This article contains affiliate links to Amazon. Thank you for supporting The Game of Nerds.

This year marks the third year of the Trans Rights Readathon, which ends today on the International Day of Transgender Visibility, which I have been participating in this year. While writing this, I am currently reading The Flowered Blade by Taylor Hubbard, a tender, high fantasy, enemies to lovers romance that I am really enjoying. But just because the readathon has come to an end, doesn’t mean we should stop the conversation around doing what we can as readers to support trans rights.

To celebrate the International Day of Trans Visibility, I wanted to share six books that I have read that were either written by trans or non-binary authors or feature trans characters. I loved each of these books and hopefully you will find a similar joy when reading them as I did. At the end, I also included a list of books I discovered when researching books for the Trans Rights Readathon that I didn’t get to read but would love to read some day.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

Photo Source: Amazon

All Silas Bell wants to do is follow his dreams and become a surgeon, to have the ability to do what he is passionate about. To have the right. But Silas was born a woman, and all purple-eyed women must submit to the same fate: to be married off and become an obedient Speaker wife to give birth to more purple-eyed children. To create more mediums who can see through the Veil and commune with the dead. He doesn’t have the right, not in the eyes of the Royal Speaker Society.

When Silas fails to escape an arranged marriage, accidentally exposing his innermost secret, he is diagnosed with Veil sickness and is sent to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School, where cruel instructors will attempt to carve him into a woman fit to be a Speaker wife. As ghosts of missing students begin pushing against the Veil, Silas realizes that he must escape Braxton’s or he may very well end up being the next ghost to haunt its halls.

Other books by Andrew Joseph White with more queer, trans, and autistic characters are Hell Followed with Us and Compound Fracture.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

Photo Source: Amazon

In China, among the starving peasants of the Central Plains, one boy is destined for greatness and one girl nothingness. But the girl refuses to be nothing.

When the Zhu family is attacked by bandits, leaving only the girl alive, Zhu does what she has to to survive: take her brother’s place and enter the safety of a monastery. Here, she will do whatever it takes to hide from her fate and steal her brother’s. The girl no longer exists. He is Zhu Chongba and he will carve his path to greatness with his bare hands. From the halls of the monastery to the bloody battlefields of rebellion, Zhu fights for the destiny he is owed and will let no one stand in his way from achieving it.

Continue Zhu’s journey in He Who Drowned the World in Parker-Chan’s magnificent duology that retells the rise to power of the Ming Dynasty’s first emperor.

Most Ardently by Gabe Cole Novoa

Photo Source: Amazon

Oliver Bennett is trapped in a gilded cage made of extravagant balls and beautiful dresses. During the day, he spends his life bending to society’s expectations, wearing the dresses, going to the balls, and entertaining the attention of suitors he could never be interested in. His days are torture. It is only at night that he can don the clothes of a proper gentleman and slip from the rigidness of his life as Elizabeth. It is only a night that he can truly be himself, Oliver.

It is during these nights that Oliver runs into Darcy, a nobleman who has been nothing but rude to Elizabeth. But Darcy is different with Oliver, and the more time they spend together, the more Oliver begins to fall for his intelligence and charm, a side of him that only seems to come out around Oliver. Love may finally be possible. If only his mother wasn’t so intent on getting Elizabeth married off. Oliver’s time is running out and soon he is going to have to make a choice between familial duty and being true to himself.

This beautiful retelling of Pride and Prejudice is part of a collection of remixed retellings by a variety of authors of marginalized background to reimagine classic works through their own, unique cultural lens. The rest of the series can be found here.

Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

Photo Source: Amazon

Something is wrong with Thomas, and Andrew will do anything to find out what and fix it. He would do anything for Thomas. Even kill for him.

Andrew has noticed the changes in Thomas. The disappearance of his abusive parents, the blood on his clothes, the disinterest in his artwork. The undeniable haunting look about him. But Thomas refuses to let Andrew in, so there is only one thing Andrew can do: follow him into the woods and see for himself what Thomas has been up to. What he wasn’t expecting to find was one of Thomas’s sketches, a nightmarish monster drawn from the horrifically twisted stories Andrew finds refuge in writing.

Thomas’s drawings have come to life, Andrew’s monsters, and the boys must fight monster after monster to make sure no one else dies. But as their friendship grows into something savagely obsessive, the monsters grow stronger, and Andrew begins to fear what he might have to do to stop them.

Also by C.G. Drews is Hazelthorn, a queer, gothic, botanical horror novel, coming out October 28th, 2025. Read my review of Hazelthorn here to get a glimpse of Drews’s hauntingly beautiful writing.

How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager by D.N. Bryn

Photo Source: Amazon

Wesley Garcia wants nothing else but revenge for the death of his mother. The only way to do that is to gain access to the pharmaceutical company he’s sure killed her, and to do that he’ll need a vampire to hand off to them for whatever ungodly experiments they conduct in their labs. Luckily for him, he knows just the vampire.

Vincent Barnes cannot afford black market blood. The only way he stays alive is by sneaking into random houses in the dead of night to feed off sleeping humans. When one of his victims wakes up, he fears the worst. Until he asks him to stay. Confused, but unable to resist the temptation, he does just that. Stays.

With a vampire in the palm of his hand, Wesley is only biding his time before pawning the vampire off and getting his revenge, but Vincent is nothing like he expected. Vampires aren’t supposed to be soft and awkward and sweeter than anyone he has ever known. Wesley soon realizes that he cannot go through with the plan he set in motion, but the hunt has begun and he will have to risk it all to save Vincent’s life.

The first book in D.N. Bryn’s Guides for Dating Vampires series, all with queer and disability representation, and each with their own separate but intertwined couples.

World Running Down by Al Hess

Photo Source: Amazon

Mad Max, but make it gay and cozy. Doesn’t sound possible, right? Think again.

Valentine Weis is given an impossible job. Track down some stolen androids and receive full citizenship in Salt Lake City. Not only would this be an escape from the wastelands of Utah, but also a free ticket into the city where he can get the surgery and testosterone he needs to transition. So when Osric, a powerful AI forced into an android body, comes to him with the job, Val must accept, even if it means navigating through dangerous pirate territory to find them. But it’s worth it for the chance at the life Val has dreamed of. Until he starts growing feelings for Osric. Until they find the androids and realize they have become sentient and Val cannot possibly bring himself to force them to go back.

Val must choose between his morals or the life he has always wanted, but perhaps a life outside the city wouldn’t be so bad if he had someone he loved by his side.

World Running Down features trans, gay, lesbian, non-binary, and (mentioned) polyamorous representation.

More Recommendations

Happy reading, and happy International Day of Transgender Visibility!