Kathryn Gonzales - Trans+: Love, Sex, Romance, and Being You

The content in this book is honest, all-inclusive, uncensored, real-world information for teens who are transgender, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, gender-fluid, or questioning their gender identity. TRANS+ answers real questions about gender for real teens and covers mental health, physical health and reproduction, transitioning, relationships, sex, and life as a transgender or nonbinary individual. Its full of essential information youll need to know and includes real-life stories from transgender and nonbinary teens.

The language around gender is so important. There are a lot of words, from anatomy to psychology to culturally evolving words. If you dont know the definition of a word, dont let this intimidate you. Many of the chapters start with defining words that are important to that particular topic; and if you come across a word you dont know that isnt defined in the book, just do a quick internet search for it.

The language around gender, particularly as it applies to identity, is changing quickly. If there are words about identity that feel outdated, replace them with words that resonate for you.

When we talk about parents, we are referring to the people who raised you, whoever that means to you. Sometimes parents are biological and sometimes theyre not. The parentteen relationship is much more important than any kind of biological connection. So, if you have a different word or name that you use for your parents, we hope youll think about them whenever we say parents. You can even take a pen and write in the person who is meaningful to you.

We included brief notes with our thoughts and feelings and personal connections to the chapter. We intend to use this opportunity to connect with you on another level and share our experiences as they relate to the chapter. We hope you enjoy our thoughts, musings, and occasional rants!

At the end of each chapter are additional resources. These point to books, websites, blog posts, and more. Because the range of topics in this book is so large, some of the topics had so many additional resources that it was hard to narrow them down to just a few, while for other topics it was hard to find even one or two resources to recommend. But know that what we did include in these sections are some of the best resources available as of the writing of this book.

Each chapter includes diary entries written by trans and nonbinary youth and young adults. These diary entries are to show you how different youth relate to and live with the different topics every day. These are real people writing about their real experiences. Some of them are writing under their own name, some under a pen name.

These diary entries are one of the most profound and important parts of the book. We hope they move you as they moved us. There is something magical and transformative that happens in that first deep understanding that you are not alone in the worldthat there are other people out there like you who are real.

To give you a sense of their personalities, the drawings of the authors show how they really look. Here are introductions to each of the authors in their own words:

• TaiIm a transmasculine nonbinary person who has recently begun the process of social transition, publicly transitioning to male, and the time I spent questioning is crucial to my identity. In the past year, Ive gone from identifying as a straight girl to an androsexual nonbinary individual to a pansexual demiboy. Currently, I identify as on the aromantic and asexual spectrums. As a person of color, intersectionality is dear to me and I consider it my mission make it more visible, accepted, and included.

• LukaI am a gay transgender man and I have been a part of the LGBT community for a very long time. My journey has been a long and tiring one, and it will continue to be so for a long time, but it has shaped me into the person I am today. My own identification journey as well as my interactions with other LGBT and non-LGBT people have shaped my perspective in a way that I do not often see presented among the community. I have identified on all sides of the gender and sexuality spectrum before understanding myself to be a gay man, and that, too, has shaped how I see things.