Christine sent me the following email, and I confess, I have drawn a total blank in trying to answer her query:
Can you recommend a well done transgender romance? Not an erotica, but something well-crafted and with well-rounded characters? I'd like to read something that makes me feel all fuzzy happy about the world.
I wrote back to clarify, and Christine confirmed she was looking for romances with a transgender individual as a hero/heroine of the story.
I am all in favor of the “fuzzy happy about the world” feeling, but I am genuinely sad that I have no ideas about any quality transgender romances to recommend. So I'm asking for Christine as well as for myself. Do you have any to recommend?
I want to be a dissenting voice for “Trans-Sister Radio,” by Chris Bohjahlian, for folks looking for trans romances. I thought it was creepily heteronormative for a book about LGBT issues & kind of problematic w/ regards to its representation of transfolk. It gave me a rage blackout.
I’ve heard “Two Spirit Ranch” is good, but haven’t read it yet.
I like some of S. Bear Bergman’s work, but I’m not sure any of it counts as a romance.
Marie Sexton’s Savior’s of Oestend has a trans character and is really good and very positive/uplifting. I have heard great things about Pearl but haven’t read it. I think the Lashing’s of Sauce Anthology also has a least one trans story.