Reading for Queer and Trans* Sustenance

Meet our Contributor: Christian George Gregory Associate Professor, Saint Anselm College

Christian George Gregory is currently an Associate Professor of Education at Saint Anselm College and a former Lecturer at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in English Education. He has written for English Journal, English Education, QED, and for both Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal and the Journal of LGBTQ Youth, where he serves on the Board. He has published chapters in edited collections on queer studies, banned books, Young Adult Literature, and the graphic novel, is a former Program Chair for the Queer SIG of AERA and serves on the judging committees for the NCTE’s REALM and ALAN’s Walden Awards. His research interests include expanding the canon of English Education, queer theory, and classroom discourse.

Reading for Queer and Trans* Sustenance by Christian George Gregory

As we move from the end of the academic year further into late spring and Pride month, as we contend with a world in flux, and as we consider the continued effort to pull books, particularly books with LGBTQ+ content, off shelves, I’d like to reflect on several notable YA books released this past year that reflect the experiences of queer and trans* youth in difficult times.[1] In this post, I highlight five authors whose work, published in recent years, experiments with genre, wrestles with personal and political issues, and provides moments of heroism, hope, and gleeful joy.

​Compound Fracture, Andrew Joseph White

White’s work is nothing if not singular. Some may be at a loss to categorize or describe it. Here is one attempt: a West Virginian, Marxist-socialist, on-the-spectrum, trans-masculine protagonist, Miles (he/they), is caught in a Hatfield-and-McCoy-style revenge plot. And it’s a ghost story. The writing is raw, careful, and surprising. Here is just one arresting example of narration when Miles sees Saint, the ghostly walking dead from nearly a century ago:

When he turns to the house, I can make out the wound where the railroad spike came out at the back of his brain stem, the blood matted into his sandy hair. Now that I know he’s trans, I’m trying to find it in his features; in the size of his hands, in the way his face is built. He was never gonna get testosterone, so he had to work with what he had, and I think he did well with it. Or maybe that’s the weight of a century changing the body, the bones and the meat. I don’t know how this works.

Highly original and a bit outlaw, White ventures into this mixed genre of guns, violence, blood, and gore with abandon.

White also handles dual “coming out” stories. First is the ongoing journey of Miles, who self-identifies as trans* and later must contend with his forced, public outing. White composes the fallout with care, as when Miles’s family discusses this personal violation. The second “coming out” narrative focuses on Miles' awakening, with the guidance of his friends, to the possibility of being autistic.

Conceptually, the ‘open wounds’ of the body that run throughout the work feel specific to the psychic/physical experience of how the trans* bodies must be reconfigured (ripped, stitched, healed) in the process of becoming. In this matrix of ghosts and gore, I am reminded of trans* author Susan Stryker, who writes that “we have done  ​the hard work of constituting ourselves on our own terms, against the natural order. Though we forego the privilege of naturalness, we are not deterred, for we ally ourselves instead with the chaos and blackness from which Nature itself spills forth” (p.254).  Much like Styker, who here liken herself to Frankenstein’s monster, White has created a work is without question a book of radical queer/trans* ideas. During a time when don’t say trans' is the order on high, authors like White are even more essential to shelf and protect.

​A Constellation of Minor Bears, Jen Ferguson

Ferguson’s novel is a complex exploration of anger, attraction, and guilt. Graduating senior Molly is coping with her ambivalent feelings about a climbing accident that befell her brother Hank, possibly due to the negligence of their mutual friend Tray. After the accident and graduation, Trey and Molly trek across the United States. Ferguson's writing is nuanced, thoughtful, and engaging. Here is Trey, for example, thinking through his relationships:

But honestly I think things will get better. Between me and Molly. With Hank as he keeps healing. With the land. The planet. I even believe that water will show up when we need it, maybe around the next bend. Shit like that, it trends upward. (p.55)

Ferguson’s writing, here in the voice of Trey, has a surprising depth. Equally as impressive is when Ferguson writes in the voice of Hank, and his chapter headings titled “AITA,” an initialism I had to look up that stands for “Am I the Asshole?”  

There are also meaningful exchanges between Molly and Brynn (p. 143) that foster an open dialogue about body positivity amid fat-shaming. Ferguson’s work would appeal to a wide variety of readers, not merely queer readers, as the cross-country excursion is, by turns, an adventure story and extended group therapy session. Such moments of YAL, those that embed peer-to-peer counsel, remind me of how essential such moments are of “queer sustenance” (Gregory 2026). Here, authors sustain and support queer identities by depicting peer-to-peer discussions on identity, acting as a reflective or aspirational mirror of queer counsel. Beyond in-scene counseling, the book itself, which threads ‘campfire’ discussions throughout, serves as bibliotherapy. For queer and trans* teens, works like these serve as another help hotline and lifeline.

I Can’t Even Think Straight, Dean Atta

Like Atta’s prior work, Black Flamingo (2020), this verse novel work excites in many ways. Kai, a half-Greek, half-Jamaican young gay man, thinks through his life, family, and potential love interests. Fresh and witty, the work demonstrates a command of verse while driving the plot forward. The second half, in which Kai comes to realize he has been in love with his best friend, Matthew all along allows Atta to write scenes that incorporate easy, charming banter between them, and I burst out laughing more than once. In this way, the reader roots for their success, and the scene in which Matthew comes out to “the Boys,” his pack of straight friends, was unexpected. Nervous, Matthew feels the high stakes of disclosure when, in fact, his friends are completely accepting of his sexuality.

The work tackles many issues relevant to queer growth and formation. One episode has Kai attend the lecture on “how to get published” from a visiting queer writer, which allows Kai a queer mentor. Additionally, Kai’s prickly, combative nature offers greater complexity. He falsely accuses his teacher of homophobic behavior, which his teacher responds to with great sensitivity. As both Atta and the teacher know, queer youth are in formation and sometimes need guidance. The teacher demonstrates an active knowledge of how to manage anger and de-escalate situations, a skill so crucial today. Like other books mentioned in this post, this work provides several queer exemplars of how to navigate one’s identity, coming out, anger, ambitions, and ultimately, the world.

Coffeeshop in an Alternative Universe, CB Lee

Lee’s rom-com fantasy involves Kat and Brenda, who live in parallel universes: one magical, the other, “normy.” By chance they meet one day in Kat’s coffeeshop as Brenda completes her college scholarship application down to the deadline. Kat enters with a “pick-me-up” coffee, made with a mysteriously glowing shot that, in fact, picks Brenda up. The subsequent pages keep the pair apart, until they reconvene in the aisle of a magical Target.

The marriage of rom-com and parallel-universe genres is fresh, and once the fissure is breached, Kat and Brenda catch a vibe, and the stakes, with all sorts of manna surges and beasts to vanquish, climb higher. Some of the magical world-building places it in the realm of fantasy, but when Kat speaks about the nature of magic--with “surges,” “power,” and “matrixes”--the narrative reads like code for AI. In this way, Lee reaches for allegory on the carbon footprint and dangers of technology on the environment.

While the pacing lags a bit and the rules of the world and its portals were left unexplained or only clarified after the fact, Lee’s work is remarkably upbeat and spirited. For instance, Kat and Brenda cast a spell to shrink the dragon (chapter 28), who is lured into submission by the shiny object of the sax. They succeed, but inadvertently and comically enlarge Brenda’s cat, Fancy. There is also a nice piece of writing in which the mind of Brenda and the dragon merge. So, the romance is charming, the set pieces are unexpected, and the overall effect allows Lee’s work to reside in queer joy, adventure, and fantasy.   

​The Closest Thing to a Normal Life, Michael Méndez Guevara

First-time author Méndez Guevara, a former teacher, has written a readable, clever, steadily paced work that does something I haven’t seen recently: it frames its narrative with epic violence, as the parents of protagonist Ethan-Mathew are killed in a terrorist attack on reporters. The work then narrates the more subtle microaggressions that escalate in San Antonio, Texas. By focusing on the escalation of racist and homophobic speech, Méndez Guevara maps how hate speech engenders greater violence, thus tracing violence back to its nascent source.

The primary characters are nicely drawn. Head cheerleader CC, a bestie of Ethan-Matthew, is a charmer, and love interest and goofball Reid is an unexpected queer construction: star runner, caring, hopeful to express his feelings for Ethan-Matthew, and someone who responds with great heart when Ethan is triggered by guns and the prospect of gunfire (Méndez Guevara, p. 166). The grandparents who raise Ethan-Matthew are wonderful and not at all homophobic, though we learn that they were a bit racist. Some of the teachers are Marvel villains or heroes, with little nuance. For instance, the journalism teacher is completely unprofessional and petty. On the flip side, the librarian is heroic--creating a food bank and a Starbucks-like retreat from the world's worries.

Overall, the writing is clean and clever; the set pieces--the sleepovers, the rucksack hike, the first running tournament, the alternative anti-prom dance--are fresh and engaging. What the work does successfully is identify the simultaneous forces at play in our country right now: MAGA rhetoric and the persistence of inclusion and progressivism. In this way, it is a book of this year and time. Guevara brings us inside Ethan-Matthew’s authentic and quirky approach to journalism, which includes a New Yorker-like profile piece on a student who works in tire repair and an editorial that depicts the racism at the ball game. Overall, an engaging work with insight and heart.

Against Slings, Against Arrows, Pride 

What provides hope now in 2026 in queer and trans* YAL is that authors are responding to our unsettling history in real time. The writing featured here addresses hate speech, the increase in violence as a result, the destabilizing of queer interior states, and the need for peer-counsel, solidarity, love, and yes, curative fantasy and escape. Pride is a complex condition in queer history. As I have written elsewhere, pride “is an antidote to shame” (Gregory, 2026). Pride month, often viewed as a celebration with flags and parades, is also a defense, “an armature against heteronormative, homophobic, and transphobic structures” (Gregory, 2023). Queer and trans* folk need pride to counter the onslaught of threats. And while such threats have intensified these past years, queer and trans* YA authors have responded, even amid banning and the threat of erasure, to tell our stories.

References

Atta, D. (2025). I can't even think straight. Quill Tree Books.

Atta, D. (2020). The black flamingo. Balzer + Bray.

Ferguson, J. (2024). A constellation of minor bears. Heartdrum.

Gregory, C. G. (2026). Queer shame, pride, and joy: How YAL parasocial relations are essential for queer sustenance. In M. Panozzo and P.W. Eaton (Eds.), Battle of the bans: Narratives of reading and engaging with banned books (pp. 57–72). Myers Education Press.

Gregory, C. G. (2023, June 22). Queer shame, pride, and joy. Dr. Bickmore’s YA Wednesdays. http://www.drbickmoresyawednesday.com/

Halberstam, J. (2018). Trans*: A quick and quirky account of gender variability. University of California Press.

Lee, C. B. (2025). Coffeeshop in an alternate universe. Feiwel & Friends.

Méndez Guevara, M. (2025). The closest thing to a normal life. Piñata Books.

Stryker, S. (1994). My words to Victor Frankenstein above the village of Chamounix: Performing transgender rage. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 1(3), 237–254.

White, A. J. (2024). Compound fracture. Peachtree Teen.

1] I use the terminology trans* here. For Halberstam (2018), trans* embraces the “unfolding categories of being organized around but not confined to forms of gender variance” and the asterisk refuses “to situate transition in relation to a destination, a final form, a specific shape, or an established configuration of desire and identity” (p. 4). I use trans* and here the asterisk with the acronym (QT*YAL) to indicate the variety of emergent identities and possibilities of more.