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With trans rights under threat, it's crucial—now more than ever—that we uplift and celebrate the voices of trans and nonbinary creators, amplifying authentic, affirming stories centered on identity, self-exploration, acceptance, transition, and liberation. This collection of listens written by authors who identify as trans, nonbinary, or genderqueer explores trans identity across a myriad of genres and forms, from science fiction to memoir to poetry. Fearless and free, these feats of storytelling are as deeply human as they are engaging and endlessly listenable.
Note: Some of the stories in the collection below may reference difficult themes and experiences, including transphobia, hate speech, and harassment. Please listen with care.
The latest from Torrey Peters (whose critically acclaimed Detransition, Baby appears later on this list), Stag Dance is an electric collection of rich, complicated, character-driven stories centering queer identity, gender, and sexuality. Each story is performed by a different narrator, and Lee Osorio, Briggon Snow, Eileen Noonan, and Pyrrha Nicole bring attentive, skillful voice work to this unforgettable audiobook.
Fans of haunted house stories will appreciate this eerie, visceral novel written by nonbinary author Rivers Solomon and narrated by Gabby Beans. The Maxwell siblings have avoided the house they grew up in ever since leaving it. They were the only Black family in their otherwise white Dallas suburb, and besides, things were always off in that house. Ezri, Eve, and Emanuelle return home following the death of their parents, forcing them to reckon with the terrors that unfolded in their absence. Come for the cast of unreliable narrators; stay for the shocking ending.
"It’s impossible to overstate how impactful Jennifer Finney Boylan's first memoir, She’s Not There, was for trans representation and storytelling in the early aughts, and Cleavage is the perfect follow-up. By exploring Boylan’s firsthand experiences both before and after her transition, it’s a powerful exploration of the differences and common ground between genders. But it’s also incredibly relatable, infused with her trademark humor, wit, and compassion, written in a way that invites us to examine our own preconceptions and experiences with gender and identity. It’s timely, it’s important, and it needs to be heard." —Michael C., Audible Editor
This heartwarming novel from author and critic Emily St. James follows Erica Skyberg, a 35-year-old trans woman who hasn’t come out to anyone but herself yet. When she befriends Abigail, a 17-year-old and the only out trans woman in their small South Dakota town, their relationship draws scrutiny. With their generational divide, Erica and Abigail sometimes struggle to understand each other. Despite that, they learn how to care for each other and imagine bright futures for themselves. Delicate narration by L. Morgan Lee and Saoirse Ní Shúilleabháin brings this tender novel to life.
TikTok sensation Dylan Mulvaney documented her transition with her viral “Days of Girlhood” series. After celebrating a joyous year of girlhood, a hateful backlash cemented Mulvaney’s brave decision to be a force for positivity in the world. Her memoir chronicles her life pre-transition, her work in theater, her explorations of identity, and what it’s like to exist in the public eye. Narrated by the author, this funny and joyful memoir feels like a chat with a best friend.
Marsha P. Johnson was a Black trans woman and groundbreaking revolutionary known for throwing the first brick at the first-ever Pride: the 1969 Stonewall riots. Yet, for years, her role was undermined and downplayed. This is the first biography of her life, a love letter to a queer icon who fought for gay rights and liberation, inspired creatives like Andy Warhol, and performed her own incredible art. It's written and narrated by trans artist Tourmaline, who presents Marsha's story in all its complicated glory.
Fans of The Hunger Games and Percy Jackson will enjoy this duology opener about a competition to replenish the sun’s power. While the winner brings light and life to the temples of Reino del Sol, the loser is sacrificed to the sun god. Teo, the trans son of the goddess of birds, is surprised to be chosen for the trials. Now he must fight for glory—and for survival. André Santana’s excellent narration makes each character in this captivating novel distinct.
Elliot Page won an Oscar nomination for his breakout role in the 2007 coming-of-age movie Juno. Pageboy traces the coming-of-age story for Elliot himself. Although his transition was very public (occurring alongside his starring run in The Umbrella Academy on Netflix), there is a beauty in hearing the story directly from Page's point of view. He shares never-before-heard details of Hollywood, with its privileges and its ills. Narrated by the author himself, the story progresses in a nonlinear fashion as Page approaches and recedes from personal truths.
Part of the Remixed Classics collection, Most Ardently reimagines the Jane Austen masterpiece Pride and Prejudice with a queer twist. Oliver Bennet is the true identity of someone known to greater society as Elizabeth. Oliver dreads courtship and marriage, preferring to go out in London dressed as a young man. There, Oliver meets Darcy, who isn’t quite as rude as he initially thought. As the two fall for each other, they must choose between a safe life that stifles them and a risky shot at true love and freedom. Harrison Knights’s narration amplifies both the levity and the heart-wrenching moments in this historical YA romance from author Gabe Cole Novoa.
If you’re curious about the lives of everyday trans people, this book provides insight into the lived experiences of 20 individuals. Through hundreds of hours of interviews with author Caro De Robertis, a group of queer elders in their communities tell their stories in their own words. The variety of perspectives on art, activism, and life will no doubt resound with listeners. De Robertis thoughtfully wove these stories together into a complex tapestry and narrates them with a storyteller’s flair.
According to local stories, under the lake lies a mythical world that is half air and half water. Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia know the truth of the legend—they’ve been there. They’ve also been filling this space with the bad memories they don’t wish to carry. When the land beneath the lake begins to surface, it threatens to bring everything Bastián and Lore don’t want exposed along with it. Experienced narrator and activist Vico Ortiz and talented actor Avi Roque narrate this emotional work of magical realism.
"Brief but truly exceptional, this collection of lyrical and emotionally raw poetry is narrated by the nonbinary artist themselves. It is obvious while listening that the visceral words came from a true and deeply vulnerable place inside Alok Vaid-Menon. This meditation on femininity, gender constructs, and inherent freedom (or lack thereof) is unflinching. As they dissect painful moments, such as being verbally harassed on the street, and turn them into beautifully crafted narratives that delve under the surface and inspect the true nature of the human condition, Alok shares their soul and asks us to look honestly into our own." —Madeline A., Audible Editor
In this Audible Original, Samantha Allen, journalist and author of Real Queer America, offers a joyfully frank take on gender, identity, and transition. Allen herself narrates this memoir, taking glee in recounting each embarassing moment (like learning how to take her bra off without removing her shirt) without sacrificing the depth and vulnerability that makes her storytelling so captivating. The result is a compassion-inspiring, candid memoir that thoughtfully descontructs our culture's perspective on gender while celebrating the liberation of finding moments of joy and humor in difficulty.
Janet Mock is a writer, director, producer, and trans rights activist, and in Redefining Realness, she tells her personal story. Starting from when she was a child of divorced parents who bounced around homes before settling in Hawaii, she recounts the hardship of her young adult years, transitioning, coming out to her family members, and living as her true self in New York City. She also discusses navigating coming out publicly and speaking up for her rights. Mock narrates her own story, which is a mix of memoir, rumination on what it means to be trans, and insights into the fight for acceptance from loved ones and society. If you like this listen, be sure to check out her next memoir, Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me.
In this self-narrated memoir, Ivan Coyote recounts stories from their life growing up in Canada, where they were commonly labeled a tomboy. As Coyote grew older, they explored this tomboy identity on a deeper level, as they were often perceived as butch, and then began to identify beyond the gender binary. Both instructive and revealing, Tomboy Survival Guide is a collection of real-life stories that will hopefully help anyone questioning where they fit on the gender spectrum, along with offering reassurance and some welcome humor.
This YA debut from Tobly McSmith follows the story of Pony, a transgender boy going stealth while navigating his new-kid status at a small town Texas high school. He quickly falls for one of the most popular students, a cisgender girl named Georgia, who also starts crushing on him, all while wrestling with whether he will share his past with his new peers. Pony wants to settle into his new life but faces challenges from his family and friends, who can’t see the person for all the gender norms. The emotional toll of hiding his true identity, compounded by the constant threat of physical danger associated with simply being himself, offers a window into the reality for many transgender people. A profoundly moving and uplifting story, Stay Gold is told by dual narrators, Theo Germaine and Phoebe Strole.
In Lambda Literary Award-winning author Kacen Callender’s latest YA release, Felix is a trans student who is recently transitioned, Black, and queer. He desperately wants to find love, but fears that his identity will make that possibility out of reach. Then, when an anonymous bully at his school begins dead-naming him and sending horrible messages, Felix engages in a catfishing scheme to try and suss out his tormenter and exact revenge...but soon finds himself in a complicated relationship. Narrated by Logan Rozos, Felix Ever After is a fantastic YA novel about identity and love.
In Akwaeke Emezi’s second novel (and their YA debut), teenage Jam lives in a utopian society, Lucille, where the adults got rid of the monsters before she was born. In Lucille, there exists an easy peace, and Jam has never worried about being accepted as trans. Still, Jam is curious about those monsters. So, when a creature crawls out of her mother’s painting and tells her that she must hunt one final monster, Jam is torn with indecision. What do monsters look like? How are you supposed to find them? And most importantly, what are you supposed to do once you’ve found one? A National Book Award finalist, Pet is a slim but powerful novel, narrated with heart and conviction by editor Christopher Myers.
Award-winning author and journalist Meredith Talusan offers a heartfelt coming-of-age memoir. Fairest tells the story of a "sun child," a Filipino boy with albinism, who immigrates to the United States, is perceived as white, attends Harvard, undergoes a gender transition, and grows up to be a woman. Intertwining her own experience with reflections on class, gender, disability, and race on a societal level, this memoir has something to learn and think about for just about everyone. Talusan's reflective and careful narration of her own words brings a new level of intimacy to the work, one well worth listening to.
Thomas Page McBee is the first known trans man to have ever fought in the ring at Madison Square Garden. That alone would have made for a great memoir, but he doesn’t stop there. Amateur takes on gender stereotypes and male violence, and comes away with a hopeful vision for a new kind of masculinity—all in under four hours and narrated in his own voice.
In their memoir, Cyrus Grace Dunham takes listeners on a journey of transformation as they reckon with their identity as a nonbinary person. By excavating moments from their childhood and young adult years when their gender identity was put upon them by parents and society, and when they first identified as a gay woman, Dunham addresses society’s expectations about gender, and tells a different story about how we define ourselves. Narrated by the author, A Year Without a Name is a fascinating and deeply personal memoir about challenging gender norms.
Welcome to the Butterfly Club. Written by actress and trans activist Shakina Nayfack, this vibrant and powerful audio play tells the story of an international group of transwomen who come together at - you guessed it - the Chonburi International Hotel and Butterfly Club in Thailand. The group of women bond, struggle, and lift each other up as they share the life-altering experience of gender confirmation surgery. Performed by a full cast that features the author, this semi-autobiographical work is an emotive and affirming celebration of life.
A journalistic look at the lives of queer people of all identities across the US, Real Queer America is also part memoir. Samantha Allen talks about her coming-out process, how she grappled with her identity as a trans woman, and how she left her home in Provo and Mormon faith to be her true self. Seeking to understand why so many queer people live in rural and conservative areas, and how they build community, Allen embarked on a summer-long cross-country road trip in 2017, interviewing Americans from Utah to Florida. This self-narrated audiobook is the result—a necessary work that will challenge listeners' assumptions about where and how queer people live.
Melissa has a secret: Even though everyone sees her as a boy named George, Melissa knows she’s a girl. She isn’t sure how to tell anyone, and she knows the news would upset her big brother. But when she tells her best friend in the whole world, Melissa finds acceptance. And then they hatch a plan together: Melissa will try out for the role of Charlotte in their class production of Charlotte’s Web. When everyone sees Melissa give a stellar performance, they’ll be sure to accept her identity—right? This is an excellent, uplifting children’s novel that even adults will love, narrated beautifully by trans actor Jamie Clayton.
Fans of the punk rock band Against Me! should definitely pick up this author-narrated memoir from lead singer Laura Jane Grace, about her journey to realizing her true identity. Sharing memories and diary entries, Grace invites listeners into her innermost thoughts and feelings as she recounts her younger years, how she formed Against Me!, the band's dramas and woes, and how she dealt with gender dysphoria and transitioning. Part band history and part memoir, Tranny is a moving account of how it took Grace 30 years to find the courage to live as her authentic self.
Narrated by Samia Mounts, this YA novel is about Amanda Hardy, the new girl in her small, Southern high school. As if starting over in a new place and living with a dad who’s been distant at best since her parents got divorced weren't hard enough, Amanda has a secret: she’s trans. To protect her heart (and her physical self), she is determined not to get close to anyone, but then she meets Grant—and can’t help but fall for him. Grant is kind and gentle, but when Amanda’s secret is threatened, they’re both put at risk. If I Was Your Girl is a groundbreaking and heartrending novel about the quest for acceptance and love.
Actor, producer, and writer Jacob Tobia narrates their own “coming of gender” story. Although born into the expectation of behaving like a boy and liking only “boy” things, Tobia didn't want to be limited to masculine roles and interests, even as a little kid in North Carolina. Their enjoyment of playing with Barbies as much as getting muddy and fascination with both bugs and Princess dresses got them labeled a sissy at a young age. In Sissy, Tobia explores that very label and how it affected him beyond childhood, what makes someone masculine or feminine, how family and community shape our sense of identity, and finally feeling brave enough to come out as nonbinary.
In author Torrey Peters's groundbreaking debut novel, a trans woman named Reese receives a curious proposal from her ex, Ames: help raise a baby he's fathered with his new partner, a cis woman named Katrina. Ames, who was born male but lived as a woman named Amy for years before detransitioning, speculates that Reese's involvement can help him come to terms with the fraught prospect of fatherhood. Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction–the first book by a trans women to be nominated in the prize's 25-year history–Detransition, Baby is a engaging, compulsive, and time-hopping journey through questions of identity that resists cliche and easy answers, its quippy style enhanced by narrator Renata Friedman's knowing delivery.
From best-selling and award-winning author Kacen Callender, this coming-of-age audio novella is not to be missed. Sunset Springs follows 27-year old Charlie, who, finding himself with no job, no money, and no partner, decides to move back home with his mom. This wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t also mean moving back to his conservative hometown, where no one has seen him since his transition. Being one of the few Black residents, and the only trans person to speak of, Charlie steels himself for feeling uncomfortable and lonely. But then, he reconnects with Jackson, the former high school football star, who recently came out as gay. Commarrah J. Yochanan narrates this deeply touching, tender, and authentic story of finding courage, hope, and even love in the most unexpected of places.
For something a bit different from the coming out and transitioning memoir, try Kai Cheng Thom's surrealist, genre-bending novel. Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars is about a young trans Asian-Canadian woman who runs away from an abusive home and finds herself on the Street of Miracles, where she’s taken in by a group of fierce and femme trans women. When one of their own is murdered, she must join her sisters to fight against the killer and seek justice, but things don’t go according to plan. Our protagonist must find the strength to understand who her true family is, and what it means to embrace her identity. Featuring authentic Canadian narration by Adri Almeida, this is a fantastical story with lots of heart and truth.
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