male to female and lives for hundreds of years.[4]
Before Orlando though The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum was published in (1904) with the main character Ozma born a girl but as an infant turned into a boy, named Tippetarius/Tip, and raised as one until at the end of the book discovering their true identity as the princess of Oz.
BeyondOrlando, the twentieth century saw the appearance of other fiction works with transgender characters that saw commercial success. Among them isMyra Breckinridge (1968), asatirical novel written byGore Vidal that follows a trans woman hellbent onworld domination and bringing downpatriarchy. The book sold more than two million copies after publication, but was panned by critics.[5]
Many publication that foregrounded transgender individuals and their experience werememoirs. Perhaps the earliest example isMan into Woman (1933), byLili Elbe. Other acclaimedmemoirs written by trans people includeGender Outlaw (1994), byKate Bornstein;Man Enough to be a Woman (1996), byJayne County; andRedefining Realness (2014), byJanet Mock; among others.[6][7]
Transgender literature emerged as a distinct branch ofLGBTQIA+ literature in the early twenty-first century, when the number of fiction works focused on trans experience saw a pronounced growth and diversification. This was accompanied by a greater academic and general interest in the area, as well as a process of differentiation from the rest of LGBTQIA+ literature. In recent decades, more books than ever have been written by transgender authors with an intended audience of transgender readers.[8]
Susan Stryker’sTransgender History: The Root’s of Today’s Revolution, revised edition published 2017, is a guide to the general history of American transgender culture. Both the original and revised editions are short books, but they provide a good overview of transgender history. Stryker covers topics from terminology to social movements. This book can be a good introduction to transgender culture and a guide for those unfamiliar with the LGBTQIA+ community and culture.[9]
In 2020, Dutch-bornLucas Rijneveld, who isnon-binary, won theInternational Booker Prize with his novelThe Discomfort of Evening.[10]
Among the best known works trans literature in Spanish language are:Hell Has No Limits, a novel by ChileanJosé Donoso published in 1966 whose protagonist is Manuela, a trans woman who lives with her daughter in a deteriorated town called El Olivo;[11]Cobra (1972), by Cuban writerSevero Sarduy, that uses anexperimental narration to tell the story of a transvestite who wants to transform her body;[6] andKiss of the Spider Woman (1976), a novel byManuel Puig in which a young revolutionary called Valentín shares a cell with Molina, who is presented as a gay man but who during their conversations implies that his identity might be of a transgender woman, as its shown in the next passage:[12]
– Are all homosexuals like that?
– No, there are others that fall in love among themselves. Me and my friends are women. We don't like those little games, those are things homosexuals do. We are normal women that have sex with men.
In recent years, many books in Spanish with transgender protagonists have garnered commercial and critical success. InArgentina, one of the most famous examples isLas malas (2019), byCamila Sosa Villada, which won the prestigiousSor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize.[13] The novel, inspired by the youth of the author where she narrates the lives of a group oftransgender prostitutes working in the city ofCórdoba, became a critical and commercial sensation, with more than eight editions in Argentina alone and translations to many languages in the first year of publication.[14] From recentEcuadorian literature, one example isGabriel(a) (2019), byRaúl Vallejo Corral [es], a novel that won the Miguel Donoso Pareja Prize with the story of a transgender woman that falls in love with an executive and faces a discriminatory society in her attempt to become a journalist.[15]
According to a 2015NPR story, hundreds of books featuring transgender characters have been published since 2000. Although a vast majority of them tend to be targeted to a teenage audience, these publications also consist of picture books for younger children.[16]
Transgender teenage girlJazz Jennings co-authored a 2014 children's book calledI Am Jazz about her experience discovering her identity.[17][18][19]Scholastic Books published Alex Gino'sGeorge in 2015, about a transgender girl, Melissa, who everyone else knows as George.[16] Unable to find books withtransgender characters to explain her father'stransition to her children, Australian author Jess Walton created the 2016 children's bookIntroducing Teddy with illustrator Dougal MacPherson to assist children in understandinggender fluidity.[20][21] Additional books listed byThe Horn Book Magazine include:
In the past few years, transgender women have been finding publishers for their own picture books written for transgender kids. Some of these books include:
Stryker, Susan. (2017).Transgender history (Second edition): The Roots of Today’s Revolution. Seal Press.
Vakoch, Douglas A.; Sharp, Sabine, eds. (2024).The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature. New York: Routledge.
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