Japanese male-impersonation troupes: Part I - Kabuki & Takarazuka Revue

Part I - Kabuki & Takarazuka Revue 

Part II- Shôchiku Revue & Ichikawa Shōjo Kabuki

Kabuki

1600s: Izumo no Okuni 出雲の阿国 had been raised in service to the Grand Shrine of Izumi. She was known for her acting and dancing skills and was sent, as was the custom, to Kyoto to solicit contributions. She became known for her performance of the Nambusu, originally a sacred dance from 10th-century Pure Land Buddhism but by then a folk dance and as Okuni performed it, a dance of sexual suggestion. She also did skits about lovers and about prostitutes. She began to draw large crowds. She was summoned back to the Shrine but did not obey. By 1603 she was performing in the dry riverbed of the Kamo River and organized female outcasts including prostitutes. She taught them acting, dancing and singing and to play both male and female roles. She herself was best known for playing samurai and Christian priests. It was to her troupe that the term kabuki カブク (= leaning, slanted, shocking) was first applied. She even appeared before the Imperial Court. Historically this is referred to as onna kabuki (female Kaubuki)

1610: The start of the Shogunate, hereditary military rulers residing in Edo (later called Tokyo). The Emperor was restricted to formal functions.

1610 Izumo no Okuni retired and disappeared.

The Shogunate in 1629 forbade women from performing using the excuse of supposed immorality. A new Kabuki using young men in both female (Onnagata 女形/女方 (female role), or Oyama 女形) and male roles arose quickly but was in turn banned because of suggestions of prostitution. A third Kabuki performed by older men only was left, and has continued until recently,

Onnagata roles were forbidden in 1642, resulting in plays that featured only male characters, often with young males and pederastic implications, and so young male roles were also banned.

The ban on Onnagata was lifted in 1644.

Women did not perform on stage in Japan again until the 19th century, the late Edo period, when troupes of female actors performed privately for female audiences in the inner courts of daimyō households, where men were forbidden. After the overthrow of the Shogunate in 1868 all-female troupes onna shibai performed in public. By the turn of the century there were mixed gender companies where both onnagata and actual women played the female roles.

An all-female kabuki troupe played 1911 at the Teikoku Gekijō, the new western-style theatre in Tokyo. However the troupe lasted only a few years.

Takarazuka Revue

Kobayashi Ichizō

The Takarazuka Revue (宝塚歌劇団, Takarazuka Kagekidan) was originally called the Takarazuka Shōjo Kageki (Takarazuka Girls’ Revue) where ‘Shōjo’ means girl or young woman - sometimes defined as between puberty and marriage. The troupe was founded by Kobayashi Ichizō 小林 一三, an industrialist-turned-politician and president of Hankyu Railways, in Takarazuka, in 1913. The city was the terminus of a Hankyu train line from Osaka and already a popular tourist destination because of its hot springs. Kobayashi believed that it was the ideal spot to open an attraction of some kind that would boost train ticket sales and draw more business to Takarazuka. Since Western song and dance shows were becoming more popular and Kobayashi considered the Kabuki theatre to be old and elitist, he decided that an all-female theatre group in which women played both male and female roles might be well-received by the general public. The performances began in 1914 - at first in a converted hot-spring bath house. Audiences of 1,100 a day were immediately attracted. The first star was Asaji Shinohara.

By 1918 the first performances were held in Tokyo, with audiences of 2,000 a day. In August Michiko Yura - who had joined in 1913 at age 11 - died of an illness, the first member of the troupe to pass away. In November Asako Uji died from the Spanish Flu.

In 1919 10 men were hired as performers in addition to the female troupe, and the Takarazuka performances were transferred from the bath house to a regular theatre. The male performers had a trial performance in October, but they were disbanded a few weeks later.

Namiko Kumoi became the first to retire from the troupe in order to get married. She lived until 2003 and the age of 102.

Gender roles were not influenced by early Japanese feminism, nor were the otokayaku (the players of male roles) influenced by traditional femininity - they simply inverted or imitated the onnagata (the players of female roles in Kabuki) practice. It was neither a sign of independence nor a parody of the patriarchy. In the early days, the actresses - of either role - were also trained to be good wives and were usually released from the company at age 23. To pursue a career as an actress afterwards was frowned upon - one such actress was expunged from the graduate registry for doing so.

Within the first ten years after Takarazuka's founding, female fans wrote love letters to the otokoyaku. In 1921 these letters were published and several years later newspapers and the public rallied a cry against Takarazuka, claiming it was quickly becoming a "symbol of abnormal love". In addition a relationship between an otokoyaku and a musumeyaku (player of female roles) was discovered. To counter the lesbian image otokoyaku were told to wear military uniforms, although for some in the audience this made them even more attractive. In order to combat this, the producers kept the actresses isolated; they were no longer allowed to associate with their fans.

Also in 1921 the Revue was split into two troupes: “Flower” and “Moon”. Each troupe was governed by a male member of the management.

1923 January: the theater in Takarazuka caught fire and was damaged. A new theatre was speed-built in two months.

Following a visit in March by Anna Pavlova, of the Imperial Russian Ballet, the Ballets Russes and by then with her own company, a ballet teacher was hired.

On 1 September the Great Kanto Earthquake caused the Tokyo theater to catch fire. The revue performed in Nagoya while it was being repaired. (The earthquake was followed by a tsunami and firestorms, followed by vigilante killings of thousands of Koreans. The estimated overall death total is over 140,000.)

Performer Matsuko Takasago scandalised the public by getting married without retiring from the Takarazuka Revue (although she did do so in June 1925).

1924 The speed-built theatre in Takarazuka was replaced by the Takarazuka Dai Gekijō (Grand Theatre).

The third troupe “Snow” was added.

From 1930 the Takarasiennes stopped using the whiteface makeup that is traditional in Kabuki, replacing it with Euro-American stage makeup. By this time actors were divided into those who play male roles (otokoyaku 男役 ‘man role’) and those who play female roles (musumeyaku 娘役 ‘girl or daughter role’).

From 1932 otokoyaku started to cut their hair short (previously they had their hair long and hid it under hats), take on a more masculine role in the classroom, and speak in the masculine genderlect. Mizunoe Takiko of the Shochiku Opera Company, is said to be first to do this, and was quickly copied by the Takarazuka otokoyaku This became another scandal.

1933 The fourth troupe “Star” was added.

In 1934 Takarazuka opened a second theatre in Tokyo.

1935 January: A fire breaks out backstage at the Takarazuka Grand Theater, damaging it. The repairs take three months.

1936

In a editorial, Kobayashi Ichizō expressed concern about scandals in the press, and quoted a letter he had sent to Ashihara Kuniko, one of his leading otokoyaku. He asked Ashihara to make sure that new students understood that they were not to behave manly offstage, and not to use manly words for each other such as aniki (elder brother), boku (a male self reference) or kimi (a masculine form of ‘you’). Ashihara was regularly called aniki by fans. Kobayashi also quoted Ashihara‘s reply (likely written by himself) where he was assured that otokoyaku were just ordinary girls who practised the tea ceremony and flower arrangements when offstage.

As the Japanese military spread across China, Korea and Manchukuo, mobile units from the Takarazuka Revue were dispatched to factories, farms, hospitals and war fronts to provide civilians and soldiers with wholesome entertainment.

1938 A Takarazuka Revue tour of Germany, Italy and Poland. They were in Berlin during Kristallnacht.

1939 A tour of US.

Due to the war situation, the Star troupe was disbanded.

In August the Osaka prefecture banned the Takarazuka Revue “the acme of offensiveness”. However it was the only prefectural government to do so.

In 1940 otokoyaku were forbidden to answer fan mail or to socialise with audience members. Also that year the term ‘shōjo’ was removed from the Revue’s name as the performers continued to age - it also opened up the possibility of including male performers. There was an extra "Special Course" that was used for older performers (40 and up) who did not wish to retire yet.

Kobayashi was Minister of Commerce and Industry July 1940-April 1941, and led a failed mission to the Dutch East Indies to obtain more oil. As director of the Takarazuka Revue, he colluded with the government to put on shows that reified the traditional ‘good wife, wise mother’ stereotype. A typical show at this time was Legends of Virtuous Japanese Women. Takarasiennes were assigned to patriotic women’s associations, and charged with entertaining troops, farm workers and the war wounded. Kobayashi introduced a khaki-coloured uniform so that they would fit in with the rest of the population.

In 1941 a wartime ruling forbad the otokoyaku from dressing as men; there was no corresponding ruling that onnagata should not dress as women.

7-8th December 1941 Japanese forces attacked Thailand, Dutch East Indies, the UK colonies of Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaya, and the US colonies of the Philippines and Hawai’i. Following this the Takarazuka Revues were refocused on patriotic and war time themes.

1943 March the Takarazuka Dai Gekijō (Grand Theatre) was taken over by the Japanese navy and used as a barracks. The final show was "The Battle of Tsubasa". As a result many of the performers went to work in factories or the fields while a handful toured around the country doing performances. In May-July there was a second tour of occupied China.

1944 March: Performances at the Tokyo Takarazuka theater were suspended for the duration.

1945 August Japan surrendered after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In 1945 Kobayashi was appointed a cabinet minister in the immediate post-war government, and was president of the War Damage Rehabilitation Institute. However he was purged because of his wartime career - a ban that lasted until 1951.

The Takarazuka boys 

In 1945 the home theatre in Takarazuka was reopened, and the next year male performers were
recruited and employed for the second time. They were trained separately from the female members. Ultimately, however, the female members opposed this innovation, and the last male performer left in 1954.

December The Tokyo Takarazuka theater was taken by the US army and renamed the Ernie Pyle Theater for entertainments for their troops.

1946 April the Takarazuka Dai Gekijō (Grand Theatre) was reopened and performances restarted.

1948 The Star Troupe was reinstated.

1953 James Michener’s novel, Sayonara: A Japanese-American Love Story, featured a US officer falling in love with a Takarazuka musumeyaku.

1954 The movie Madama Butterfly was being filmed in Italy. Members of the Revue were flown out to perform in it.

The theatre in Tokyo was returned and reopened in 1955.

1955, 1956, 1957 Performance in the Hawai’i Sakura Festival

Kobayashi Ichizō died in 1957.

1958 February: A fire broke out at the Tokyo Takarazuka theater and 3 people died.

April: Hiromi Katsuki 香月弘美 was killed during a performance at the Takarazuka Grand Theater when her costume was caught in the mechanics of the lift following the end of a scene.

1959 tour of Canada and US.

Robertson p79

1964 Takarazuka begins airing a weekly show on Fuji TV

1965 European Tour: 33 performances in Paris.

1966 Kō Nishiki described self as an otokoyaku close to being feminine, but also threatened to resign if forced to appear as a woman onstage. Increasingly in this period, the otokoyaku were encouraged to blend genders and be more androgynous. Some otokoyaku were cast in female roles - to their consternation, and despite their protests. Gō Chigusa remarked that on the few occasions of playing a woman, the fans complained of a resultant malaise (kimochi warui) in that the familiar became strange.

1974 Takarazuka Revue dramatized The Rose of Versailles (Berusaiyu no Bar ベルサイユのばら) based on the 1972-3 manga. It is a fantasy about 18th century France in which the fictional Oscar François de Jarjayes is a female raised as a man who is the protector of Marie Antoinette before joining the Revolution. It has been revived multiple times since. The show's role in Takarazuka history is particularly notable as it triggered a significant surge in the revue's popularity and established its "Top Star" system of assigning lead roles. From 1974 to 1976, all four Takarazuka troupes staged The Rose of Versailles, drawing a total audience of 1.6 million; the revue's 1986 staging alone drew an audience of 2.1 million.

The 1979 film Lady Oscar, based on the The Rose of Versailles, starred the English actor Catriona MacColl - rather than an otokoyaku - and her feminine portrayal was criticized for its lack of androgyny.

The 1977 Takarazuka musical version of Gone with the Wind (Kaze to Tomo ni Sarinu 風と共に去りぬ) was noteworthy because - for the first time since the 1930s - some of the otokoyaku were allowed to wear facial hair. The musumeyaku (players of daughter role) had been agitating for more dramatic female roles (and to be referred to as onnayaku - female role, rather than daughter role). In response the directors came up with Scarlett O’Hara, but to the chagrin of the onnayaku, they cast an otokoyaku as Scarlett O’Hara. In addition both whiteface and blackface were used to indicate the race of characters.

Otokoyaku Matsu Akira (松 あきら) retired from Takarazuka Revue in 1982 after ten years of playing male roles, and found that she was unable to adapt to playing female roles. She became a member of the Kanagawa Prefecture House of Councillors in 1995, and was re-elected in 2001 and 2007.

Daichi Mao ((大地 真央) played male leads (Marius, James Dean, Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities, Sky Masterton in Guys and Dolls) on the Takarazuka Revue, but quit in 1985 and became an actress (female roles) on stage and screen.

In 1985 the Takarazuka Revue presented Androgyny (Andorojenii テンダー・グリーン / アンドロジェニー) in which otokoyaku played both “neutral boys (nyutoraru boi)” in glittery jumpsuits and colourful wigs, and female masculine persons such as George Sands.

1987 Kobayashi Kohei 小林公平, the grandson of Ichizo, became president of the Takarazuka Music School .

1993 The Takarazuka Grand Theater was rebuilt.

1994 Dream Girls, a 50 minute UK documentary about the Takarazuka Kagekidan.

1995 January: The Takarazuka Grand Theater was heavily damaged during an earthquake. It was quickly fixed.

1997 The Tokyo Theater was closed in order to be rebuilt.

2001 Sky Stage, Takarazuka`s dedicated satellite channel began broadcasting. The new Tokyo Grand Theater opened.

• Dorrell McGowan & Stuart McGowan (dir & scr). Tokyo File 212. US 84 mins 1951. An espionage story set in Tokyo during the Korean War, with a brief glimpse of the Takarazuka Revue.

• James Michener. Sayonara: A Japanese-American Love Story. Random House, 1953.

• Carmine Gallone (dir). Madama Butterfly. Scr: Carmine Gallone & Iwao Mori, with members of the Takarazuka Kagekidan. Italy 114 mins 1954.

• Jacques Demy (dir). Lady Oscar. Scr: Patricia Louisianna Knop based on Riyoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles, with Catriona MacColl as Oscar François de Jarjayes. Japan/France 124 mins 1979.

• Kim Longinotto & Jano Williams (dir). Dream Girls. With the Takarazuka Kagekidan. UK 50 mins 1994.

• Jennifer Robinson. Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan. University of California Oress, 1998.

• Laurence Senelick. “Schoolgirl crushes” in The Changing Room: Sex Drag and Theatre. Routledge, 2000: 340-5.

• Robert B Stinnett. Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. The Free Press, 2000: 57-9. (on Kobayashi as minister and his mission to the Dutch East Indies)

• Pamela Karantonis. “Takarazuka is burning: music theatre and the performance of sexual and gender identities in modern Japan”. Studies in Musical Theatre, 1,2, 2007.

• Jessica Hester. “Japanese Women/American Men: National Identities and the Takarazuka Revue” in Kevin J Wetmore, Jr. Portrayals of Americans on the World Stage: Critical Essays. McFarland & Co, Inc, 2009: 191-200.

• Yamanashi Makiko. A History of the Takarazuka Revue Since 1914: Modernity, Girls’ Culture, Japan Pop. Global Oriental, 2012.

• Root. “Takarazuka Charm ~ The Appeal Of Women As Men”. Roots of Thought, 11 Mar 2012. Online.

EN.Wikipedia(Takarazuka Review) Official Takarazuka Revue Site IMDB(Takarazuka Kagekidan) www.takawiki.com Takarazuke Revue Timeline.

————————————

Jennifer Robinson p73:

“Knowledge of past precedents and of the early, varied reception of the Takarazuka Revue is necessary to fully recognize the significance of the contemporary experiments with androgyny. The Revue continues both to uphold the dominant ideal of heterosexuality and to inform a lesbian subcultural style. In this connection, the sexual tension that has marked Takarazuka from the start still frustrates the paternalistic management.”

It is the normal practice in China, Japan and Hungary to put the family name first followed by the personal name. In English language writings this practice is almost always followed for China. Thus Mao Zedong not Zedung Mao. For Hungary the opposite is done and names are almost always reversed. Thus Orbán Viktor Mihály is referred to as Viktor Mihály Orbán. The problem with English language writings about Japan is a lack of consistency. Some writers put the family name first and some put it last. Japanese persons do complain about the latter. It is not always obvious what a given writer is doing unless you recognise some names or know enough Japanese to distinguish family names from personal names. I have attempted to follow the Japanese practice by putting family names first - however I have probably got one or two wrong.

Ruminations on recent books

 Part 1: (auto) biographies

Part 2: others

Part 3: Ruminations

There were certainly a large number of autobiographies this year, although some were from 2021 - I having missed them last year.

I would be interested in finding out the sales numbers. Obviously the Chelsea Manning tome will sell well, but it is more than a simple transition story, she being one of the few heroes of modern times. However the standard transition - despite every one being unique - is a tale often told. In the biographies that I retell, I do not dawdle on the transition itself, but focus on the other things that the trans person did. Apart from the pioneers that is.

I recognise the therapeutic value of writing a memoir, but how many of us read them? Do the newly transitioning use them as guidebooks? When I transitioned the available autobiographies by April Ashley etc were about being a performer, a model etc. There were none about how to transition in computer work - although I knew some other computer persons in the local trans support group.

Shelli Renee Joye has self-published a 798 page transition journal. It is overpriced in some countries: CA$151.30/US$ 45.67/€121.75. While she has published 15 or so books at reasonable prices on tantric psychophysics and similar topics, her new memoir is missing from her Amazon author page, and also from https://shellijoye.net/books-published.

A growth area is memoirs by parents of trans kids. This is certainly a topic where parents need to learn from each other.

Jennifer Hopkin has self-published two short biographies - on Christine Jorgensen and Stormé DeLarverie. However as the subtitle on the former is ‘The first transgender woman you never heard about’, she is probably not aiming for readers of this encyclopedia.

If you want to read up on the teenage Roman emperor Elegabalus/Heliogabalus/Varius you might consider the new biography by the novelist and academic Harry Sidebottom. It is aimed at the general public and easy to read. However the claim in the Amazon blurb “the first biography of Heliogabalus in over half a century” is definitely wrong. Sidebottom himself cites two such: Leonardo de Arrizabalaga y Prado’s The Emperor Elagabalus: Fact or Fiction?, 2014 and Martijn Icks’ The Crimes of Elagabalus, 2011, not to mention John Hay’s The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus, 2020.

Back in the previous century it was the practice of historians and biographers to leave out anything queer, or at best to allude to it vaguely. Fortunately that is largely over. However I still have two lacunae. I still have not found a book on Picasso that also discusses Anton Prinner; I have not found a book on Salvador Dalí that discusses his avocation as a serial trans fan - Amanda Lear is the most likely to be mentioned, but there were many others.

Books on Gender Variance in 2022 - Part 2: Others

 

Part 1: (auto) biographies

Part 2: others

Part 3: Ruminations

$£¥ €=Excessively overpriced books. 

• Cameron Awkward-Rich. The Terrible We: Thinking with Trans Maladjustment. Duke University Press, 2022.

• Laura Kate Dale (ed). Gender Euphoria. Unbound, 2022.

• Shon Faye. The Transgender Issue: Trans Justice Is Justice for All. Verso, 2022.

• Donnie Kingston. What Every Transman Thinks Of Apart From Sex. 2022.

• Julia Serano. Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back. Seal Press, 2022.

• Alice Schwarzer & Chantal Louis (eds). Transsexualität: Was ist eine Frau? Was ist ein Mann? - Eine Streitschrift. KiWi-Taschenbuch, 2022.

• Perry Zurn. "Trans Curiosity" in Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry. University of Minnesota Press, 2021

Media

• Ramzi Fawaz. Queer Forms. NYU Press, 2022.

• Niall Richardson & Frances Smith. Trans Representations in Contemporary, Popular Cinema: The Transgender Tipping Point. Routledge, 2022.

• Abigail Waldron. Queer Screams: A History of LGBTQ+ Survival Through the Lens of American Horror Cinema. McFarland & Company, 2022.

Religious

• E Carrington Heath. Called Out: 100 Devotions for LGBTQ Christians. Westminster John Knox Press, 2022.

• Shannon T L Kearns. In the Margins: A Transgender Man’s Journey with Scripture. Eerdmans, 2022.

• Joseph W Needham. Transgender Identity: A View through a Wide Angle Lens. Elm Hill, 2020.

• Ariana Serpentine. Sacred Gender: Create Trans and Nonbinary Spiritual Connections. ‎ Llewellyn Publications, 2022.

Legal & Activism

• Paisley Currah. Sex Is As Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity. NYU Press, 2022.

• Michael G Long & Shea Tuttle. Phyllis Frye and the Fight for Transgender Rights. Texas A&M University Press, 2022.

Health, Medical and Social Work

• APA. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR). APA, 2022.

• Florence Ashley. Banning Transgender Conversion Practices. University of British Columbia Press, 2022.

• Reese Minshaw. Treating Trauma in Trans People: An Intersectional, Phase-Based Approach. Routledge, 2022.

• Robin Ivy Osterkamp & Friederike Wünsch. Trans Personen: Zwischen gewollter und ungewollter (Un-)Sichtbarkeit Zwischen direkter und indirekter Diskriminierung. Springer VS, 2022.

• María Del Mar Ponce Ricaurte. Système de santé colombien: Pour les personnes transgenres dans le cadre des droits de l'homme. Editions Notre Savoir, 2022.

• Alana Santos. PSYCHOLOGISCHE ASPEKTE DER TRANSSEXUALITÄT: Die Realität des Prozesses der Entdeckung der Sexualität. ‎ Verlag Unser Wissen, 2022.

Biology

• Hans-Wener Gessmann & Vishal Lohchab. Transidentity. Kindle, 2022.

Arts & Photography

• Joséphin Péladan. De l'androgyne, théorie plastique: le premier essai théorique sur hermaphrodisme, androgynie et transgenre en art. Culturea, 2022.

Music

• Mindy Clegg. Punk Rock: Music is the Currency of Life. State University of New York Press, 2022.

• Shana Goldin-Perschbacher. Queer Country. University of Illinois Press, 2022.

Theatre

• Jan Cohen-Cruz & Rad Pereira. Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965-2020, by Those Who Lived It. New Village Press, 2022.

Drag

• Bimini Bon Boulash. A Drag Queen's Guide to Life. Penguin, 2022.

• Simon Doonan. Drag: The Complete Story (A Look at the History and Culture of Drag). Laurence King Publishing, 2019.

• Harvey Fierstein. I Was Better Last Night: A Memoir. Knopf, 2022.

• Edgar Gomez. High-Risk Homosexual: A Memoir. Soft Skull, 2022.

• Laurie Greene. Drag Queens and Beauty Queens: Contesting Femininity in the World's Playground. Rutgers University Press, 2020.

• Harry Hanson & Devin Antheus. Legends of Drag: Queens of a Certain Age. Cernummos, 2022.

• Madison Moore. Fabulous: The Rise of the Beautiful Eccentric. Yale University Press, 2018

• Baker A Rogers. King of Hearts: Drag Kings in the American South. Rutgers University Press, 2021.

• Robert C Steels. Banned from California: -Jim Foshee- Persecution, Redemption, Liberation … and the Gay Civil Rights Movement. Wentworth-Schwartz Publishing Company, 2021.

Sports

• $£¥ € Gemma Witcomb & Elizabeth Peel (ed). Gender Diversity and Sport: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Increasing Inclusivity. Routledge, 2022.

• $£¥ € Joaquin Piedra & Eric Anderson. Lesbian, Gay, and Transgender Athletes in Latin America. Palgrave MacMillan, 2021,

Guidebooks

• Jillian Celentano. Transitioning Later in Life: A Personal Guide. Jessica Kingsley, 2021.

• Hil Malatino. Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad. University of Minnesota, 2022.

• Robyn Ryle. She/He/They/Me: An Interactive Guide to the Gender Binary. Sourcebooks, 2022.

• Kevin Sparks. Trans Sex: A Guide for Adults. Jessica Kingsley, 2023.

Trans Children & Youth

• Debbie Amer. PARENTING YOUR LGBTQ TEEN: A Modern Guide to Loving Empowering & Supporting Your LGBTQ Child. 2022.

• Hopkins C Fields. Parenting LGBTQ Teens: Guide for Parents on How to Support Your Child. 2022.

• Wendy Jones. Transformed: Parenting Your Gender Non-Conforming Child with Pride. Mamaste Books, 2022.

Couples & Family

• Kristin Kali. Queer Conception: The Complete Fertility Guide for Queer and Trans Parents-to-Be. Sasquatch Books, 2022.

• Trystan Reese. How We Do Family: From Adoption to Trans Pregnancy, What We Learned about Love and LGBTQ Parenthood. The Experiment, 2021.

Intersex

• $£¥ € Katelyn Dykstra & Shoshannah Bryn Jone Square (eds). Intersex Studies and the Health and Medical Humanities: Sex and Medicine. Bloomsbury, 2022.

• Stephanie Rachael Vaughan. Half Him Half Her: When do I get to be ME. ‎ Cockatoo Publishing, 2021.

Trans/GLBT history

• Paul Baker. Outrageous!: The Story of Section 28 and Britain’s Battle for LGBT Education. Reaktions Books, 2022.

• Barbara Gibson. Streetlife: Male and trans sex workers' voices from the AIDS era. Lume Books, 2022.

• Kit Heyam. Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender. Seal Press, 2022.

• Guy Hocquenghem. Gay Liberation after May '68. Duke University Press, 2022.

• Samuel Clowes Huneke. States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany. University of Toronto Press, 2022.

• Huw Lemmey & Ben Miller. Bad Gays: A Homosexual History. Verso, 2022.

• Anne E Linton. Unmaking Sex: The Gender Outlaws of Nineteenth-Century. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

• Heather Love. Underdogs: Social Deviance and Queer Theory. University of Chicago Press, 2021.

• Anna Lvovsky. Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life before Stonewall. University of Chicago Press, 2021.

• Marlon B Ross. Sissy Insurgents: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness. Duke University Press, 2022.

• Wendy Rouse. Public Faces, Secret Lives: A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement. New York University Press, 2022.

• Allison Surtees & Jennifer Dyer (eds). Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World. Edinburgh University Press, 2022.

City Histories

• Rick Karlin & St Sukie De La Croix. Last Call Chicago. A History of 1001 LGBT-Friendly Taverns, Haunts and Hangouts. Rattling Good Yarns Press, 2022.

• James Kirchick. Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington. Henry Holt & Co, 2022.

• Brian Miller. Here Because We're Queer: Inside the Gay Liberation Front of Washington, D.C., 1970-72. 2020

• Heinz-Jürgen Voß,. Westberlin -- ein sexuelles Porträt. Psychosozial-Verlag, 2021.

Race and Gender

• Jafari S Allen. There's a Disco Ball Between Us. Duke University Press, 2022.

• Marquis Bey. Black Trans Feminism. Duke University Press, 2022.

• Ricky Tucker. And the Category Is...: Inside New York's Vogue, House, and Ballroom Community. Beacon Press, 2022.

Countries and minorities

• Bojan Bilić et al. Transgender in the Post-Yugoslav Space: Lives, Activisms, Culture. Bristol University, 2022.

• Sarah Mei Herman. Solace: Portraits of Queer Youth in Modern China. The New Press, 2022.

• Qween Jean, Joela Rivera, Mikelle Street & Raquel Willis. Revolution Is Love: A Year of Black Trans Liberation. Aperture, 2022.

• $£¥ € Tristan Josephson. On Transits and Transitions: Trans Migrants and U.S. Immigration Law. Rutgers University Press, 2022.

• Jolanda Van der Lee. In Zijn ogen geen zondaar: negentiende-eeuwse homoseksuele en transgender personen en hun relatie met God. Amsterdam University Press, 2021.

• The Nest Collective. Stories of Our Lives: An Archive of Kenyan Queer Narratives. Blurb, 2021.

• Srila Roy. Changing the Subject: Feminist and Queer Politics in Neoliberal India. Duke University Press, 2022.

• Gregory D Smithers. Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal & Sovereignty in Native America. Beacon Press, 2022.

• Serge Tcherkézoff. Vous avez dit troisième sexe ?: Les transgenres polynésiens et le mythe occidental de l'homosexualité. Au Vent des Iles, 2022.

Internet

• Alexander Monea. The Digital Closet: How the Internet Became Straight. MIT Press, 2022.

• Z Nicolazzo et al. Digital Me: Trans Students Exploring Future Possible Selves Online. Rutgers University Press, 2022.

Written by a trans person  

• Jennifer Finney Boylan. Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs. Caladon Books, 2021.

Fiction

• Taleb Alrefai, translated from Arabic by Waël Rabadi & Isabelle Bernard. Hâpy: Histoire d'un transgenre koweïtien. Sindbad, 2022.

• Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay. La Fille d'elle-même. Marchand de feuilles, 2021.

• Neil Cochrane. The Story of the Hundred Promises. Forest Avenue Press, 2022.

• Julien Dufresne-Lamy. Pere, ma mere.. tremblements de terre-mon. Harper Collins, 2021.

• Robyn Gigl. Survivor’s Guilt. Kensington, 2022.

• Suzanne DeWitt Hall. The Language of Bodies. Woodhall Press, 2022.

• James Hannaham. Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta. Back Bay Books, 2022.

• A A Lewis. The Dark Side of Light. 2022.

• Guillem Viladot translated by P Louise Johnson. Ruth. Fum d'Estampa Press , 2022.

Poetry

• Roz Kaveney. Selected Poems 2009-2021. Team Angelica. 2021.

• Roz Kaveney. The Great Good Time. Team Angelica. 2022.

• Katrina Stephany. Transitive: Exploring the Space in Between. 2022.

Transphobic

• Linda Blade & Barbara Kay. Unsporting: How Trans Activism and Science Denial are Destroying Sport. Rebel News, 2021.

• Céline Masson & Caroline Eliacheff. La fabrique de l'enfant transgenre. L’Observatoire, 2022.

Announced for 2023

• Jensen K Anderson. Call Me Him : Not Just A Tomboy: A Transgender Trans Gay. Kindle, 2023.

• Sita Balani. Deadly and Slick: Sexual Modernity and the Making of Race. Verso, 2023.

• Munroe Bergdorf. Transitional: In One Way or Another, We All Transition. HarperOne.

• Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay (translated by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch). Dandelion Daughter. Espalnade Books, 2023.

• Sage Buch. Transmasculine Guide to Physical Transition Workbook, The: For Trans, Nonbinary, and Other Masculine Folks. ‎ Microcosm Publishing;, 2023.

• Ian Buruma. The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II. Penguin, 2023. One of the three is Kawashima Yoshiko.

• Kelley Matthew Coures. Out in Evansville: An LGBTQ+ History of River City. History Press, 2023.

• Cyrus Dunham. A Year Without a Name: A Memoir. Back Bay Books, 2021.

• Avery Dame-Griff. The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet. New York University Press, 2023.

• Ronnie Gladden. White Girl Within: Letters of Self-Discovery Between a Transgender and Transracial Black Man and His Inner Female. October Publishing, 2023.

• Major Griffin-Gracy. Miss Major Speaks: The Life and Times of a Black Trans Revolutionary. Verso, 2023.

• Austen Hartke. Transforming: Updated and Expanded Edition with Study Guide: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians. Westminster John Knox Press, 2023.

• Jazz Jennings. Authentic Selves: Celebrating Trans and Nonbinary People and Their Families. Skinner House Books.

• Alo Johnson. Am I Trans Enough?: How to Overcome Your Doubts and Find Your Authentic Self. Jessica Kingsley, 2023.

• Kenny Ethan Jones. Dear Cis(gender) People: A Guide to Allyship and Empathy. DK, 2023.

• Grace Elisabeth Lavery. Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques. Princeton University Press, 2023.

• Arlene Istar Lev. Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and Their Families. Routledge, 2023.

• Nillin Lore. Emerging Selves: An Exploration of Gender Identity. Bold Stroke Books.

• Kiley May. How to Love a Trans Girl: On Romance, Dating and Men Who Adore Us. Dundurn Press, 2023.

• Rae McDaniel. Gender Magic: Live Shamelessly, Reclaim Your Joy, & Step into Your Most Authentic Self. Balance, 2023.

• Joanna McIntyre. Transgender Celebrity. Routledge, 2023.

• $£¥ € Lucy J Miller. Distancing Representations in Transgender Film: Identification, Affect, and the Audience. ‎ State University of New York Press, 2023.

• Veerendra Mishra. Transgenders in India: An Introduction. Routledge, 2023.

• Tash Oakes-Monger. All the Things They Said We Couldn't Have: Stories of Trans Joy. Jessica Kingsley, 2023.

• Candace Moore. Marginal Production Cultures: Infrastructures of Sexual Minority and Transgender Media. Routledge, 2023.

• Meeg Pincus. Door by Door: How Sarah McBride Became America's First Openly Transgender Senator. Crown Books, 2023.

• Hazel Jane Plante. Any Other City. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023.

• Lynette Reini-Grandell. Wild Things: A Trans-Glam-Punk-Rock Love Story. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023.

• Bryce E Rich. Gender Essentialism and Orthodoxy: Beyond Male and Female. Fordham University Press, 2023.

• Andrea Rottman. Queer Lives across the Wall: Desire and Danger in Divided Berlin, 1945-1970. University of Toronto Press, 2023.

• Craig Seligman. Who Does That Bitch Think She Is?: Doris Fish and the Rise of Drag. Public Affairs, 2023.

• $£¥ € Lopamudra Sengupta. Human Rights of the Third Gender in India: Beyond the Binary. Routledge India, 2022.

• $£¥ € J E Sumerau. The Rowman & Littlefield Handbook of Transgender Studies. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2023.

• Amanda Lock Swarr. Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine. Duke University Press, 2023.

• Brynn Tannehill (ed). My Child Told Me They're Trans...What Do I Do?: A Q&A Guide for Parents of Trans Children. Jessica Kingsley, 2023.

• Matthew Waites. Transition to Success: A Self-Esteem and Confidence Workbook for Trans People. Jessica Kingsley, 2023.

• McKenzie Wark. Raving. Duke University Press, 2023.

• $£¥ € Amy M West. The Transgender Athlete: A Guide for Sports Medicine. Academic Press, 2023.

• Andrew Joseph White. Hell Followed with Us. Peachtree, 2023.