Literature about transgender individuals is in its infancy,
but the good news is there is a small group of emerging authors who are writing
children’s literature that centers on transgender characters, hoping to fill
the void they felt as young readers. As one author wrote “My goal was to write
stories that would have helped me feel less alone at that age.”
The course will not be smooth; change never is, but
eventually transgender literature, to have sustainability, must be judged on
the same merit that all literature is subjected to. No matter the genre, the
best of literature must exhibit quality of writing, authenticity of voice,
offering readers pathways into a story that encourages readers to engage with
the characters and to care about what happens to them.
Ideally, transgender literature will be one more island
added to the sea of print readers swim in, addressing the journey that the best
of fiction explores—the quest, the challenge to find and be your own self.
A character I just met said it most succinctly—People who read for plot, people who suck
out the story like a cream filling in an Oreo, should stick to comic strips and
soap operas…. Every book worth a damn is about emotions and love and death and
pain. It’s about words. It’s about people dealing with life.
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