Gender Explorers: Our Stories of Growing Up Trans and Changing the World

by Juno Roche, Susie Green (Foreword by), Cara English (Afterword), Jay Stewart (Afterword)

Overview

'I believe that children who are questioning and exploring their gender are the gender bosses that we all so desperately need. I believe that they are our future.'

In this life-affirming, heartening and refreshing collection of interviews, young trans people offer valuable insight and advice into what has helped them to flourish and feel happy in their experience of growing up trans.

Speaking openly and candidly about their gender, their experiences of coming out, their aspirations, and their fears - accompanied by interviews and support from their parents and carers - this book is beautiful proof of the potential for trans children to live rich and fulfilling lives when given the support and love they need.

With their trademark candour and empathy, Juno Roche gives voice to a generation of gender explorers who are making gender work for them, and in the process, reveals a kinder, more accepting world, that we should all be fighting for.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787752597
Publisher:	Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Publication date:	06/18/2020
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	10 - 16 Years

About the Author

Juno Roche is an internationally recognised trans writer and campaigner. Their writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, Dazed, Vice, Cosmopolitan and Broadly, and Juno featured on The Independent's Rainbow List in 2015 and 2016. They have previously published Queer Sex, longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize, and Trans Power. Juno is a patron of cliniQ, founder of Trans Workers UK and Trans Teachers Network, and was the recipient of the 2015 NUT Blair Peach Award.

Table of Contents

Introduction; Interviews; The Final Interview; Resources and Further Reading

Editorial Reviews

This book is honestly an incredible beacon of trans power and joy. While the interviews don't shy away from the harder aspects of being a trans young person in the UK today, the kids Roche speaks with are living their truths, taking ownership over gender, and being 'gender explorers' in every way. Despite so much transphobic garbage in today's UK media, this book gave me so much hope for the future.

Alice Oseman

Juno is prolific in giving people a voice without feeding into the narrative of trans people having to prove who they are or their right to exist: she simply shows them as themselves, existing and being people with aspirations, hopes and dreams. A truly magnificent read that fills you with hope for the future.

Fox Fisher

Gender Explorers in a must read ... a breathtakingly inspirational book, one full of hope, optimism and positivity.

Pop Matters

Juno Roche is a writer that goes beyond the surface, and tackles topics with care, razor sharp intellect, but an open hearted accessibility. Juno's writing leaves me affirmed, but also challenged, and always wanting to read more.

Travis Alabanza

Another groundbreaking unputdownable book from Juno, this time focusing on the stories of young trans and gender diverse people in their own words. These conversations provide all the evidence anyone could need that children who are responded to in supportive and affirming ways have joyful and fulfilling lives and look to the future with excitement, while those who are not continue to struggle profoundly. Juno's conversation with their own younger self is just the kind of time-travel many of us trans adults need in order to bring own our struggling inner kids into the potentially gender euphoric future imagined by these young people.

Meg-John Barker

When Gendered Intelligence, the UK charity that supports trans kids, sought a writer to interview and compile interviews with youth who self-identify as trans, the choice of Juno Roche, founder of the Trans Teachers Network, proved to be perfect. Trans narrator CN Lester channels both the author and the spirit of the project to produce excellent listening results. Their clear, well-paced delivery includes audible smiles and echoes the author's easygoing approach to guiding listeners through the interview transcripts. The kids are self-assured, and responses to the interview questions demonstrate that they have left behind binary gender choice to explore gender identification as a potent and potential spectrum. Interviewees are not given individual voices, a reminder that these are researcher-collected responses, not fictional characters. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2020 - AudioFile