Welcome to Trans Reads! If you’re looking for texts by, for, or about people who transverse or transcend western gender norms, you’re in the right place! Trans Reads is the world’s largest collection of free trans-focused literature. We offer a wide variety of books, essays, zines, chapters, articles, and more! Learn more about us here.
Click here to upload a text. If you’re interested in volunteering to help us upload more texts from our backlog, please email us at transreads [at] proton.me. Trans Reads’ expenses are all out-of-pocket. Consider donating to ensure out site’s sustainability. Happy reading!
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NEW: A queer and trans Palestine reading list
UPDATED: Top banned books are now available on Trans Reads
Most Popular Nonfiction
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Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
A provocative manifesto, Whipping Girl is a gripping, no holds barred account that debunks popular misconceptions about transsexuality, while exposing the depth of the cultural belief that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive. Julia Serano, [...] -
Hinduism and Tribal Religions || Bahuchara Mata (Deity of Transgenders) [Encyclopedia of Indian Religions]
Bahuchara mata is a Hindu goddess of fertility with origins in Gujarat and worshipped largely by the transgender community, widely known as hijra in many parts of India. Her temple is located in Becharaji town [...] -
Who’s Afraid of Gender?
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time, Los Angeles Times, ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Kirkus, Literary Hub, Autostraddle, The Millions, Electric Literature, and them. "A profoundly urgent intervention.” [...] -
We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan, 1961-1991
We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan narrates the inner life of a gay trans man moving through the shifting social, political, and medical mores of the second half of the [...] -
Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory
Philosophers rarely think about acting in the theatrical sense, but they do have a discourse of 'acts' that maintains associative semantic meanings with theories of performance and acting. For example, John Searle's 'speech acts,' those [...]
Most Popular Fiction
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I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter
"I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" is a military science fiction short story by Isabel Fall, published on 1 January 2020 in Clarkesworld Magazine. The story relates the experience of Barb, a woman whose [...] -
Inside Mari Volume 1
Inside Mari follows a young college student who ignores his obligations and lives as a hermit, who wakes up one day as a beautiful high school girl who was the distant object of his affection. [...] -
Detransition, Baby: A Novel
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: [...] -
The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions is a beloved queer utopian text written by Larry Mitchell with lush illustrations by Ned Asta, published by Calamus Press in 1977. Part-fable, part-manifesto, the book takes place [...] -
Inside Mari Volume 6
Inside Mari follows a young college student who ignores his obligations and lives as a hermit, who wakes up one day as a beautiful high school girl who was the distant object of his affection. [...]
Queer and Trans Palestine
• This Arab is Queer: An Anthology by LGBTQ+ Arab Writers
• Citation and Censorship: The Politics of Talking About the Sexual Politics of Israel (Jasbir Puar)
• “Even a Freak Like You Would Be Safe in Tel Aviv”: Transgender Subjects, Wounded Attachments, and the Zionist Economy of Gratitude (Saffo Papantonopoulou)
• To Exist Is to Resist: Palestine and the Question of Queer Theory (C. Heike Schotten)
• Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement (Angela Davis)
• Journal of Palestine Studies (open access)
• Queer Necropolitics (in Haritaworn, Adi Kuntsman, and Silvia Posocco)
• Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique (Sa’ed Atshan)
• Reciprocal Solidarity: Where the Black and Palestinian Queer Struggles Meet (Sa’ed Atshan and Darnell L. Moore)
• The Right to Maim (Jasbir Puar)
• Roundtable: On Palestinian Studies and Queer Theory (Nadine Naber et al.)
• TERFism, Zionism, and Right-Wing Annihilationism: Toward an Internationalist Genealogy of Extinction Phobia (C. Heike Schotten)
• Terrorist Assemblages (Jasbir Puar)
Top Banned Books:
Note: we strongly suggest donating to authors’ Patreons or requesting banned books at your local libraries to support the writers!
• The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater
• Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher
• Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
• The Breakaways by Cathy G. Johnson
• Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
• Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
• If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
• Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart
• Melissa by Alex Gino
• Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
• This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
• Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard by Alex Bertie
• When Aidan Became a Brother by Kyle Lukoff
More Free Stuff:
• Anarchist Libraries
• Anna’s Archive
• Audiobook Bay
• Black Lives Matter Instructional Library Read-Aloud books
• DIYHRT.Market
• Library Genesis
• Marxists Internet Archive Library
• Project Gutenberg
• Sociologists for Trans Justice #TransJusticeSyllabus
