Both/And: Essays by Trans and Gender-Nonconforming Writers of Color

Norris, editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, brings together 17 essays on trans life in America in this stunning anthology. Each piece considers the intersection between race and gender against the backdrop of escalating anti-trans sentiment. In “Body Type 1,” Vanessa Angélica Villarreal considers the radical possibilities offered by role-playing games as a place to grieve the fantasy of inhabiting “a precolonial self.” “Straining Toward Humanity” finds Kai Cheng Thom contemplating her place between the binary stereotypes of trans women as “saints” or “monsters,” and in “On Beauty,” Akwaeke Emezi considers the “deviance” of trans bodies and reflects on how beauty expectations were communicated to them at a young age. In “All Power to the People,” Raquel Willis contends that prison abolition is “not solely about tearing down and ending what exists.... It’s also about what we can build and create, especially through sacred queerness.” Across the collection, the complex and multifaceted experiences of trans people of color are rendered vividly, and the pieces urge political action in the present while offering a beacon of hope for a more just future. Readers will find this tough to forget. (Aug.)