Wanted - Books About Trans Youth and Adults

She was born Christopher Binns. For twenty years I thought I had a nephew. He didn't talk a lot about his feelings for himself or his body. For another twenty years I thought I had a gay nephew. No biggee. It made no difference to me.

I only realized I actually had a niece a few years ago. That revelation took a while to adjust to. She had top surgery and looked and acted as feminine as I (actually more so, she really made a great looking woman who sang and danced and attracted hot men like crazy). Still, I am ashamed to admit I didn't start using the proper pronoun for her until 2018 when she was hospitalized after an accident.

The first time I visited she was in intensive care, unconscious. No makeup, wig missing, covered in bandages, monitors and tubes. Yet all the medical personel were considerate enough to call her "she". They did it as naturally as they would have done so for me. Crystal was not just a pretend girl, that's who she was. From then on I had no problem thinking of her as a woman.

Her voice was so much like her mother's that even though my sister died long ago, I would sometimes look around expecting to see her when Crystal spoke. She was a caring, sensative woman who also had more friends than I. I did not spend nearly enough time with her. Not because she was trans. I had a busy life, and, being an introvert, was perfectly content with myself. She hated not being around family. She and I talked on the phone a few weeks ago. I listened while she lamented how seldom she and I met in person. She was right, but then, I seldom get together with any of my relatives. I found the quarantine in place order a delight. The pandemic gave me an excuse to be alone.

I blithely said I would see her sometime after the stay-at-home order ended. In the back of my head I thought I would one day write a story featuring a trans character. I could use her as a source, and interview her ... someday.

Someday will never come, now. I lost her two weeks ago. Not to Covid, but to heart failure. Which is so wrong, because she was filled with heart. It could have been hormone related, and I know near the end she feared she might have to lose her prosthesis, I think her implants may have caused her some problems. Or maybe it was all stress. She was increasingly worried about other trans women she knew. Every time a trans woman was murdered, she grew more furious and at the same time fearful. I wonder how much loosing so many friends over the past few years put strain on her heart.

She had a lot of friends in the community. I never knew how many until I posted about her death. People posted narratives about  what she meant to them, and how heartbroken they now were. I learned more about her from reading those tributes than I did from being her aunt. It's good to know she was well-loved. Good to hear the stories of her kindness and generosity. They also hurt, because I should have been closer to her, should have known those stories myself. I never realized she took in she took in gay and trans kids whose parents threw them out. She did more than lament for some of the trans women being murdered, she knew many of them personally. The strain of seeing one after another murdered must have torn at her and her heart.

Books are one way children and adults experience other people's lives. Crystal didn't have anything when she was growing up.  She had to figure out life as a black trans girl on her own. Books about members of the trans community did not exist forty, or even thirty years ago. Things need to be different for today's trans boys and girls. People should not have to find their paths alone.

I have read Luna, by Julie Ann Peters. Its a well written story about a transgender girl's struggle for acceptance by frineds and family, told fromt he point of view of the only person who loves her no matter what, her younger sister.

I also read and enjoyed I Am J by Chris Beam. That is the story of a trans boy learning how to be a man. I want more. There must be more, I simply haven't found them yet.

I cannot write Crystal's story now, I lost that chance when she died. I love and miss her, and it would feel too much like I was stealing her life if I tried to write a trans girl now. Besides, I want to read something authentic, written by a trans author who eats, sleeps and even bleeds the reality, just as Crystal did. I would absolutely love to read books filled with trans thoughts, emotions and experiences. That's my wish. I want books written by and about trans men and women who grow up, meet, fall in love, experience heartbreak and finally have an HEA. Please, if you know of any such books send the information my way.

Ditto for trans authors, both published or aspiring. I plan to get together with some of her friends and see if they have book suggestions. And see if any of them are, or want to be, writers. I spent last year mentoring an aspiring author of color. Maybe this year I will do the same with a trans author. If I can't write Crystal's story, maybe one of her friends can write their own, with a little help from me. I enjoy being a mentor. And I will feel like I'm doing something for my niece.

A Great Holiday Read by Lynn Lovegreen

It’s the time of year when people are looking for holiday romances. My friend Mercy Zephyr has written a sweet contemporary transgender romance that I really enjoyed reading. Here’s my interview with Mercy:

How did you come to write this book?

This is the first book I wrote. It was coming up on the holidays, and I felt left out of the festivities; transgender women don't exactly get written into Hallmark specials. Every Thanksgiving, there's a Thanksgiving dinner me and my husband go to for all the people in the community whose family have rejected them, so that feeling is there; Plus, a lot of us feel like we're not going to find love, and I touch on that in the book, but it's important to have hope, so I wanted to give some of that hope away to people who needed it. Not only that, but a lot of cisgender people who read it found it to be a great read and learned a lot, too.

I agree, I had fun reading it and learned a lot myself! I know you published this book, and some of our readers are interested in that process. How did that happen for you?

The story popped into my head, and I wrote it out, self-edited it, studied how to create a cover and designed it myself, then set up my web presence and published it late on Christmas Eve last year. That's a pretty terrible time to publish a Christmas story, since nobody will really notice it until after Christmas, but it took longer than I thought it would at first.

These things always do! What are your plans for future novels?

Unveiling Ms. Claus has a bit of tasteful heat in it, since so much of the book is about Amber's relationship with herself and her own body, and she just couldn't show that without taking her bits out for a spin.

Since then, I've moved to writing low heat. I've seen queer authors be stigmatized for the intensively sexualized content in their books, even when they are writing in ways that are really very tame. An M/F story with very mild sex in it, nothing graphic at all, is totally acceptable. Change the couple to two women or another LGBTQIA identity and without a single word changing, people start treating it as high heat or erotica. My next books don't even have a sex scene to be misinterpreted like that. 

I might write some more holiday pieces in the future as I get more comfortable with my production schedules, but right now, I'm working on three more books; one of them should be on Amazon by November 15th or so, give or take. That's Transpire Together, a sweet small town second chance in the shadow of the 2018 bathroom bill fight, with a trans man and a cis woman. The next one... February, I think. Also small town, friends to lovers, with a twist on a fake relationship. It is going to bring in Alaska Native representation and asexual spectrum topics, and it's a lesbian story. I want to mix things up there. 

Unveiling Ms. Claus

Doctors cannot be in relationships with their patients. Who knew how much that would hurt?

Rejected by her parents as an adult, Amber Claus is starting life anew from nothing, as a woman. When she meets a man who feels like he could be The One, things feel hopeful...until she meets him as the doctor helping her to transition. And doctors can't date patients.

But she won't need help forever, and she's earned some Christmas cheer…

Mercy Zephyr (she/her) was born and raised in the Mat-Su Valley, where her and her husband of eleven years live today. Together, they enjoy bicycling, spending time with her supportive parents, and spoiling their grandchild and each other. She is an asexual transgender woman of Athabaskan descent who transitioned alongside her husband. She writes sweet, optimistic #ownvoices romance with a spoonful of humor and a dash of grit, centering transgender and sometimes asexual characters. 

Website and Newsletter: http://www.mercyzephyr.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MercyZephyr)

https://books2read.com/ap/nzgEKJ/Mercy-Zephyr

Lynn Lovegreen grew up in Alaska, and still lives there. Her young adult historical romances are set in the Alaska Gold Rush, a great time for drama, romance, and independent characters. See her website at www.lynnlovegreen.com.