Queer people have always been good at pushing the boundaries of rigidly defined social concepts, breaking them down, and creating something new and inclusive in their place. This is true of many things—including Naarm’s Trans and Gender-Diverse Book Club.
Born out of the isolation that many trans and gender diverse people felt during the lockdowns of COVID, the TGD Book Club has since been gathering as a group each month, using different genres of texts to discuss and explore trans, genderqueer and non-binary stories and culture with peers.
“We don’t always have a book as our text each month,” co-organiser of TGD Book Club, Jax Brown (they/them), tells Not Safe For Queers. “Sometimes there’ll be a podcast, or sometimes we might go and see a show if it’s around Midsumma or Fringe Festival.”
Trans activist and co-organiser of TGD Book Club, Jax Brown
For Brown—and many of the club’s members—this opportunity to engage with a myriad of different text types is crucial. “I’ve got dyslexia, so even though books may be a bit intimidating for me, the club is run in a way where we’re critiquing some of these ideas around what a book club is, and whether we have to have read the whole text to be able to engage with other trans and gender diverse people and their ideas and their work,” Brown says.
However, if the text for the month is a book, there are always other avenues through which members can engage with the text and each other. “We always have an easy way in,” they say. “So we might have a podcast that accompanies the book of the author talking about the book, or a YouTube interview—something that people can engage with if they don’t feel like they’ve got time to read a book.”
“And while we love it if people want to get super nerdy and engaged with the politics, it’s really a safe space to connect with peers and to use the text or the book as a jumping off point to start the discussion around what it means to be trans and gender diverse, and how we can support and connect with each other.”
In the three years since its launch, the TGD Book Club has engaged with local and international, fiction and nonfiction texts including Susan Stryker’s Transgender History, Lou Sullivan’s We Both Laughed in Pleasure, and Naavikaran’s Brown Church. Plus, they’ve even had authors themselves (Marcel Liemant, Tobi Evans, Nick Lawson, and others) join in on the discussions. The only caveat is that the book must be written by a trans or gender diverse author.
“There’s been such a long history—whether it be disabled people, First Nations people, trans people, etc—of having our stories told about us by people who don’t live our experience, who don’t hold the nuance of our lives, and ‘other’ us and marginalise us. So, telling our stories for ourselves and reading stories by trans and gender diverse people as trans and gender diverse people is a really powerful self-love,” Brown says.
And that’s where impact of the TGD Book Club really hits; it’s much more than just a book club for its members. “I joined about 18 months ago now, when I started medically transitioning, and I was looking for a space to connect with other trans and gender diverse people,” Jax explains.
“It’s given me a space every month to be around other people who share an experience of being trans or gender diverse, to feel connected, to feel part of a community, and not be alone in whatever it is that I’m going through that month. It’s really, really important for my sense of who I am in the world, for my mental health, for my sense of what’s possible for me as a trans person,” they say.
“For many others who come along, it’s not just a book club, it’s a space of peer connection and peer support.”
The Trans and Gender-Diverse Book Club meet in-person at Thorne Harbour Health on the second Saturday of every month. Those unable to make in-person sessions are welcome to join online—from anywhere they may be.