Thanks to the generosity of the Ripped Bodice Bookstore in Los Angeles and its customers, three organizations serving trans and queer youth in states where trans and LGBTQ rights are under attack will receive free copies of debut author Page Powars’s YA novel, The Borrow a Boyfriend Club (Delacorte, Sept.). This summer, Ripped Bodice customers have been encouraged to preorder copies of The Borrow a Boyfriend Club and donate them back to the store, which will then ship the books to each of the following organizations: Zebra Youth (Florida), Detroit Area Youth Uniting Michigan, and Transgender Education Network of Texas.
As of September 12, 125 books had been contributed for the campaign, which ends September 16, two days after the book’s pub date. “As a queer-owned bookstore, we are happy to support donations to trans youth organizations,” said Teresa Lynch, the store’s events and social media coordinator.
Powars conceived of the initiative, selected the beneficiaries, and is donating his royalties to finance distribution of copies of the books to organizations serving trans and queer youth. He said that he was compelled to act in response to 11 anti-transgender bills being introduced in state legislatures around the U.S. this year. “My hope was to get The Borrow a Boyfriend Club, [which] stars a trans protagonist and has no on-page trauma, directly into the hands of as many trans youth as possible, knowing they were seeing this in the news,” he said, disclosing that when he was a teenager, he had to support himself beginning at age 16, and he realizes that there are many trans youth in similar situations. They “wouldn’t be able to see themselves reflected so joyfully in this book, whether for financial or safety reasons,” Powars explained, if the book were not easily made available to them.
The Ripped Bodice was asked to serve as the nexus of the initiative, Powars said, because he had heard glowing reviews of the store from other authors as well as his readers. “I think the reason why,” he said, “is because of their uniquely trendy yet welcoming, diverse community, which they dedicate so much time into fostering. They’re passionate about all sorts of authors—self-pubbed, trad-pubbed debuts, and especially those from marginalized backgrounds—and they uplift us with their above-and-beyond social media efforts and communication. The store really does feel like a queer space to me, especially since it’s women and queer-owned, even though it’s for everybody.”
While DAYUM has not disclosed what it will do with its allotment of donated books, Zebra Youth intends to distribute the books through its lending library and through a banned books club it plans to launch. TENT is even more ambitious: according to policy director Andrea Segovia, TENT intends to use the books to organize “trans joy” events around the state.
“It’s a way for us to fight back against what is occurring in the state of Texas,” Segovia said, “TENT does our work through a place of joy, which can be difficult to do when the powers that be do their best to stop trans people from experiencing joy. We do policy work, but we understand that policy isn’t going to save the trans community; a lot of legal battles are occurring, but legal court battles aren’t going to allow trans people to survive and thrive. It really comes down to organizing events and community-building that is going to make that happen.”
The Borrow a Boyfriend Club book donation initiative is, Segovia said, “a really great thing in all this darkness. There are still authors and publishing houses and everyone in between who want to get resources, and books, into people’s hands and that’s what we’re focused on.” Segovia lauded people who might not be directly impacted by discriminatory legislation, but who step forward anyway to support those being discriminated against. Such people “know their power within their community,” Segovia said, “and use that power to say, ‘Hey, how can I be a better ally to the trans community, or to immigrants, or to people who need abortions?’ The list goes on and on.”
