Transgender Awareness Week spans the days of November 13th-November 19th each year, leading up to Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20th, which memorializes the scores of people harmed and killed yearly by transphobic violence.
In partnership with Trans Spokane and other organizations, Central Library will host Spokane’s Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 23rd. There will also be a transgender community potluck on November 30th.
The National Center for Civil and Human Rights will also hold a virtual event—open to all—for TDoR. You can register here: https://www.lgbtqinstitute.org/tdor-2024
Despite ongoing misunderstanding, fear mongering, censorship, and violence aimed at the trans community, there have always been transgender people.
As LGBTQ+ advocate Jazz Jennings says, “Being transgender is not just a medical transition…It’s about discovering who you are, living your life authentically, loving yourself, and spreading that love towards other people and accepting one another.”
And in an interview with the Washington Post, trans activist and artist Sage Dolan-Sandrino says, “Trans people are extraordinary, strong, intelligent, persistent, and resilient. We have to be. And we will not stand for the picking and choosing of rights. We still have hope.”
Here is a list of resources for trans people and allies, including great titles about and/or by trans people, all on our shelves now:
- Trans Spokane: https://www.facebook.com/transspokane/
- GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) on Transgender Awareness Week: https://glaad.org/transweek/
- GLAAD on Transgender Day of Remembrance: https://glaad.org/tdor/
- The local YWCA on Trans Awareness: https://ywcaspokane.org/trans-awareness/
- Odyssey Youth Movement, supporting queer and trans youth here in Spokane: https://www.odysseyyouth.org/
- Washington State LGBTQ Commission: https://lgbtq.wa.gov/
- ACLU of WA State on transgender rights: https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/rights-transgender-people-washington-state-discrimination-and-harassment
Middle Readers
Dear Mothman by Robin Grow
Green by Alex Gino
Teen/YA
No Place for Fairy Tales by Edd Tello
Transmogrify! 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic, Edited by G. Haron-Davis
Adult
Transitional: In One Way or Another, We All Transition by Munroe Bergdorf
Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls by Kai Cheng Thom
He/She/They: How We Talk about Gender and Why It Matters by Schuyler Bailar
I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition by Lucy Sante
Make It Count: My Fight to Become the First Transgender Olympic Runner by CeCé Telfer
The Woods All Black by Lee Mandelo
Infamous: A Novel by Lex Croucher
My Child Is Trans, Now What? A Joy-Centered Approach to Support by Ben V. Greene
