For Transgender Awareness Week, here’s a recap of some of the best children’s books published this year that have transgender protagonists or significant trans characters. Add them to your bookshelf or library for any day of any week!
Today is Transgender Parent Day, a time to celebrate and honor transgender parents! Here are some great children’s books that star kids with trans parents, a guide for kids with trans parents, and several memoirs by trans parents and/or their spouses/partners.
Calvin is a gentle first-person picture book about a transgender boy who transitions with the love and support of his family, teachers, and friends. Vanessa Ford, who co-authored the book with her husband JR, said in an interview that the book “shows the necessity of having a community around trans youth, that when one child transitions, others transition alongside that child, and that it takes a community to ensure that they are safe and protected.”
Today is Spirit Day, GLAAD’s annual event to speak out against anti-LGBTQ bullying and stand with LGBTQ youth. Watch trans queer dad Reese Rathjen Amyx reading his toddler a sweet anti-bullying board book with a message of kindness!
Coming out this week and next are two picture books featuring transgender girls (one told from her sibling’s perspective), one about a kid whose mom is a transgender man, and one about a boy who wants to dance ballet!
As July rolls on, here are a few news items for and about LGBTQ parents that I haven’t yet posted about. Catch up on what’s happening!
Part memoir and part parenting guide, the new book by diversity educator and speaker Trystan Reese manages to tell a story that is specific to his experience as a gay, transgender dad, while offering universal advice on parenting, relationships, and more.
Fifteen-year-old Hunter Chinn-Raicht, who is non-binary, knows that the term “non-binary” isn’t always understood. “This is a new word and it’s super confusing for a lot of people, especially people that weren’t brought up with it,” they told me in an interview. They hope to dispel some of that confusion through a new book they’ve written, one of a set of three titles by “champions” of the GenderCool Project, a youth-led movement of teens who are speaking out to show that transgender and non-binary youth can thrive.
In “Fighting for Fertility,” premiering today on the PBS science series NOVA, transgender dad Trystan Reese and his husband Biff Chaplow are one of several couples profiled who shed light on fertility challenges, new technologies to address them, and systemic inequities that impact fertility and fertility care.
Penelope is “no ordinary kid.” Penelope is a ninja—strong and smart, with ninja moves. It’s hard to be a ninja with a name like “Penelope,” though, when everyone calls you “cute.” And no one sees that Penelope is a boy—so he has to tell them, in an affirming new picture book that is also a true story, written by the real boy’s mother.
