Trans Rights Readathon Wrap-Up Post!!!

What a week it's been! With your support, I've read 12 books, (3,038 pages!) of trans books this week. Together, we have raised $816 for the Trans Health Legal Fund. That's incredible! Thank you so much!!! (Donors, keep an eye on your email for more information, coming later today! Chelsea, congrats on winning the giveaway!) And now...

More books! Here's everything I've read since my last post. I've been reading mostly kidlit in recent months, so I really wanted to push myself to read more books marketed to adults for this readathon. As a result, yesterday, all my reading was fiction written for grownups.

Finna by Nino Cipri was a light novella with some serious themes-- the ways corporations don't value their employees, being stuck working with someone you used to date, and whether a person can be replaced. But there's also people-eating plants, swashbuckling, dimension-hopping, and general adventure chaos. I loved it. I just bought the sequel.

Depart Depart is Sim Kern's novella, featuring a trans boy who has become a climate refugee housed in a Dallas arena because of a horrible flood that decimated Houston. While trying to survive the transphobia and trauma of the arena, he is haunted by his great-grandfather with visions of his life as a young Jewish boy escaping Germany. Sim Kern kicked off this whole readathon, so I'm excited I got to support their writing and learn more about their work during it!

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom is not, in fact, a memoir. It's a novel braided with poetry and letters that follows an Asian trans girl as she learns how and when to fight for herself and her community. This book is intense-- all the trigger warnings apply. But, the writing is incredible. There are core truths in even-- or especially? -- the most fantastic moments of the narrative. And... I'll admit, my gut reactions to some of the scenes in this book surprised me. I have some work to do to process them fully. This book was challenging in ways I didn't expect or know I needed, and I'm so glad that the readathon pushed me to dive into it.

And, without further ado friends... here they are... the 12 books I read for the Trans Rights Readathon! Of course, the adventure doesn't stop here. There are so many, many more books to read! If you're looking for recommendations, lists, and other resources, you can still search #TransRightsReadathon on your social media networks. Please keep adding trans books to your reading lists, and hyping trans stories wherever you can. Onward!