In the ever-expanding universe of romance novels, stories that center on trans characters offer a window into the joys, challenges, and triumphs of love experienced through the lens of trans identity. These narratives not only provide much-needed representation but also celebrate the richness of human connection in all its forms.
If you’re seeking romance tales that resonate with authenticity, where characters navigate the path to love with courage and grace, you’re about to begin a beautiful journey. This post will introduce you to a selection of trans romance novels that shine a light on the diverse experiences of love, identity, and the quest for happiness. From heartwarming meet-cutes to deep, soulful connections, these stories invite readers to explore the transformative power of love, affirming that everyone deserves their happily ever after.
10 Trans Romance Novels (Transgender Relationship)
Trans romance novels are educational tools to raise awareness and understanding of transgender identities and experiences. By depicting transgender characters navigating romantic relationships, these books help to dispel stereotypes and misconceptions, fostering greater empathy, acceptance, and inclusivity.
Here are ten books that feature well-developed characters who undergo personal growth and empowerment. Through their journeys, readers witness characters embracing their gender identities, facing societal pressures and discrimination, and finding strength and resilience in their relationships and communities. Let’s read!
| Name | Key Focus | Rating (Goodreads) |
|---|---|---|
| Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters | A workplace romance between two transgender people. | 4.0 |
| I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver | A campus love story represents a friendship to lover situation. | 4.1 |
| Coffee Boy by Austin Chant | A romance between a gay and trans guy with political aspects and crime. | 3.7 |
| If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo | A trans girl falls in love with a boy who bullies and abuses her randomly. | 4.0 |
| Long Macchiatos and Monsters by Alison Evans | A sweet trans love story deals with disability and sexuality. | 3.7 |
| George by Alex Gino | The trans girl protagonist secretly performs as a girl on the school campus, where romance begins. | 4.0 |
| Yes, You Are Trans Enough by Mia Violet | A transgender memoir represents the inner feelings of trans people and social status. | 4.4 |
| Uncomfortable Labels by Dale | A gender studies book that teaches how to win trans situation and deals with autism spectrum. | 4.1 |
| Tranny by Laura Jane Grace | A journey about the author becoming an out trans woman and telling the truth. | 4.3 |
| Trans Mission by Alex Bertie | A trans man deals with politics, society, and current events. | 4.0 |
1. Detransition, Baby
I didn’t know this book existed until it was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2021. It is the first book on the Women’s Prize for fiction written by trans women. The story follows the lives of two people living in Brooklyn. One is a trans woman named Reese, who is about 35 years old. She’s in her mid-thirties, and she used to be in a lesbian relationship with another trans woman called Amy.
Amy has since that relationship transitioned because she was beaten up in the street, and she felt vulnerable, and she transitioned. Then she goes by Ames. So, we have Ames, a formerly transgender woman living as a man. Ames has accidentally knocked up his boss, Katrina. Katrina is a 39-year-old woman of Chinese and Jewish blood. Her father was a Jewish emigrant, and her mother was a Chinese migrant.
Now, they all live in New York City. Katrina got knocked up because Ames thought that he was infertile. He spent six years as a trans woman and assumed that all of that time spent taking estrogen meant that his testicles shriveled up and he was no longer fertile. That turned out not to be true.
Katrina is pregnant, and Ames is the father, but neither feels ready to be a parent. So Ames makes a pretty strange leap of calling up his ex-girlfriend, Reese. She has spent her entire life desperate to be a mother, but as a trans woman, she cannot carry her children. So, from this moment on, the book splits its time between the past and the present.
This book does not shy away from the harsh and dark truths of trans people. Also, it digs into issues of class, race, privilege, and labor. For a transgender person, it’s a fantastic piece of fiction and one of the best trans romance novels I have ever read.
Author: Torrey Peters
Publisher: Random House Audio
Average Rating: 4.2/5
Tropes: Women’s Fiction, Arc, Literature
Number Of Pages: 337
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
2. I Wish You All the Best
The story is about Ben, a non-binary teen who comes out to their parents because they are thrown out of their home. So they reconnect with their estranged sister, Hannah. Then they move in there and start the last semester of high school at a brand new school.
While there, they make a ton of new friends. But the most memorable is a boy named Nathan, who is cute and whom Ben might be falling for. It is a brilliant contemporary book. It is full of heart, joy, and love and covers various topics. If you like realistic fiction with trans-romance tropes, try it first.
Author: Mason Deaver
Publisher: Scholastic Audio
Award nominee: Goodreads Choice
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Tropes: Mental Health, Anxiety, Friends-to-lovers, Emotional-pain
Number Of Pages: 329
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
3. Coffee Boy
This is a male-male romance with a trans guy as the protagonist. We follow Kieran, who gets a great internship working for a political campaign only to develop a crush on his very straight-laced boss. The story is very short, and there is not enough background setup, but it’s enough to give you full entertainment and romance.
Austin Chant writes romances that I adore, and this is one of those great pieces of fiction. As a transgender person, he shows his emotions and feelings naturally. If you want a combination of gay and transgender relationships, this book is for you.
Author: Austin Chant
Average Rating: 4.4/5
Tropes: White-collar, Politics, Gay
Number Of Pages: 162
Item Weight: 4.6 ounces
Dimensions: 4.25 x 0.37 x 7 inches
Available: Paperback
4. If I Was Your Girl
This book features a trans girl protagonist named Amanda, who has started a new school because she is running from something that happened at her previous school. But she is the victim of some very transphobic bullying at this new school. Amanda is trying to fly under the radar, then falls for a boy named Grant.
It’s incredibly difficult to get through at times. We love a book that has a trans girl on the cover. Moreover, it is such a valuable piece of literature, and I cannot recommend it enough.
Author: Meredith Russo
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Tropes: Fiction on Bullying, Cry-worthy, Erotica, Abuse
Number Of Pages: 320
Reading age: 13+ years
Grade level: 10 – 12
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
5. Long Macchiatos and Monsters
This novella is about Jalen, who is genderqueer. They spend most of their time hanging around their local coffee shop, not wanting to attend university classes and obsessing over bad sci-fi movies. One day, they meet P, a trans guy. Then, the two of them fall for each other fast. He is also disabled.
Overall, this is a sweet and quick trans love story. You can finish it in one sitting. I read it for Pride Month a couple of years ago and have not regretted it because it’s delightful. But the story is slightly weak and has some unrealistic scenes. You can try it if that is okay for you.
Author: Alison Evans
Average Rating: 3.7/5
Tropes: Disabilities, Nonbinary-genderqueer
Number Of Pages: 44
6. George
The author is a trans-spectrum. However, they do not share the identity of the protagonist, George. It is a classic book about a young trans girl who wants to be able to portray Charlotte in her school’s production of Charlotte’s Web. Even though that is a role traditionally assigned to a female student, no one knows that she is a girl.
Middle grade is significant to get queer stories into the hands of younger kids. Whether these stories tell young children that it’s okay if they are feeling a certain way or are about teaching young children to be allies from a very early age. George was one of the very first stepping stones of queer middle grade. It is a beautifully written story, and I highly recommend this trans romance book.
Author: Alex Gino
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Tropes: Friendship, Pop culture-anthropology, Coming-of-age
Number Of Pages: 224
Item Weight: 5.6 ounces
Dimensions: 5.25 x 0.5 x 7.5 inches
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
7. Yes, You Are Trans Enough: My Transition from Self-Loathing to Self-Love
This is a memoir and a book that tackles misinformation. Mia Violet is a writer, blogger, and author from the UK. She explores her journey as a trans woman and speaks out to other trans people. Other people are going through struggles with gender identity, and promising them that is enough.
This book represents Mia’s journey, and it speaks to the journeys of other trans people. Also, it talks about the media and how information is skewed and twisted when it comes to trans people. Then, it tries to break down the ideas of fear, anger, love, confusion, and aggression regarding the relationship between trans people and cis people and how that stuff is all stirred up by the media.
So, the book is about Mia Violet loving herself as a trans woman and trying to tell us that trans people deserve love. The trans people will get hope and love first and foremost, and Mia is also a very accessible writer. I recommend this book for everyone to understand the inner feelings of the transgender. Please choose the paperback, because the hardcover quality is not good enough.
Author: Mia Violet
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley
Average Rating: 4.9/5
Tropes: Demographic Studies, Memoirs, Feminism
Number Of Pages: 352
Available: Paperback | Kindle
8. Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman
Laura Kate Dale is a fantastic video games journalist. Since the beginning, she has been a regular on Jim Stirling’s Pod acquisition podcast. This book is fantastic in how concise she makes for a compelling memoir and comfortably labels her life as a trans woman with autism spectrum. So it’s about realizing a lot about herself, including and beyond being a trans woman.
The story talks about how difficult it is being on the autism spectrum, going through school, and going through the early twenties. It’s a book of self-discovery and a very intensely personal journey. You will learn much about Laura and trans people along the journey.
So, any teachers who think they understand the signs of autism and how to help autistic children, read this book because there’s a lot you might not know.
Author: Dale
Average Rating: 4.6/5
Tropes: Gender Studies
Number Of Pages: 192
Available: Paperback | Kindle
9. Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout
Laura Jane Grace is a legend of the punk music scene and is a punk rock star. So it’s a punk thing to do to take a slur and try to repurpose it and repurpose it for something good. Her personal story is an amazing one.
The book is about her becoming a trans woman and telling the world the truth. That’s what sets this apart from other books, memoirs, and trans narratives by trans writers because she was already famous and presented unique struggles simultaneously.
Also, you get to see the author’s love life and her conflict with others. This book is predictable and so long that it feels boring for some readers. But you can try it if you like a slow-paced trans love story.
Author: Laura Jane Grace
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Average Rating: 4.8/5
Tropes: Musician Biographies, Politics-anarchism
Number Of Pages: 320
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
10. Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard
The book was written by a trans man called Alex Bertie. From the cover and the title, you can tell that this is a slightly more optimistic book. Alex Bertie is a prominent trans guy who remarks that he was trans from around the age of 15, and this is his journey to becoming what he is. It’s difficult to put that into words, isn’t it? But this is him trying to explore his truth and write it down.
So it’s very similar to Uncomfortable Labels. It also seems that many trans activists are trans women more than trans men. Trans Mission is a very lovable book about personal exploration. Alex writes with a lot of wit and wisdom. He represents the mental health issue and trans romance very uniquely. Don’t miss this book!
Author: Alex Bertie
Publisher: Hachette Audio
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Tropes: Politics, Society & Current Events
Number Of Pages: 304
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle
Last words
These novels do more than just tell tales of romance; they validate and celebrate the diverse experiences of love within the trans community, offering stories of hope, resilience, and the universal search for connection. Through their characters’ journeys, these books underscore the message that love knows no boundaries and that everyone’s story deserves to be told with dignity and respect.
May the highlighted novels inspire you to embrace love in all its forms and seek out stories that broaden your understanding of the human heart. In reading and supporting trans romance novels, we enrich our lives and contribute to a more inclusive and compassionate world. Here’s to finding love, joy, and representation in the stories we choose to cherish.
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