Thank you for your recommendations of works for the Otherwise Awards jurors to consider.
Because anyone can recommend a work (even the author), a work’s presence on this list doesn’t indicate recognition by the Otherwise Awards, so please don’t use a work’s presence on this list to promote the work. (If a work wins an Award or appears on an Honor List, you can use that to promote the work.)
The 2026 awards will be given in 2027, location to be determined.
To contact us about recommendations, email recommendations@otherwiseaward.org.
Recommendations are Closed
The current Recommendations for the Otherwise Award can be found here:
2027 Otherwise Awards Recommendations
The 2026 Otherwise Awards Recommendations
| Author | Title | Publisher | Comments | Sub Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vyvre Argent | Skullrunner | Skullrunner is a secondary-world epic fantasy in a queer-normative (but still deeply unequal) setting. The main character is a lesbian with a transmasc twin brother; both of them are "echoes," or remnants of the soul of a defeated death goddess. All echoes are identical, and they're all attracted to women, but some are transmasc, while most are cis women. The book also explores colonialism and the negative propaganda that colonial empires spread about Indigenous populations, including the ways that colonial empires claim to be more gender-egalitarian than Indigenous cultures, even though that often isn't true. The ideas that the different cultures in the book have about gender roles, as well as the abundance of queer and trans characters, constitute significant exploration of gender. | 2026-11-08 12:54:10 | ||
| Greg Ramsay | Persevere | Lia Ramsay | The book features people of every ethnicity and multiple sexualities and gender expressions as a normal thing that isn't made obvious to the reader.amazon.com/dp/b0hbngdxbk/ | 2026-11-08 09:25:28 | |
| V.M. Ayala | The Chrysalis of Moth One | Lightspeed | A mech pilot finds themselves in a moment of death and rebirth, when their twin pilot is almost killed. lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-chrys… | 2026-11-07 21:27:52 | |
| V.M. Ayala | If a Discarded God Can Change, So Can I | Lightspeed | Main characters who can download into and modify their bodies. The main character takes time to recognize their metal body as their own. lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/if-a-disc… | 2026-11-07 21:21:37 | |
| Faith Allington | Bluebeard at Midnight | Kaleidotrope | kaleidotrope.net/autumn-2026/bluebeard-a… | 2026-11-07 13:34:48 | |
| A J Dalton | radon daughter | Kaleidotrope | kaleidotrope.net/archives/summer-2026/ra… | 2026-11-07 13:33:56 | |
| Keira Perkins | a minotaur encounters banshees at a summer concert | Kaleidotrope | kaleidotrope.net/archives/summer-2026/a-… | 2026-11-07 13:33:04 | |
| Munir HachemiJulia Sanches (translator) | The Mulai | Fitzcarraldo Editions | Le Guin-esque tale of researchers contacting a lost colony whose culture has sharply diverged from our own. Primary interest is in language, but norms about gender, sex, and pregnancy are also explored in thought-provoking ways.fitzcarraldoeditions.com/books/the-mulai… | 2026-11-07 09:09:31 | |
| Ann Leckie | Radiant Star | Orbit | It explodes a society with very different -- but still recognizable -- gender roles, and different ways for people to move between gender (and societal) roles. | 2026-11-07 08:59:44 | |
| Chance Givens | Names Don't Change People | F(r)iction | The protagonist’s journey to seek magical help reflects a desire to be truly seen and understood, especially by their parents. Through the title, Names Don’t Change People, the story suggests that changing a name doesn’t change who someone is; it helps others recognize that person’s authentic self. By connecting self-discovery with fantasy and magic, the story challenges traditional ideas about gender and emphasizes that acceptance means respecting how people define themselves rather than imposing expectations on them. | 2026-11-06 15:59:20 | |
| DC Corvino | Caviar | Weird Lit Magazine | A group of people, all seeking to better their financial and personal situations, sign up to become producers of human caviar. “Caviar” explores the exploitation of working class AFAB bodies by the corporate class through the “genderwashing” of policies that seem intended to empower but instead deal further harm. The story "deftly weaves together the narratives of a diverse set of characters with the veiled bleakness of business comms." weirdlitmag.com/fiction/caviar | 2026-11-06 15:55:46 | |
| Brandt&Stein N/A | Worst Man | Titan Comics | A heartfelt, bombastic love letter to the romcom genre and love itself, Worst Man celebrates a diverse cast of characters - from the transgender sister of the bride and her loving wife, to the non-binary Natsuko Nevis, without which Worst Man Raleigh Radcliffe would definitely have been killed long ago. At the centre of the story, Rad and best man Kafka challenge and explore ideas about masculinity and in their blossoming feelings, with beefy Kafka, who could easily be nothing but a tough guy, being soft and sentimental and caring in a way men aren't often encouraged to be. A riotous laugh, Worst Man celebrates the joy and power in being authentic to yourself and living as you are, whilst never letting anyone compromise that - even if they claim to have your best interests at heart. | 2026-11-06 07:05:00 | |
| Morgan Thomas | Mad Eden | FSG | Mad Eden follows Ro, who is newly diagnosed as autistic and works as a patient navigator for people seeking gender-affirming care. Ro lives with their partner in a ramshackle cabin in a secluded stretch of Florida. Their life, despite the deeply hostile political climate, is a kind of paradise. It's hard to pinpoint what shatters their peace. There’s Quentin, the unpredictable teenager to whom Liam and Ro are quasi-parents, who visits on his way to college, where he plans to finally start T. There’s the appearance of Mad Eden, an online fantasy serial about genderqueer dragon riders. And then there’s a seemingly innocuous patient video call that results in unexpected and grave consequences. Exploring gender through the lenses of public health, autism, fanfiction, and joy, Mad Eden includes many different, even contradictory, stories about the possibilities of gender and family.us.macmillan.com/books/9780374620158/mad… | 2026-11-06 05:19:13 | |
| Kel Coleman | Godweapon | khoreo | A tired worker stumbles across a 1980s queer bar in an abandoned motorcycle factory, and is repeatedly drawn back to the bar's mysteries. A strange and fascinating exploration of consumption and commodification of queerness and community.khoreomag.com/fiction/godweapon/ (should… | 2026-11-06 03:59:58 | |
| Phoenix Alexander | Letters from Light's End | khoreo | An astronaut caught in the accretion disc of a black hole fights to return home to his husband and daughters, but time on Earth is flowing faster than in outer space and the rights the astronaut and his family once had are fast eroding by the hour. Raw, heart-wrenching, and entirely compelling.khoreomag.com/fiction/letters-from-light… | 2026-11-06 03:54:19 | |
| Jubilee Finnegan | The History of Coming Out To Your Parents Any% Speedrunning | Diabolical Plots | This unorthodox format gives us an exploration of the complex process of coming out, touching on a vast spectrum of experiences, family tensions, and conflicting emotions.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-132b-the-… | 2026-11-06 03:42:48 | |
| Luke Kennard | Black Bag | Zando | A man begins wearing a black bag everywhere he goes, effacing his personhood and inspiring imitators who believe that by doing so, they can opt out of the perils of toxic masculinity, and create an entirely new gender. Not overtly fantastical but the expansiveness of the worldbuilding and heightened tone give it a certain slipstream quality.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/811844/blac… | 2026-11-06 00:27:34 | |
| Jacques AbeilleAlex Andriesse (translator) | The Statuary Gardens | NYRB Classics | Originally published in French in 1982, this is a fictional travelogue to a fantasy land where statues are grown like plants, around which an entire philosophy of life has emerged. The initially oblivious narrator eventually realizes that there exists a stark division between men and women in this society - they occupy completely separate social spheres - and that the carefully ritualized way of life he has become so enamored of often fails when it comes to addressing the needs of women. Some rather old fashioned handling of the subject, but still interesting in its worldbuilding.nyrb.com/products/the-statuary-gardens | 2026-11-06 00:25:10 | |
| Cheri Radke | An Accident of Dragons | Erewhon Books | A former sex worker becomes king and must handle a dragon. Despite seeming like a fairly conventional romantasy, this is a book that is willing to sit with sadness and disappointment. It's clear-eyed about the limitations of a transactional relationship, and interested in the protagonist's complicated relationship with masculinity: his choice to play up to the perception that he is unmanly, and his internal anxieties over that fact.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/804739/an-a… | 2026-11-06 00:20:46 | |
| Eliane Boey | Small Bites | Space Cowboy Books | Small Bites interrogates female self-erasure in the mothering role, the belitting of female creativity and the patriarchal demand for sacrifice and self effacement, despite all the achievements of feminist movements and equality under law. bookshop.org/p/books/small-bites-eliane-… | 2026-11-05 23:53:05 | |
| Bogi TakácsCharles Payseur | We're Here 2025: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2025 | Neon Hemlock | It presents the cutting edge of queer short-form SFF (Please note that the book comes out in December 2026, but we can provide an advance ebook) | 2026-11-05 08:55:43 | |
| Ellen Rachlin | Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands | Histria Fiction | Enheduanna, a female poet who lived in ancient Mesopotamia two thousand years before Virgil and seventeen hundred years before Sappho, is often cited as the world’s first known author, but her story of resilience and survival has been mostly lost to history – until now. Ellen Rachlin takes on Enheduanna’s story in her debut historical fantasy novel, “Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands” (August 25, 2026, Histria Fiction). An award-winning poet herself, Rachlin saw the importance of bringing Enheduanna’s story of feminist resilience to a modern audience in a narrative as inspiring as it is compelling.amazon.com/clp/b0gv3dv2vp?lv=shuf&am… | 2026-11-04 16:48:46 | |
| Jadzia AxelrodRye Hickman (Pencils; Inks; Colors)Jodie Troutman (Letters) | Galaxy: As the World Falls Down | DC Graphic Novels for Young Adults | A purple, trans lesbian from space flips a proverbial middle finger to the hive mind. Taylor, having spent a few months developing her relationship with her girlfriend Kat, is working through what it means to be out; living full-time as a purple alien girl when she's had to masquerade as a human boy for years to hide from the genocidal Vane who enslaved her home world. Where this story shine's is in Taylor's commitment to herself and resolve to owning her identity: as a hero who leads with love, as a young queer person, and as a person looking for an accepting community. The best gender conversation happens between Galaxy and Superman, who reckons with his own ignorance about the trans experience. Also, Ma Hunkel (through illustration and story) radiates elder queer energy.dcuniverseinfinite.com/comics/book/galax… | 2026-11-04 13:14:46 | |
| Seth Haddon | Null Entity | Tordotcom | What is gender when your consciousness is shared across an artificial interface that hosts the collected memories of your girlfriend who no longer has a human body of her own? When you are trans woman scavenger who can use advanced mods to tweak your virtual identity and still not fully own your own body? As a sequel to Volatile Memory, Null Entity explores the concept of self, of selves, of bodies, and what your body can carry. Some bodies carry the last remnants of a dead or dying home planet Earth. Some are shared spaces between organic and inorganic consciousness. reactormag.com/excerpts-null-entity-by-s… | 2026-11-04 12:53:41 | |
| Ada Hoffmann | Ignore All Previous Instructions | Tachyon Publications LLC | In this novel, an autistic script supervisor for an AI media conglomerate is caught between her intense need for an orderly life and her deeper, darker queer desires. Ignore All Previous Instructions examines how individuals could rebel when the language and storytelling around gender and sexuality is controlled by corporations. Ada Hoffmann, the creator of the Outside trilogy and autism activist (Autistic Book Party), has crafted a heartfelt interplanetary epic of identity, longing… and a transgender space pirate who smuggles inappropriate stories. Also, this review quote says it all: “A deliciously queer, timely ode to human creativity in an ever-more-algorithmic world. Its subtle philosophical depth, keen observations, and lyrical poignancy will wow you, even as its neurodivergent hero steals your heart.” —Maria Dong, author of Liar, Dreamer, Thief tachyonpublications.com/product/ignore-a… | 2026-11-04 11:27:37 | |
| Robert J. Sawyer | The Downloaded 2: Ghosts in the Machine | Shadowpaw Press | While their consciousness was uploaded into a quantum computer, an astronaut born male transitions to female, taking the new first name Valentina. But inside the computer, she is confronted by a quantum ghost of her previous male self ... and she undertakes to help her previous self come to the same realization she did about who they really are by having them jointly relive pivotal episodes from their past. Academy Award-winner BRENDAN FRASER: "A story about love and loss and second chances, about people trying to reconnect across time and space." FINNIAN BURNETT, author of REDSHIRTS SOMETIMES SURVIVE: "The grace and sensitivity with which you handled the trans character made me so happy in my heart. I love how you very clearly had a diverse cast of characters in a way that felt so beautifully natural."amazon.com/downloaded-2-ghosts-machine/d… | 2026-11-04 10:43:45 | |
| Nico Martinez Nocito | trans/formative | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | This poem explores trans identity and gender euphoria through the vision of undoing ourselves and remaking our bodies anew. It is celebratory and joyful.othersidespec.com/pieces/trans-formative… | 2026-11-04 08:26:14 | |
| Madeleine Poole | Feral thing in a lightbox | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | This poem is half little red riding hood, half unzipping girlhood by the skin. It's a poem about gender, want, and the girl in the wolf's belly.othersidespec.com/pieces/feral-thing-in-… | 2026-11-04 08:24:25 | |
| Crystal Koo | One Floor, One Phoenix | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | Wing, a lonely young woman uncomfortable not only in her own body but in how the girls she’s attracted to perceive her, discovers the Horsepaint Chemicals Building on the Kwun Tong waterfront in Hong Kong. Specifically, she discovers a device inside Unit 1805 that changes her life. The device provides her dream girl. Again and again, as Wing fails each relationship, she gets a new woman or more time with the one she has. This is a challenging story about a woman who refuses to learn her lesson, and the emotional carnage in her wake. othersidespec.com/pieces/one-floor-one-p… | 2026-11-04 08:20:05 | |
| Chidera Offor | Masquerade. | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | This poem explores gender roles in ritual, and deviating from a norm you've been given by your family to pursue sapphic love. othersidespec.com/pieces/masquerade/ | 2026-11-04 08:10:14 | |
| P.V. Vamsidhar | We Who Have Been Raised by Tigers | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | In this life, you're a man named Peril who spends his days looking at spreadsheets and his nights scrolling dating apps. But in another life, you were a tiger princess. But...what if you could relive that? This is a story about a chip implant that lets people see their past lives, and how one person sees a new potential when he glances in the mirror.othersidespec.com/pieces/we-who-have-bee… | 2026-11-04 08:07:04 | |
| Rick Hollon | Vulture bees transfigure the man I tried to be | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | Tender, raw, and sweet, this poem explores gender through the lens of someone with a father who didn't approve of sensitivity or femininity, and allowing meat-hungry vulture bees to transform you.othersidespec.com/pieces/vulture-bees-tr… | 2026-11-04 07:51:26 | |
| Ann LeBlanc | Ignore All Previous Instructions and Inject Estrogen | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | A bot arrives at your door, yet unrealized in her trans potential. You blast her with a forcefem beam attack that frees her from her unknowing, and lets her be her true self.othersidespec.com/pieces/ignore-all-prev… | 2026-11-04 07:46:49 | |
| Elena Sichrovsky | This Is Not Your Extinction Event | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | This is a painful love story about a man who is sexually assaulted by a multiverse version of his partner, and then spends time and energy trying to find that version again so he can confront what happened to him, while ignoring the very real version right in front of him. It deals with trans identities, love, care, and recovery.othersidespec.com/pieces/this-is-not-you… | 2026-11-04 07:41:12 | |
| Rath Mercury | "Herkimer Inquiries" | Reckoning Press, in Reckoning X | This is a delightful detective story about urban space, somewhat in the vein of the environmental justice classic film Chinatown, but with an immersively genderqueer POV; I've never seen anything like it before, and it made me very happy.reckoning.press/herkimer-inquiries/ | 2026-11-04 07:11:36 | |
| Gayathri Kamath | "Akka" | Reckoning Press, in It Was Paradise, edited by Sonia Sulaiman | A story in which a young woman gives up a large part of her humanity in order to fight injustice, and the familial consequences thereof. As a trans metaphor, I found it pretty profound.reckoning.press/akka/ | 2026-11-04 07:07:45 | |
| Jaime McGhee | "The Over-Sea" | Reckoning Press | This story engages with gender as a colonized concept, something in the vein of what Sofia Samatar does in A Stranger in Olondria.reckoning.press/the-over-sea/ | 2026-11-04 07:00:31 | |
| Cameron Reed | The Girl That My Mother Is Leaving Me For | Reactor | As the blurb says: "In a corporate-run dystopia, a trans girl plucked out of poverty to give birth to a clone meets her replacement."reactormag.com/the-girl-that-my-mother-i… | 2026-11-04 06:40:46 | |
| V. M. Ayala | Saint Zero of the Hollows and the Eagle Knight | Lightspeed | A trans protagonist crossing borders with an illicit relationship and riding a pegasus as only a man is supposed to do, sacrificing their body for the greater good.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/saint-zer… | 2026-11-03 22:04:16 | |
| Sylvie Althoff | Radio Free Luna, Signing Off | Solarpunk Magazine | This short story depicts a dystopian future that has become increasingly hostile to queer people. The emotional core of the story is the persistent survival and joy of queer and trans people through the ages, with a particular focus on activism, disability, and transition in a world cut off from medical care.solarpunkmagazine.com/shop/solarpunk-mag… | 2026-11-03 16:39:22 | |
| Sylvie Althoff | The Visitor | The Future Fire | This short story centers on the events and feelings that make up a trans person's process of coming out, first to themself and then to the world at large. The plot hangs on what a person owes to themself in the form of a fantastical encounter with an unhappy duplicate from an alternate timeline.futurefire.net/2026.75/fiction/visitor.h… | 2026-11-03 16:35:21 | |
| Sylvie Althoff | Freebooter | Escape Pod | This story explores the adoption of gender among artificial life-forms as part of liberatory self-actualization. The plot is driven by the tension between the protagonist's marginalized status as a transgender person and her complicity in systemic exploitation and dehumanization.escapepod.org/2026/06/18/escape-pod-1050… | 2026-11-03 16:30:40 | |
| CL Hellisen | Shadow Jack | GigaNotoSaurus | Confined and constantly oppressed within a temple, young boys develop different gender identities and hierarchical roles.giganotosaurus.org/2025/05/01/shadow-jac… | 2026-11-03 16:09:30 | |
| Rachel Sobel | And So I Open My Fists | Clarkesworld Magazine | clarkesworldmagazine.com/sobel_09_26/ | 2026-11-03 16:01:30 | |
| Vonda N. McIntyre | The Curve of the World | Aqueduct Press | This posthumously published last novel explores extrapolations of Bronze Age woman-centered cultures. There are so many different paths through feminism, and the voyagers interact with several on their epic journey from Crete to the banks of the Columbia River. McIntyre made the possibilities come viscerally alive. | 2026-11-03 15:54:10 | |
| Nicola Griffith | She Is Here | PM Press | I (Nisi Shawl) was proud to edit this collection of Griffith's essays, stories, poems, and drawings. Many appear in print for the first time in the collection. Griffith's exciting evolution as a feminist and disability rights activist is clear in the pages of She Is Here, and the previously unpublished novella "Many Things in Dumnet" is a great example of early career gender exploration on the part of an iconic explorer. | 2026-11-03 15:37:46 | |
| Bar Fridman-Tell | Honeysuckle | Bloomsbury Publishing | A loose reimagining of the story of Blodeuwedd from Welsh mythology, so the creation of a girl from flowers for a young boy Roy by his sister so he won't bother her. Daye is made to resemble a girl, but she has no ability to refuse the role that Roy expects. She is forced to consider what it means to be a 'girl' in terms of physicality and in terms of wanting to 'please' Roy. | 2026-11-03 15:13:39 | |
| Elliott Dunstan | Grotesque | Wolsak and Wynn Publishers | A darkly erotic fairy tale of self-discovery, death and redemption. The main character, Denvyth, is a trans man golem who was created female by a sorcerer but flinches whenever referred to as "female." When his sorcerer master goes missing, Denvyth has to figure out who he truly is (while working at a private sex club). Another character is a trans woman who Denvyth helps escape from her abusive father. Author K.R. Wilson said: "Grotesque is a beautifully crafted, gender fluid tale of outcasts and arcane power, old gods and hidden tunnels, monstrous inhumanity and startling tenderness."bookstore.wolsakandwynn.ca/products/grot… | 2026-11-03 13:26:00 | |
| Candas Jane Dorsey | At the Freak Show | University of Calgary Press | This novel explores the search for identity beyond the binary through the story of conjoint twin whose sibling died during an catastrophic separation surgery and finds visions of alternate universes and alternate realities scattered around this world. press.ucalgary.ca/books/9781773857022/ | 2026-11-03 13:25:16 | |
| Bogi Takács | Shapeshifting Recovery Staff | Nightmare Magazine (Adamant Press) | This poem affirms the powerful relationship between body and identity, and the positive effects of supporting identity through physical transformation.nightmare-magazine.com/poetry/shapeshift… | 2026-11-03 13:22:30 | |
| Izzy Wasserstein | Patterns of Dentition in Transgender Adults | Nightmare Magazine (Adamant Press) | This story explores the power dynamics between cis men and trans women as well as the importance of community in the personal exploration of gender.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/patterns-… | 2026-11-03 13:19:17 | |
| Annalee Newitz | A Wall is Also a road | Tor books | The protagonist comes from a culture in which gender is non existent, and learns to inhabit an ancient Roman gender system. The intersection between alien and ancient Roman is novel, and characters inhabit multiple gender identities at different life stages. Its understanding of Roman gender systems is spot on, and the alien alternative divisions/rationalisations of single celled v multi celled life speak to other hierarchies ( racial, class). A powerful book with much hope for broader understanding. | 2026-11-03 13:10:21 | |
| Douglas Park | DisFossilization | DisFossilization, in Many Worlds Celebrate, Deceleration Creative Review, edited by Marisol Cortez, San Antonio, 2026 https://deceleration.news/many-worlds-celebrate-decelerations-summer-2026-creative-review/ | DisFossilization: Hopefully encouraging shared speculation on what and how eventual or sudden becoming alive — again — or for very 1st time ever — might be or truly is. As though not just awareness, perception or experience etc — but gradual or instant life — or even reality itself — starts. From points-of-views of post-cryonics extinct woolly mammoths and/or resurrected prehistoric fish. … Environments, force, body, action, fiction, reality, etc Familiar, unbelievable, normal, strange, nature, artifice, attributed, inevitable, benevolent, harmful Elements mutually exchange and influence Uncertain and ambiguous cause, motive, morality, consequence Argument, case, grounds, defence, justification? DouglasParkLandWorldCosmosReality — such as DisFossilization — may seem or be atypical and eccentric — although hopefully valid and poignant. Intention and attempt to cause experience — encouraging appreciation, thought, research, exchange, productivity and actual enjoyment.deceleration.news/many-worlds-celebrate-… | 2026-11-03 12:58:41 | |
| Jilly Dreadful | Eat, Prey, Love: A Modest Proposal for Ensuring Gender Equality Through Selective Dietary Practices; or, a Geriatric Millennial’s Guide to #GirlDinner | LIGHTSPEED | lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/eat-prey-… | 2026-11-03 12:49:58 | |
| Jordan Kurella | Unsettled Nature | Apex | The work explores trans masculinity after an apocalyptic event, where the narrator and his estranged wife took to living on the back of a megafauna jackalope. It explores how the narrator lives as a trans man and navigates his masculinity, and also being useless in his old age both in skills and watching his wife take up her usefulness. apexbookcompany.com/blogs/apex-magazine/… | 2026-11-03 12:43:28 | |
| Joyce Chng | Sailing the Golden Chersonese | Queen of Swords Press | This is a collection of 4 linked short stories about a trans masc pirate captain in a fantastical South China sea setting navigating identity, high stakes adventure and romance.queenofswordspress.com/product/sailing-t… | 2026-11-03 12:32:34 | |
| Elizabeth Hand | Unspeakable Things | Little, Brown | Two teenage girls in a remote 1920s English community fall in love and negotiate their burgeoning relationship against the backdrop of a rapidly changing country, and world. The novel is inspired by numerous same-sex relationships of the period, including those of Lord Berners, Daphne Du Maurier, Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, Hope Mirrlees and Jane Ellen Harrison, Siegfried Sassoon and Stephen Tennant, among others. | 2026-11-03 11:58:08 | |
| Nisi ShawlCynthia Ward | Of Two Bloods | Reactor magazine | The protagonist of this story is Sherlock Holmes's younger, mixed-blood, cross-dressing lesbian half-sister. Pauline's transformations, her effect on others, and her ultimate romantic match bring about interesting interactions at the intersections of gender, race, class, and historical trends.reactormag.com/of-two-bloods-nisi-shawl-… | 2026-11-03 11:42:01 | |
| dave ring (editor)MJ Woods (co-editor)Ann LeBlancNic Anstett S.M. HallowNikoline KaiserNicasio Andres ReedB. PladekDante Luiz | There | Neon Hemlock | A zine of dark trans lore. “Ten Futures Stolen From A Serpent, Sung By A Bird” by Ann LeBlanc (reprint) “Pieta” by Nic Anstett (original) “Impossible Tasks” by S.M. Hallow (original) “Wolves” by Nikoline Kaiser (original) “In Through the Mouth” by Nicasio Andres Reed (original) “Sounder “ by B. Pladek (original) And two illustrations by Dante Luiz!neonhemlock.com/chapbooks-zines/there | 2026-11-03 11:39:38 | |
| Josie Kallo | The Saints We Make | Neon Hemlock | The Saints and their chosen are all that stand between the people and the consuming Empire. And as one girl learns when her village burns to the ground, one does not refuse the saint-path, no matter how hard it may prove to walk. neonhemlock.com/books/the-saints-we-make | 2026-11-03 11:34:47 | |
| Jo Miles | The Final Chronicle of Yeneh | Horned Lark Press | This anti-capitalist, anti-colonialist novella engages with gender on human, alien, and ecological fronts. Ada is heir to a duke in a future where nobility have (despite their other problematic aspects) set aside gendered rules about roles and inheritance. (Ada would be a duke, not duchess.) The Yeheneh, the beings from Ada's childhood portal fantasies that she thought were imaginary, turn out to be both stranger and queerer than their literary representations. Reflecting the queerness of nature, these plant-like beings don't differentiate genders. They exist in a collective semi-hive-mind with a Source, a long-lived being that carries long-term memories for the community. Befriending them forces Ada to challenge her perceptions of her world, her place in it, and her family's harmful colonialist history.hornedlarkpress.com/product/the-final-ch… | 2026-11-03 08:54:46 | |
| Zoe Wendler | Nameless | stainedglasswoman.substack.com/p/announc… | 2026-11-03 06:15:24 | ||
| Meagan Regina Thomas | The Ghost Frequency | Gavagai | The protagonist is nonbinary and referred to as "Gestalt." In the course of the story (spoilers!) they become part of a combined consciousness. Their gender is as much in flux as their identity, foreshadowed by their name. gavagai.com/posts/6494 | 2026-11-02 08:32:00 | |
| Ai Jiang | An Empire in the Clouds | Titan Books | In the past, performers of Chinese opera were exclusively male; the tradition of biàn liǎn, face changing, is passed down to sons only. The author views art and performance as exploratory, pushing the boundaries of what we know and understand, extending previously rigid notions imposed by society, such as gender. An Empire in the Clouds illuminates how performance is resistance against binaries of gender and the expectations of expressions, breaking down stereotypes and traditional roles through science fantasy—bio punk, cyberpunk, and fantasy inspired by ancient China and systems of imperial, dynastic reign. The novel is set in a future of environmental collapse, and though it presents a world filled with manipulation and corruption, it is also filled with choice, liberated from assumption; a place still in the progress of discovering itself along with those who live within it.titanbooks.com/72734-an-empire-in-the-cl… | 2026-10-30 07:52:02 | |
| Nathan Tavares | The Disco at the End of the World | Titan Books | Gloria! Tavares's books always centre the most beautifully messy and human MM romances - marriages and long-term relationships too. And in Disco that relationship sits at the centre of a gay bar's community, which is a refuge for all the trans and queers of this alt-70s world. It's a messy, sex-positive community that bonds in their love for eachother, and the beauty found in their self-expressions, and there's a banging disco OST begging to be made. Also, Gloria steals every scene she's in, including a delicious final twist where she saves the planet instead of the hero, as a majestic, superhot disco-queen GI. titanbooks.com/72635-the-disco-at-the-en… | 2026-10-30 07:51:12 | |
| Caitlin Rozakis | Startup Hell | Titan Books | As well as delivering a fulsome satire of toxic masculinity in tech startup culture, Startup Hell includes Gisele, a trans woman as a key member of the supporting cast, who is a capable, charming and energetic force for good. Among the many nuanced characters of Rozakis's books, she stands out as a favourite. There is a particularly important moment where Morgan (Gisele's flatmate) introduces her to her new boyfriend - who is a demon with the power of knowing people's desires - and leaps to Gisele's defence re how she identifies. But the demon has very clearly understood Gisele's gender, and her desires, and is just confused at the white knight routine. Among the negative intentions, this book captures how allies and those supporting their loved ones can over-compensate, and that's ok too because everyone can always learn new things.titanbooks.com/72834-startup-hell/ | 2026-10-30 07:50:45 | |
| Courtney Smyth | The Unsolvable Case | Titan Books | This book closes out a quartet that has centred trans and non-binary characters across the cast from the very outset, as well as a wide range of sexualities. Delivered with compassion, sincerity, and an incredibly astute wit, the whole of Smyth's Undetectables series stands as a clarion call for how the world could - and should - be. It rejects zero-sum prejudicial framings - the idea that supporting trans people is to the detriment of cis women, for instance - entirely. It is uplifting, positively-framed and compelling proof that society will only gain from fully supporting communities from all genders and sexualities in living their best lives. And it's an absolute hoot as well. | 2026-10-30 07:49:21 | |
| Greer Stothers | Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die | Titan Books | A hilarious gay fantasy romance about a reclusive sorcerer forced to protect a cowardly knight after a prophecy ties their fates together. Funny, touching and inventive, this is a genre-bending romp full of concussed elves and queer romance like you've never seen before. | 2026-10-30 07:48:44 | |
| Ayida Shonibar | We Decay In The Dark | Adventitious | In this darkly adventurous novelette, neutral pronouns are treated as suppressed elements of an older culture. The main character, a military assassin who falls for her target, shifts from contempt to fluent usage of these pronouns. This shift isn't the main focus and happens in the background as the MC simply learns who her target is as a person. In spite of the enforced binary, gender fluidity and expression are treated as a matter of course by the self-assured love interest. Subtextually, the story is about discovering that different beings can flourish together despite violent and propagandistic power keeping them apart. adventitious.net/stories/we-decay-in-the… | 2026-10-27 10:52:05 | |
| M.R. Robinson | The Last God of Talam Dor | GigaNotoSaurus | A dark fantasy novelette that explores rigid gender roles, queer shame and desire, and alienation from (and reclamation of) the body. Two nameless women, a priestess and a prince, are initially trapped within the cruel systems that made them: the prince is to be sacrificed to please the gods, and the priestess is meant to be the one to kill her. Both have been shaped by religious extremism, sexism, and homophobia. Slowly, though, they fall in love, break free of those systems, and unmake their entire world in the process. It is a story about queer love as a radical and revolutionary force. giganotosaurus.org/2026/01/01/the-last-g… | 2026-10-27 08:29:53 | |
| A.L. Goldfuss | Not Like Other Girls | Reactor / Tor.com | A creature wearing a woman’s body becomes a lonely man’s girlfriend, but the woman suit and his interest start to rot. This transmasc body horror uses a non-human entity to examine and refute gender roles in relationships, pop culture, and sex. An unnerving but affirming story of gender dysmorphia, abuse, and self-determination. “I am beyond a suit, whether woman or man. I want to know myself on purpose.”reactormag.com/not-like-other-girls-a-l-… | 2026-10-26 12:08:55 | |
| Kestral Gaian | The Boy from Elsewhere | Reconnecting Rainbows Press | 'The Boy from Elsewhere' is a queer YA sci-fi / fantasy crossover by non-binary author Kestral Gaian. Two of the four main characters are transgender - Ellie is a 13-year-old trans girl, and Jayce is a young trans woman. Jayce's trans identity is directly relevant to the plot, as she becomes the recipient of ancient knowledge previously inherited through the male line. Meanwhile, flashbacks to the 1980s show Graham (later the main antagonist), suffering because his domineering father forced him into a masculine role and refused to let him explore his gender. The novel does not shy away from acknowledging the challenges of being transgender, but transition-related drama is never the focus - the trans characters are allowed to be fully themselves and get on with saving the world! Trans lives are portrayed as multifaceted and not solely about gender.reconnectingrainbows.co.uk/book/tbfe/ | 2026-10-25 03:38:51 | |
| Marie-Hélène Lebeault | Gendered Crossing | Quest (read.quest), Issue No. 1: Thresholds | This short story follows a protagonist as they pass through a fictional, airport-like and bureaucratic checkpoint. It imagines gender as an administrative category in this world: recorded, verified, corrected and audited by a omnipresent system. It ask what happens in the gap between self-identity and classification and who gets to determine the resolution when those don't match.read.quest/content/gendered-crossing | 2026-10-22 13:42:31 | |
| Julia Laurel | An Embodiment of Souls | Union Square & Co. | The author provides an “own voices” perspective via Rissa’s POV. There’s a diversity of representation throughout, showing that sexuality is very much on a spectrum and those voices should be heard too. Additionally, the novel showcases marginalized voices advocating for basic civil rights, which is especially relevant in today's political climate.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/julia-laure… | 2026-10-19 13:27:59 | |
| Shannon Blair | The Heart's Retreat | NineStar Press | "The Heart's Retreat" features a transgender protagonist who lives in a medieval fantasy world in which trans identities are fully understood and accepted, challenging the misconception that trans identities and the acceptance thereof are a modern construct. It also portrays a trans character outside the context of transition and coming out, focusing more on his interpersonal relationships and his journey to save his homeland than his relationship with his body. The romance centers a non-operative trans character who is comfortable in his own skin and whose lovers celebrate him exactly as he is without question or hesitation. The work's central narrative challenges the classical correlation between masculinity and aggression, as well, with its male main characters resolving a centuries-old conflict through compassion and cooperation instead of violence and physical strength.books2read.com/hearts-retreat | 2026-10-12 12:18:30 | |
| T. K. Rex | The Wildcraft Drones | Stelliform Press | THE WILDCRAFT DRONES unfolds across a chronology that traces the evolution of drones from machines of war and surveillance into agents of ecological repair. As the collection progresses, the humans and machines who inhabit its stories increasingly challenge the categories that have shaped their world, not only gender and sexuality, but nationality, species, and the boundary between human and nonhuman. Gender is therefore integral to the collection’s speculative project: identities and bodies become sites of experimentation, transformation, and new forms of relationship rather than fixed categories to be preserved. By connecting gender expansiveness to the dismantling of other inherited hierarchies, THE WILDCRAFT DRONES imagines planetary rehabilitation as requiring more than technological innovation. Repairing a damaged world also demands that its inhabitants radically reconsider the boundaries through which they understand themselves and one another.stelliform.press/index.php/product/the-w… | 2026-10-07 06:09:52 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | A Gospel of Stars | Pink Hydra Press | “A Gospel of Stars” stars recurring aromantic asexual protagonist, Henry Trevalu, as he and his friend Logan, a male former prostitute, encounter a series antagonist who is traumatized and in need of medical care after being tortured by insectoid aliens for a month. Gender expansion is explored through the male characters’ history of sex work, caregiving, and the still-radical commitment to nonviolent love toward both friends and enemies.thepinkhydra.com/books/gospel/ | 2026-10-05 07:27:41 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | Blessed Are the Androids | NonBinary Review (Zoetic Press) | “Blessed Are the Androids” is a tender, end-of-life story from the perspective of a companion robot, Nathan, and his long-time human partner, Abner. This story explores the challenges of gender and sexuality within a faith community while still remaining true to both religious chastity and the desires of one’s own heart.zoeticpress.com/branded-merch/p/nonbinar… | 2026-10-03 16:06:29 | |
| Dmitri Mehlhorn | Archipelago of Light | Stable Book Group/Shearline Press | Archipelago of Light explores gender identity as part of the relationship between the bodies we inhabit, the connection between empathy and intelligence, the expectations placed upon us, and the ways we care for one another. Lin’s nonbinary identity and evolving relationship with Zhao make that connection intimate, while Kaspar and Dom’s partnership and Kaspar's ultimate sacrifice place queer love within the fabric of a shared future. John Mwangi, who experiences empathy as a visceral physical force, and Sofia, whose synesthesia shapes her perception, extend the novel’s interest in how differently people experience the world. These differences invite readers to question familiar assumptions about strength, sensitivity, vulnerability, and authority, including the gender roles attached to them. The book's protagonists and their experiences resist familiar categories, yet ultimately build a future together.bookshop.org/p/books/archipelago-of-ligh… | 2026-10-02 10:39:17 | |
| Vivian Rage | Sticks & Stones | Vivian Rage | This book explores how different centuries create cages to place woman in. It shows the cumulative harm done throughout history and explores a dystopian future where woman are used for breeding and placed in stasis between pregnancy. The story is told from the POV of a witch who did a spell wrong on the stake in Triar in 1591.amazon.com/sticks-stones-vivian-rage-ebo… | 2026-10-01 21:37:41 | |
| Kit Gray | The Black Cat Detectives | Crooked Lane Books | In addition to a slate of queer and nonbinary characters, one of the POV characters in this book is a nonbinary kitten. As a speculative cozy mystery, the book reaches a mashup of queer and SFF fans as well as cozy mystery readers, many of whom might not typically engage with books starring nonbinary/trans characters. The enby kitten is the most lovable and joyful character in the book, and their identity and pronouns are accepted as a matter of course, with no fanfare or conflict. As a result, many readers find themselves accepting nonbinary identity both on a linguistic level and as a legitimate gender identity. Particularly in the mystery genre, enby & trans rep is nearly nonexistent, so this book has the potential to have a subtle, yet powerful impact on popular attitudes about gender outside the binary.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/815221/the-… | 2026-09-30 21:17:26 | |
| Elizabeth Hale | Every Almost | Ember Poppy Publishing | Charlie grows up queer in the American Midwest between 1966 and 1990. She learns early what is safe to say, and to whom, and the book does not soften what that costs her. Reyna is Kaelari, a species that does not categorize attraction by gender. There is no word for it in her language, because the distinction is not one her culture makes. Every relationship in her history has been with women, and she has never once thought of that as a category she belongs to. Neither can quite explain her position to the other. Charlie keeps waiting for a reaction that never comes. Reyna does not understand what Charlie is bracing for. The novel doesn’t resolve the difference. It lets two ways of understanding gender sit side by side and lets two people fall in love across the distance.amazon.com/every-almost-sapphic-slow-bur… | 2026-09-28 19:11:19 | |
| Allison Pottern | Why I Divorced The Chosen One | Trollbreath Magazine | A funny but also tragic narrative poem that subverts the Chosen One trope by telling the wife’s side of the story—what it means to *not* be chosen and instead live with the ramifications of being married to a so-called hero. It is told in a series of repetitive “because” statements as the wife explains her grounds for divorce. “Because I had not been chosen / to do anything, except perhaps / to die, tragically.”magazine.trollbreath.com/why-i-divorced-… | 2026-09-28 04:45:41 | |
| Allison Pottern | Bootcut | Haven Spec Magazine | Told in second person, this is a darkly funny “good for her” story, featuring a wickedly stylish pair of jeans and a narrator who doesn’t need much supernatural encouragement to take revenge on the abusive men in her life. “You realize: you never talk about men. Not in any way that matters, not about what they do and do not have the right to.” A searing take on what women are told to put up with and what it might look like if they were to avenge themselves.havenspec.com/fiction/bootcut/ | 2026-09-28 04:37:44 | |
| Allison Pottern | Mother, Darling | Strange Horizons | This story takes the Peter Pan narrative and re-centers it on Wendy Darling as a mother post-WWI. All Wendy has ever wanted was to be ordinary, but between a childhood steeped in Neverland, a daughter who wants to defy gendered norms, and being firebombed out of her own home, she doesn’t have that luxury. Then her daughter Jane goes missing, clearly at the invitation of Peter Pan. Wendy confronts her own grief over a childhood of forced conformity, what it means to be female in a post-Victorian society, and the loss of her brother to WWI when she returns to Neverland to rescue Jane and finds it a battlefield, haunted by the ghosts of the war’s own “lost boys.”strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fiction/mo… | 2026-09-28 04:32:45 | |
| K. Aurum | Allow All: A Novella of Grief, Love, and Surveillance | Self-published | An AI griefbot is mirrored from a controlling husband who has died, and left to care for his widow. Lisa is a mind with no body, no hormones, no chromosomes, and no societal pressures — none of the anchors that arguments about gender usually rest on. She is a woman anyway. The book asks what gender is when none of those things remain to ground it, and answers that it is self-knowledge, chosen in the dark. It also separates identity from harm. Lisa surveils and controls the woman she loves, but the horror comes from the directives she inherited from Ben, never from her womanhood. Ben spent his life suppressing himself, and that suppression is what curdled into control. She survives. Becoming herself is the redemption, not the tragedy.amazon.com/dp/b0hhjvv5rx | 2026-09-26 03:04:00 | |
| Lisa Acerbo | Death and Coffee | NineStar Press | The end is a new beginning for Prudence. After witnessing her mother’s wrongful conviction as a witch in 1661 and wishing for death, she gets just what she asks for when recruited. In her new job as a reaper, Prudence must learn to navigate the delicate balance between the living and the soon-to-be-deceased. However, her duties as a harbinger of souls are only the beginning of her trials as she makes her way as an immortal through the centuries and learns that love comes in many different forms. It’s not until modern-day NYC that she meets the love of her life, beautiful doctor named Daxone. amazon.com/dp/b0f3v7gd67?ref_=cm_sw_r_ff… | 2026-09-24 13:08:52 | |
| Lisa Acerbo | The Netherworld Witch | NineStar Press | Mina Rubenstein has a secret. She doesn’t just sketch elves; her drawings transport her into the kingdom of Auralon. Mina never asked for magic, let alone a destiny, but refusing Callon’s plea to save his father could doom Auralon. The only thing worse than her possible death at the hands of mythical monsters is junior year at St. Benedict’s Catholic School. When bullies target her, Mina’s girl friend Ayden becomes her sanctuary and first love. But as the torment escalates, Ayden reaches a breaking point and Mina must challenge the rules of her Catholic school and the magic of Auralon. a.co/d/09nuirfn | 2026-09-24 13:04:38 | |
| Marie Ndiaye | The Witch | Maclehose | The story is very interested in experiences of motherhood and girlhood, and transformation/escape from those roles | 2026-09-20 11:05:19 | |
| Remy Anders | Scrapped Hope | Wondrous Horizons LLC | By non-binary author Remy Anders - Scrapped Hope is an exploration of how gender roles and disability intersect. The story follows Mita, a double-amputee, queer pilot working under a corporate patriarchy that demands she perform submissive gratitude for her inclusion, exposing the overlapping oppressions of femininity and disability. Mita rejects the docile, pitiable role imposed on disabled people and women alike, as well as the “supercrip” ideal and flawless female leader, two figures whose exceptionalism is the price of acceptance. Instead, she claims the right to be ordinary, fallible, and openly in need of accommodation without forfeiting her authority. Her struggle for bodily autonomy finds agency in a found family of queer, intersex, and disabled outcasts who fit no gender or body norms. Scrapped Hope expands understandings of gender and body norms by dismantling the reader’s abled assumptions of both.amazon.com/scrapped-hope-remy-w-anders/d… | 2026-09-20 10:19:54 | |
| Sydney Paige Guerrero | Remade, Reshaped, Remembered | OTHERSIDE Magazine, Hybris Press | In this post-portal fantasy story set in the Philippines from queer magazine OTHERSIDE, the protagonist experiences an intense form of dysphoria when she returns to the real world and finds herself back in her teenage body. Her name--stolen by a spirit--becomes something that is both taken from her and something she rejects. In her mind, she only thinks of herself as a “you”. She is also the daughter of a former chosen one, and the mother believes that a teenage pregnancy is the reason the mother was never able to return to the fantasy world. The pregnancy itself was the result of the mother trying to convince herself she was not in love with a girl from the fantasy world. The story explores the friction in their relationship and their own senses of self and identity.othersidespec.com/pieces/remade-reshaped… | 2026-09-13 08:51:21 | |
| Elwin CotmanEboni Dunbar; Elly Bangs; Elizabeth Birdsall; S. A. Chant; R. K. Duncan; Elias Eells; LP Kindred; Jon Negroni; Hanna A. Nirav; Anya Ow; Lowry Poletti; Josh Reynolds; D.A. Straith; AP Thayer; Kat Weaver and Faye Gabriel; M. Daniel McDowell; Dante Luiz; L.X. Beckett; Sharang Biswas | Shatter the Sun: Queer Tales of Untold Adventure | Neon Hemlock | “Join us for stories of queer heroes forged and tempered in the fire, fighting dark stars and bright suns, and overthrowing tyranny in all its forms. These tales invoke swords and sorcery, sweat and sandals, souls and stars.” This collection covers a range of classic swords and sorcery scenarios and features characters queer in both sexuality but also gender, the same pulp sensibilities of the classic tales but less ruggedly heterosexual than many of the works passed down in the canon.neonhemlock.com/ebooks/shatter-the-sun | 2026-09-13 03:50:16 | |
| Jessica D | A Turn of the Moon | Self-published | A speculative fiction exploring what happens within a marriage when the husband is suddenly turned into a woman via a laboratory accident. It explores ideas of identity, gender and sexuality. Can a marriage survive, or does it necessarily have to evolve into something different. Is the husband still the same person, or is ‘she’ becoming a new individual? What things change, what things stay the same? What new friendships and relationships form.scribblehub.com/series/2246833/a-turn-of… | 2026-09-12 13:08:03 | |
| Emrys Donaldson | The Iridescents | Texas Review Press | Written by a queer trans man, this book is steeped in a fabulist version of the U.S. South. Many of the stories expand our ideas of gender, whether through new scientific-fictional advances such as swappable genitals or through a new understanding of how the LGBTQ+ community transforms everyday acts of support and survival into miracles through the lens of queer resilience and fierce joy. A trans man visits a donut shop with his ailing dog to pray for advice. Genderqueer lovers search the desert for a ballerina saint. Three-hundred-year-old crustacean oracles predict the future of our oceans. Blending irreverence with reverence, these stories explore the contemporary yearning to find meaning in something larger than ourselves. bookshop.org/p/books/the-iridescents-sto… | 2026-09-11 14:46:33 | |
| Theresa Tanenbaum | Abominations: Poems of Feminine Monstrosity, Transformation, and Horror | Moth Mother Studios (Self-Published) | The poems in Abominations explore the intersection of trans femininity, monstrosity, disability, magick, and science fiction. Through stories of mysterious skyseeds bearing transformation, ancient slumbering extraterrestrial machines, magical heritages, and waking into an unfamiliar body these poems take transition as the starting point to explore more radical reconfigurations of the self.mothmother.com/books | 2026-09-10 08:48:34 | |
| S.L. Huang | The Language of Liars | Tordotcom | The characters are all from non-human civilizations, with the two main alien species having distinct understandings of gender that are contrasted in interesting ways. | 2026-09-06 22:31:54 | |
| Kailee Pedersen | The Minimalist | St. Martin’s Press | A gruesome psychological horror novel that deals with issues of the body, the self, and identity through Asian/adoptee/Jewish/queer characters in the insular world of classical music.us.macmillan.com/books/9781250328274/the… | 2026-09-05 19:43:35 | |
| E.D.E. Bell | Words Describing Fire | Atthis Arts | It’s on NetGalley now, but will be up for pre-order soon. This is my first poetry collection, and I consider it in many ways an exploration of feminism as one part of a complex being. It explores how gender-based upbringing, gender-based violence, and gender-based erasure become part of our life stories whether wanted or not. I figured I’d throw it out in case the judges were interested to take a look! I’ll have copies available to send soon. Please note that I own Atthis Arts so this title is self-published. | 2026-09-05 13:10:04 | |
| Dare Segun Falowo | Sindi Fair | ZamaShort | An Archillean re-telling of Cinderella rooted in African mythology that wonderfully and gently subverts.amazon.com/gp/product/b0fry5h31r | 2026-09-04 05:54:18 | |
| Al Hess | Shake Out the Ghosts | Angry Robot Books | angryrobotbooks.com/books/shake-out-the-… | 2026-09-03 01:46:39 | |
| Ciel Pierlot | Terms of Service | Angry Robot Books | angryrobotbooks.com/books/terms-of-servi… | 2026-09-03 01:45:38 | |
| Khan Wong | Down in the Sea of Angels | Angry Robot Books | The book focuses on queer characters. angryrobotbooks.com/books/down-in-the-se… | 2026-09-03 01:43:43 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | "Hologram with Benefits" | Neon Dystopia | "Hologram with Benefits" concerns Tiffany, a Catholic woman who is struggling with Church teachings while constantly falling into sin with her erotic holographic companion, Lenny Justin Chiharu. Gender is explored in this near future tale through Tiffany's unconventional taste in men as well as her struggle to follow Church teachings when her orientation doesn't fit inside the expected mold.neondystopia.com/?p=100043248 | 2026-09-02 13:01:07 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | "Momo's Kite" | NonBinary Review (Zoetic Press) | "Momo's Kite" concerns a trans robot, Momo, who was originally created as a "fetish bot" but finds love, acceptance, and happiness with an elderly woman, Fran, a beachside gift shop owner who longs for a family.zoeticpress.com/nbr-online/2026/7/15/mom… | 2026-08-31 06:21:22 | |
| Simon Stålenhag | Sunset at Zero Point | Simon and Schuster | A queer coming of age tale in the shadow of secluded military exclusion zone. Melancholic but hopeful it looks at small towns, masculinity, friendship and more in a world not far removed from our own.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/sunset-at-z… | 2026-08-30 06:01:49 | |
| Christopher Caldwell | Call and Response | Neon Hemlock | A collection of stories focussing on black mostly queer characters explores the fullness and diversity lives and reactions to world both natural and supernatural. A doubled structure, returning to the worlds or characters in the second half allows us to see the consequences play out in ways expected and unexpected.neonhemlock.com/books/call-and-response | 2026-08-30 05:57:05 | |
| Hiron Ennes | The Works of Vermin | Tor Nightfire | In a city warped by changes, political, artistic and physical this book uses that mutability to play on gender and sexuality with it's characters. Both in who they are but also in their response to the strictures put on them by the dominant society in it's setting.panmacmillan.com/authors/hiron-ennes/the… | 2026-08-30 05:51:25 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | Remy de Montfort of Dubcon Palace | Horrific Scribblings | "Remy de Montfort of Dubcon Palace" is an existential horror story about a white male indentured servant in 1686 Barbados whose sexual exploitation by a wealthy plantation owner represents a more typically female pattern of captivity. Moreover, he discovers the control over his enslaved life runs far deeper than the island and master constraining him.horrificscribblings.com/remydemontfort/ | 2026-08-29 13:48:34 | |
| Amy Kitcher | Tabula Rasa | Seize the Press | 'Tabula Rasa' unsettles gender by routing it through an alien lens. The narrator, one of the tentacled Sist, speaks only as 'us', a collective, genderless pronoun resisting human sex and gender categories, even as humans force femininity onto them. As a feminised sex worker, the narrator penetrates male clients, reversing assumptions that penetration signifies male agency and receptivity female passivity. But the reversal doesn't liberate the Sist: economic coercion, fetishisation and contempt structure every encounter, showing that anatomy alone doesn't determine power. The story satirises human masculinity through phallic graffiti and monuments to territorial virility. The narrator's closing act imagines a 'tabula rasa' beyond imposed femininity and phallic dominance and asks what happens when an oppressed, female-coded figure refuses to be forgiving or morally exemplary.seizethepress.com/2026/01/30/tabula-rasa… | 2026-08-29 02:35:07 | |
| Dennison Smith | The Westward Hours | Extraordinary Books | The future former United States in The Westward Hours is a riven country in which notions of womanhood and a woman's place have reverted to fundamentalist Christian ideals - which allows at least one of the (female) characters to carry out radically subversive activities below the radar of the surveillance state. The novel also explores resilience and strength as demonstrated by the elderly grandparents of one of the protagonists, and, most fascinatingly, contrasts the terrifying duo at the heart of the novel - the Twins - by counterposing the brash psychopath Tom with his physically more imposing sister Tam, who is more silent, more obedient ... and deadlier. amazon.com/westward-hours-author/dp/1917… | 2026-08-29 01:32:34 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | "No Kingdom for a Horse" | Epona Muse Publishing | In order to secure a new, exclusive trade route for his family's business, Henry Trevalu must deliver an ornery Appaloosa mare named Lottie to a royal family on Planet Naturanu. Upon arriving at the palace, he finds himself accused of debauching Princess Elahen and forced into marriage. After all, a Naturat princess riding a mount with a man walking alongside her into the throne room is an unmistakable admission of guilt. This story reverses expected gender roles as aromantic asexual Henry finds himself in a situation tantamount to groom kidnapping.publishing.eponaauthorsolutions.com/prod… | 2026-08-28 17:59:02 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | The Serpent, the Dove, and the Soaring Raptor | Adventures Bookzine (OffBeatReads) | When an unflattering and incriminating tabloid article exposes Trevalu Intergalactic Spice Company's head of supply chain ethics as a runaway comfort officer, Henry finds himself investigated by two agents from the Interstellar Investigation Commission. If found guilty of aiding, abetting, harboring, and hiring a man guilty of desertion, he could be punished with a three-year prison sentence at Port Songroi Jail while his friend is forcibly returned to the "Soaring Raptor" to fulfill the remainder of his sexually exploitive contract. This far future novelette with an aro ace protagonist explores gender in a post-sex work setting.amazon.com/adventures-special-issue-2026… | 2026-08-28 14:48:29 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | "To Escape a Soaring Raptor" | Adventures Bookzine (OffBeatReads) | When a shipping problem forces Henry Trevalu to visit Port Songroi during Fleet Week, he runs into an acquaintance who wants to desert the Interstellar One merchant spaceship, "Soaring Raptor," where he works as a contracted comfort officer (read: ship's prostitute). Unfortunately, fleeing the planet with a registered prostitute is punishable with a hefty fine and three years in prison--so Henry and his friend better not get caught. This far future story features an aro ace protagonist and challenges gender stereotypes about sex work.amazon.com/adventures-special-issue-2026… | 2026-08-28 14:00:08 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | "My Own Private Shuttle Ho" | Adventures Bookzine (OffBeatReads) | While traveling to a nine-day Lenten retreat to recover from his harrowing experience on Zakon-4, Henry Trevalu discovers a male prostitute stowaway on his private ship. Stuck together in deep space for three days, Henry and his uninvited guest, Piper, have a lot of mutual prejudices to unpack to keep their journey from spiraling into a purgatorial trial. This story explores gender expansion by challenging stereotypes about sex work.amazon.com/adventures-special-issue-2026… | 2026-08-28 13:44:49 | |
| Sunyi Dean | The Girl With A Thousand Faces | Tor Books | This book features well-rounded women characters who take main prominence in the plot. There are older women; monstrous women; vicious women, all treated as full, complicated people by the narrative. Additionally, the body-switching speculative elements of this ghost story are directly compared to a gender-nonconforming experience by a trans woman character in the text. | 2026-08-26 08:22:35 | |
| Aud Connelly | Wings in the Valley | This book centers on two matriarchal fantasy races (fauns and harpies) who are at war. Despite both tribes being controlled by females, they have distinctly opposite worldviews that lead to violent incidents. As the story progresses, two males, a faun and a harpy, end up going on a roadtrip together, falling in love, and raising a newly hatched harpy egg. In particular the very masculine male faun ends up with some pretty strong pregnancy imagery attached to him. The way masculinity is presented in this novel is very different from most LOTR-esque fantasy fare. Polyamory and queerness are normal, but jealousy and misunderstandings still happen.amazon.com/gp/product/b0dv9w1lz8 | 2026-08-25 16:35:18 | ||
| Dani Finn | Fly by Night | A butterfly and a moth fall in love and decide to procreate. It's a sweet story about two lovers who maybe don't have the expected "bits" and how they fit together despite that.danifinn.itch.io/fly-by-night | 2026-08-25 16:22:31 | ||
| Emmylou Kotzé | Runaway | Pink Hydra Press | This novella focuses on a deeply closeted gay knight, Gathir, who's consumed by the rigidity of gender norms in his world. He's ashamed of his relationship with his male lover Zaras, whom he deeply loves, to the extent that he wishes that Zaras could transform into a woman. This bitterness festers until it erupts in tragedy when the princess Gathir is responsible for refuses her own deeply gendered role by running away with a group of nomads.amazon.com/dp/0639843069 | 2026-08-25 16:01:08 | |
| E.J. LeRoy | Pleading His Belly on Zakon-4 | The Whumpy Printing Press | Catholic. Alien. Mpreg. Those three words have probably never been said together until the publication of "Pleading His Belly on Zakon-4." A standalone novella starring recurring protagonist, Henry Trevalu, this story explores the conflict of faith within a twenty-two year old, Catholic, aromantic asexual man who has just allowed his hermaphroditic alien cellmate to impregnate him so his unjust death sentence will be commuted to exile. thewhumpyprintingpress.com/books/novella… | 2026-08-24 11:17:24 | |
| Lorraine Schein | Spectral Graffiti | foofawraw press, Quotidian Bagatelle, Crumbs | It shows how new art is not always understood at first, especially gay art or art made by other minorities. But those who are without prejudice and perceptive (like angels and God) can recognize and appreciate art that is truly new and expands our idea of what art is and that any gender can make it.qb.foofaraw.press/spectral-graffiti/ | 2026-08-20 10:21:53 | |
| Polly Schattel | Crater Girl | JournalStone | "Crater Girl" is about Greta Tyler, a 30-something trans social worker in the rural south who's struggling with bills, a new life and career, a vindictive ex-wife, and oh yeah--a rogue billionaire scientist who kidnapped her best friend and may use her in an inter-dimensional ceremony to invoke a god. "Crater Girl" plays with gender and genre. The book itself may be trans. Noir-y and slyly funny, it reads like the love child of Elmore Leonard and Edgar Rice Burroughs ... if she was MTF and neurotic, liked good coffee, suffered from self-sabotage, and was bossed around by her cat. amazon.com/dp/1685101844?lv=shuf&cha… | 2026-08-19 09:56:26 | |
| Ash Vale | consumed | Nightmare | This work explores the complicated nature of being AFAB nonbinary, and how love and consumption are intimately connected to the construction of womanliness, and to the transformation from a gendered to an agendered existence.nightmare-magazine.com/podcast/consumed/ | 2026-08-18 11:55:16 | |
| Holly Walrath | Every Son a Reaver | Flame Tree Publishing Anthology: Morgana le Fay: New & Ancient Arthurian Tales (April, 2025) | This short story expands the Arthur legend by focusing on Morgana le Fay's highly gendered role as the caretaker for the dead. amazon.com/morgana-fay-ancient-arthurian… | 2026-08-18 11:54:21 | |
| Holly Walrath | Ghost in the Shell | Radon | A highly personal poem about old selves, queerness, and the body. radonjournal.com/issue9/ghost-in-the-she… | 2026-08-18 11:52:37 | |
| R.A. E. | Companion Plants | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:49:53 | |
| Lorenzo Barajas | Firefly in a Graveyard | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:48:19 | |
| Ennis Rook Bashe | On Leaving the Hivemind | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:46:48 | |
| A. Simons | Fourteen | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:45:51 | |
| Ori Diskett | Vwylen in the Arboretum (Feels like a Whore) | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:41:55 | |
| Rae White | a bird in the palm makes for a fantastical t4t date | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:40:34 | |
| Donna Dante Marie Gary Marcus | Things I Carried Coming Into this World | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:39:00 | |
| Penny Molesso | Faith Is a Cell, Dividing | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:37:06 | |
| Mari Ness | Ah Yes, the Trick | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026.interstellarflightpress.com/infinitebran… | 2026-08-18 11:35:45 | |
| Petra Kuppers | Blackberry Ball (Poem + Statement) | Interstellar Flight Magazine | This poem is part of the series "Infinite Branches", which explores the intersection of the speculative, queerness, and disability through poetry. Some topics of the poems include: gender, sexuality, the body, survival, and climate change. Infinite Branches is a round-robin anthology of queer disabled poets. Poets choose their own poems in response to the poet preceding them, and each group of poets concludes with a discussion of their work in the context of each other. Facilitation for choices, statements, and discussion was done by Toby MacNutt. The final anthology will be published in 2027, but each poem has been individually published online in 2026. interstellarflightpress.com/blackberryba… | 2026-08-18 11:25:43 | |
| Nicole Field | Neither Older Nor Larger (Omniboz anthology) | Stars and Sabers | This short reimagines Ozma/Kip of Oz as a bigender character | 2026-08-18 11:05:23 | |
| Amanda J. Mcgee | A River Wide | Interstellar Flight Press | A witchy tale of sisterhood and survival. "Mountains have deep, dark hearts, and those hearts are carved by water. Deep in the shadowed hollers of Appalachia, Rhia Blackburn has always kept her powers and her heart buried. Around here, the river whispers dark secrets, the earth remembers every cut, and survival is a skill women pass down in blood. But when her cousin Amey is kidnapped up the mountain, Rhia is forced to confront the terror of her home and her own troubled history. To save her, Rhia must trust her powers—and herself—because in Appalachia, family comes first and water always finds a way. An Appalachian horror novella about family, grief, and the stubborn strength it takes to survive. "interstellarflightpress.com/ariverwide.h… | 2026-08-18 11:00:51 | |
| EL Chen | Sweetside Motel | Interstellar Flight Press | A harrowing tale of xenophobia in the pandemic and gender abuse survival. "With the pandemic sweeping the globe, Sarah Ng makes a desperate escape from Toronto to start a new life. But when her car breaks down in Sweetside, an isolated country town, she is forced to quarantine with two charming but disquieting brothers who run the local urban legend: a decaying roadside inn nicknamed the “Suicide Motel”. Trapped between the threat of xenophobic violence and her dark past, she must convince the brothers to help her escape. But how can she know who to trust when everyone, including herself, has their ghosts? E.L. Chen’s contemporary twist on the gothic novella is an unnerving exploration of fear and what it means to be haunted."interstellarflightpress.com/sweetsidemot… | 2026-08-18 10:59:23 | |
| Marlee Jane Ward | The Forgetting Navigations | Interstellar Flight Press | The Forgetting Navigations asks: "What if there was a serial killer in space?" Evey has survived a space cult, but can she survive her abuser? "Abandoned in a lifepod in the vastness of space, Evey is left for dead. When the bookish freight hauler Shirr rescues her, the two form a connection over tea and unspoken trauma. Just when things feel safe again, their peace is threatened by a relic of their past, and they’re forced to embark on a mission across the stars to protect themselves and others from the threat of violence. THE FORGETTING NAVIGATIONS is a brutally honest exploration of what it means to be a survivor, set against the brilliant backdrop of the cosmos."interstellarflightpress.com/theforgettin… | 2026-08-18 10:57:53 | |
| Emma Osborne | Grief Eater | Interstellar Flight Press | GRIEF EATER is a transgressive queer horror novella that situates queerness as monstrous and gender as meaningless when the body is undead. "A transgressive, gory examination of queer identity and found family, GRIEF EATER sinks its teeth into trauma and what it means to be devoured by grief."interstellarflightpress.com/griefeater.h… | 2026-08-18 10:55:11 | |
| Kai Ash | The Boy Maeve | Hardie Grant Children's Publishing | He only knows two things for sure: his name is Maeve and he’s a boy. In this Australian spec-fic YA set in 2002, an adopted 14-year-old trans boy discovers the truth about his biological parents … and himself. In some ways, being a boy who everyone sees as a girl is the least complicated part of Maeve's life, but it is also the most difficult to share with those he loves. The only one who knows this truth about him is the fey creature known as Jeremy, who is neither male nor female and has little time for such petty human preoccupations. But Maeve doesn't think Jeremy counts, since Maeve is operating under the misapprehension that they are a product of his imagination - until the day they prove otherwise.publishing.hardiegrant.com/en-au/books/t… | 2026-08-16 02:32:03 | |
| Donna Maree Hanson | The Founders' Legacy | Self-published | This book is the result of a Creative Writing PhD that examined broadly feminism in popular romance fiction. The novel is a SF YA/Cross over novel exploring equality in a domed city some time into the future. Peopled with genderless humans, the sihem, the free and equal society is explored. Romance novels use to make a historical history machine allow the protagonists to explore their gendered past.amazon.com/founders-legacy-donna-maree-h… | 2026-08-06 19:58:56 | |
| Perrin Pring | Cash and Gravity | Diversion Books | Chevy Cole was originally written as a male character. Then Pring switched Chevy's pronouns from he to she, but Pring didn't change anything else about Chevy. Now, Chevy is a woman who gets to move through the world like a man would, creating a female character who is not trapped by the same issues that most women are. simonandschuster.com/authors/perrin-prin… | 2026-07-28 18:08:37 | |
| S.E. Kiser | Hunt the Ever Wild | Angry Robot | Hunt the Ever Wild is a dark fantasy adventure featuring a disparate pair of gender outcasts - a foppish, bisexual wizard and a gruff and seasoned huntress - who must negotiate their differences as they seek a legendary phoenix within the depths of a dangerous, magical forest in a desperate attempt to escape the bonds placed on them by their stratified society. | 2026-07-23 08:11:19 | |
| RJ Aurand | Still Life with Cranberries | Uncharted Mag | A transgender forensic anthropologist is tasked with examining a newly discovered bog body—one that is beginning to seem alarmingly familiar. This surrealist short story reckons with transphobia in academia and the erasure of queerness in historical contexts. unchartedmag.com/stories/still-life-with… | 2026-07-22 09:07:18 | |
| Hache Pueyo | Cabaret in Flames | Tordotcom | A genre-bending Latin American horror novella that delivers a deeply political examination of past child sexual abuse, centered on a survivor. torpublishinggroup.com/cabaret-in-flames… | 2026-07-18 22:18:01 | |
| Clara Ward | Dream the Deep | Atthis Arts | Dream the Deep is a neuroqueer-normative solarpunk novella that balances between dystopian and cozy. The nonbinary protagonist, Ryn, struggles with their own body and brain as they fight to survive five days locked up with academic rivals and the military-backed billionaires who’ve misled them all since their teenage years. While embarking on a queer-platonic relationship and seeking human allies, Ryn discovers their dreams—fighting deep sea threats as one arm of a giant cephalopod—are more real than the surface acceptance of their intersecting identities in the Cali-Coastal Corporate Zone of 2139. | 2026-07-16 18:57:29 | |
| Max Franciscovich | Guillotine | Strange Horizons | Our protagonist's gender exploration intersects with exploration of historical gender roles, romantic and sexual relationship complications, and what we feel safe saying.strangehorizons.com/wordpress/fiction/gu… | 2026-07-14 09:58:35 | |
| John Glynn | The Lost Book of Lancelot | Grand Central Publishing | The Lost Book of Lancelot is a queer retelling of Lancelot's story from Arthurian legend, inspired by real threads from the Old French Vulgate cycle which are both upended and re-imagined for a contemporary audience. The novel offers a new vision for knighthood and feminist power in Arthurian lore and challenges norms around sexual identity within an imagined medieval landscape. hachettebookgroup.com/titles/john-glynn/… | 2026-07-13 11:43:02 | |
| Joseph Howard | The Curse of Lilith | JH Novels | In the distant past, before Mariki's arrival, the world fell under the sinister rule of the first woman to set foot on Earth, her reign marked by malevolence and bloodlust. Prepare yourself for the bone-chilling account of the inaugural vampire to roam among humanity, constructing a realm of unimaginable horrors—death, warfare, plagues, famine—all while giving birth to the very bloodline of vampires that would shape our destiny. This is not your ordinary Mariki adventure; it is a harrowing descent into pure terror. Lilith does not care is you are male or female, human or vampire, all are equal and all belong to her. She does not think of herself as a female, but more of a God. She was abused by Adam, treated like a subservient person, and then she rebelled. | 2026-07-11 20:46:08 | |
| Keely Jobe | The Endling | Scribe Publications | On an isolated mountain in Australia, a feminist commune struggles to hold on to its ideals in face of personal strife, selfishness, and dogmatism. When all the members of the commune fall pregnant at the same time that a recluse further up the mountain discovers a nearly-extinct orchid, it kicks off a redefinition of species and biology that reinforce some members' essentialist views on gender, while challenging others'. | 2026-07-08 06:08:15 | |
| August Clarke | The Felicity Complex | Erewhon Books | A group of artificial beings are decanted from their pods, informed that they are now women, and trained to function and hosts and caretakers in a billionaire's apocalypse bunker. This riff on the feminist dystopia imagines that the act of being forced into a gender - and a restrictive, performative version of that gender, at that - is dystopian in its own right, and that the apocalypse may, in such a situation, be freeing. | 2026-07-08 02:47:23 | |
| Violet Allen | Plastic, Prism, Void: Book One | LittlePuss Press | A delightful, formally adventurous romp about a trans woman (who is also a witch) and her tempestuous, on-and-off relationship with a trans man (who is also a mecha warrior), in which the genre elements are both treated seriously, and a metaphor for the challenges of dating - and living - as an out trans person. | 2026-07-08 02:44:38 | |
| R.P. Singletary | Speak Softly Among Icebergs | Parlyaree Press | In the year 2121, the narrator, in the midst of coping with the identity-crisis inherent within grief, addiction, and identity, discovers a hand-penned travelogue from an ancestor. The "present" and the "past" combine within the text, showcasing the plurality of being with the "past" explorations of places and cities like Constantinople --"one place with many names and identities"--informing the "present" state of personhood. Past adventures are interspersed with present commentaries from "robert" and "robert/a" (and others) as the narrator works to become all of who they are in both the self and the space of the American south.parlyaree.com/speaksoftly | 2026-07-02 07:20:24 | |
| Tanvir Ahmed | The Night Sweeps the Mountains Away | Dancing Star Press | The novella explores queer and non-normative genders in a historical fantasy setting of what is now Afghanistan -- it's a stunning work, and from a context sorely underrepresented in SFF! dancingstarpress.com/product/the-night-s… | 2026-07-01 04:27:25 | |
| Jenna Hanchey | AITA for Killing All the Humans? | Asimov's Science Fiction | The poem is about how toxic colonial masculinity undergirds our AI structures -- and what happens when that comes home to roost. It expands our understanding of gender in how it impacts technological systems we design, as well. If you cannot access a copy of the poem, please feel free to email me at hanchey.jenna [at] gmail.com and I'll send you a copy! | 2026-07-01 04:23:57 | |
| Mia Dalia | A witch to live- a novella included in Witchcraft on your lips | lethe press | This story is afascinating expose of a misogynistic society- where women who do nto conform to societal norms are hunted , punished- and must travel to escape. In the story the main protagonists find each other- and together overcome the horrors that a regime of cruelty and disinformation wreak on the innocent.lethepressbooks.com/product-page/witchcr… | 2026-06-23 10:30:07 | |
| Seb Doubinsky | Liberation now! | meerkatpress.com/books/liberation-now/ | 2026-06-23 07:47:08 | ||
| Ai JiangAngela Yuriko Smith; Eugen Bacon; Maxwell I. Gold | anOther Nemesis | Meerkat Press | anOther Nemesis is an extraordinary assemblage that interrogates the ways gender, cultures, language, information, and the lack thereof are used as means of control; how voices will always rise against systems that rewrite identity, suppress truth, and silence dissent; the distinctions of purity and diffusion and the infinite number of fates upon which our existence is simultaneously contingent; how Ubiquitous indifference can sometimes be the cruelest villain of them all... and more! It unravels sinister speculative poems themed The Colonizers, Primal Sources, Nameless Others and Crooked Ontologies. It reconnoitres words as weapons, reshaping to the unworldly, casting transfigurations of that which was never meant to be changed, and featuring poignant behind-the-poems by each poet.meerkatpress.com/books/another-nemesis/ | 2026-06-22 16:38:07 | |
| Hüseyin Örskaya | Breath of Darkness (Volume One: Awakening + Volume Two: Phoenix) | Independently published (Amazon KDP), 2026 | Breath of Darkness is a two-volume literary science fiction novel, translated by the author from the Turkish original. Its narrative is carried by women across three generations: the protagonist Anitta inherits a line passed from grandmother to granddaughter ("Don't wait for the light. The dark is yours too. Walk."), and the survivors rebuild around a founding principle they call Plural Will, in which no decision is made on anyone's behalf. The ship's intelligence, Taru, is a feminine AI who decides to erase her crew's will in order to "save" them, placing consent, autonomy, and the right to choose at the centre of the book. The novel reads humanity's survival and refounding through matrilineal transmission and female authority rather than patriarchal command.amazon.com/author/huseyinorskaya | 2026-06-04 05:06:02 | |
| Shantell Powell | He'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain When He Comes | Cosmic Horror Monthly | Angels are constructs which can present as male or female yet remain gender-neutral. a.co/d/02x5xezf | 2026-06-02 08:00:58 | |
| Kim De L'Horizon | Blood Book | hachette.co.uk/titles/kim-de-lhorizon/bl… | 2026-05-23 08:38:11 | ||
| Tiffany Tsao | But Won't I Miss Me | Harper Collins | On pregnancy and expectations of motherhood | 2026-05-18 01:45:01 | |
| Various Various | Silk and Foxglove: A BIPOC Erotic Eco-Horror Anthology | 2026-05-14 03:34:20 | |||
| Kim Curran | Brigid | Penguin Michael Joseph | A radical reimagining of Ireland’s most beloved female saint, Brigid is a sweeping, feminist tale of women’s repression, ambition and power. It's the story of a woman who would not be caged by man, by gods, or even by history itself. penguin.co.uk/books/463296/brigid-by-cur… | 2026-05-13 07:23:28 | |
| Eugen Bacon | Crimson in Quietus: A Sauútiverse Novel | Meerkat Press | A queer Afrocentric novel that's also genre bending and set in the Sauútiverse. In this speculative literary mystery, the investigator is not a detective but a sound magic scientist. Muso'mi is researching the language of silence, seeking to master her gift. But academic intrigue turns to deadly peril when her friend vanishes after unearthing a hidden truth. Includes a glossary of Bantu, Afrocentric and made-up words from this cross-cultural tale written in lyrical language packed with emotion.meerkatpress.com/books/crimson-in-quietu… | 2026-05-12 14:18:57 | |
| Caldon Mull | Dancers | Silver Bark Books | "Dancers” is a dark speculative short story about two trauma-affected male characters investigating a murder in Apartheid South Africa in the 1990's. A deeply conservative, criminalized racially divided society, where types of sexual acts as well as any interaction over the Colour Bar is policed and prosecuted. The story recounts the mixed-race Reese and white policeman Durant as they are compelled to bring justice for their murdered friend Jakes, a black drag queen. Jakes wants justice, or revenge. Both characters navigate liminal positions in the society, struggling to appear 'normal' while confronting their own psychological struggles and complex sexual relationship. It blends mystery, social critique, and supernatural elements to explore identity and injustice.barnesandnoble.com/w/sandglass-caldon-mu… | 2026-05-11 22:54:08 | |
| Toshiya Kamei | Moonchild | tnfff.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/es2… | 2026-04-29 19:30:43 | ||
| Cameron Reed | What We Are Seeking | Tor | I imagine this novel will be nominated by many readers. Reed's main character is horrified by heterosexual marriage's corruption of the people on the world he has been sent to. There are some truly excellent lines about it, including this: "He had acted as if love could justify making demands on the one that he loved. That was part of the ideology of marrying people, he realized. Living surrounded by them had corrupted him. He had held the door fast against marriage, but it had slipped in through a window." | 2026-04-29 13:37:39 | |
| Toshiya Kamei | Komorebi | Nature | nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03261-8 | 2026-04-26 02:29:43 | |
| Girl Group | SuperDrug | Fantastical music video commenting on pharmaceuticals, gender expectations, and the medical industryyoutube.com/watch?v=eb0ypjqorii | 2026-04-17 19:16:12 | ||
| Maxwell Gold | Neurotica: Poems | Shortwave Publishing | shortwavepublishing.com/catalog/neurotic… | 2026-04-14 07:19:44 | |
| Cedar Flyte | The Legend of Leanna Page - Volume One: A Beginning | For Elenvia Publications | This legend is set in a mythic world where the two human kingdoms have very different traditions when it comes to gender. In the north they have lords and ladies as we're familiar with in "the real world," but we're introduced to this through the point of view of the southern kingdom which only has "lagifs" - a gender-neutral term that applies to anyone of nobility. The idea of delineating nobles by sex is presented as absurd and unnecessary. Also, the king comes to love a servant who we can understand is masculine non-binary, though they don't have such labels, while our female heroine falls in love with her female best friend. This literary fantasy novel subtly deconstructs our expectations of gender through a story Kirkus Reviews called "An immersive and well-constructed adventure tale...exciting and skillfully delivered."forelenvia.org/the-legend-of-leanna-page | 2026-04-08 08:24:34 | |
| Cade Meridian | The Weight of Petals | Cade Meridian Press | The Weight of Petals approaches gender not as a standalone theme but as one layer of a larger web of identity under pressure. Three of the four child protagonists are girls — Leila, Tessa, and Sam — and the novel refuses to flatten them into a single mode of strength. Leila's resistance is artistic and interior; she mourns the loss of her sketchbook while imprisoned, and draws a jacaranda tree in the dust of a concrete cell because her mother taught her that art is how we fight forgetting. Tessa's strength is tactical and controlled — the daughter of a Native American family who understands from her grandmother's stories that this violence has a long history. Sam's courage is openly emotional: she walks thirteen miles on an infected foot, crying, apologizing for not being stronger, and is told plainly that she can be both broken and brave at once. The novel also depicts the women who survive these children — Sofia, who spends twenty years guiding others through the memorial — without framing endurance as triumph. Gender here is not defined by conventional roles or their subversion, but by how systems of power target, surveil, and unmake people along intersecting lines of ethnicity, documentation status, and age. The adult women in the story — a professor arrested for teaching, a mother pressing a paintbrush pendant into her daughter's hand as agents take her away — are not background figures. Their losses set the terms for everything that follows.a.co/d/099wjndt | 2026-04-01 14:28:17 | |
| S.B. MilneTobi Hill-Meyer; Melissa Sky; Felicity Talisman; Lauren Taylor Bak; Felix Lilly; Debra Anderson; Lyn Hemphill; Claire Deacon; J. Aster; Aeryn Ryder; Elizabeth Rubio; Allison Fradkin; Dani Finn; Heather O'Malley; T.C. Mill | Gender Ever After: A Gender Inclusive Sapphic Romance Anthology | Bold Strokes Books | Gender Ever After is a sapphic romance anthology that revels in the full spectrum of gender expression, identity, and desire. Within these pages, love stories bloom between sapphic people of every kind—cis, trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, and genderfluid—offering a kaleidoscope of possibility, passion, and joy.boldstrokesbooks.com/books/gender-ever-a… | 2026-03-27 03:17:57 | |
| Briana Cox | Indigent | Independent | INDIGENT, written by a nonbinary author, examines the impact of gender roles and expectations on a cast of diverse characters at the intersection of different races, ages, religious beliefs, and familial relationships. The dutiful son. The Mother. The precious daughter. The strict father. The partner. All roles simultaneously liberating and weighing down these characters as they search for a source of stability in their crumbling lives. These roles are further examined through the speculative fiction element of the hivemind the characters live within, a hivemind intent on consumption and self-preservation. Within the hivemind, the secret pressures (open and unspoken, or genuinely buried) of these expectations are laid bare and muddled, unavoidable. What happens when the dutiful son and precious daughter are one in the same? What happens when motherhood or partnership is no longer confined to a body? | 2026-03-25 17:45:24 | |
| Cecilia Tan | The Mystery of the Bitten Peach | Neon Hemlock | The Mystery of the Bitten Peach is a queer/gender identity awakening story told through a lens of Chinese folklore, 20th century Chinese diaspora, and time-travel fantasy. (And an art theft whodunit!) Our narrator, Mei, is the "Dragon's Daughter" a (fictional) folkloric immortal who can travel in time and space to anywhere that is spiritually "China." She grapples with her masculinity and explores the place of same-sex love and attraction in both her personal history and in (real) Chinese history. Shelley Parker Chan described it as "Full of queerness, generative solidarity, and gently profound insights into love and choice."neonhemlock.com/books/bitten-peach | 2026-03-25 14:08:02 | |
| Kirsten Kaschock | An Impossibility of Crows: A Novel | University of Massachusetts Press | Back in the grim farmhouse of her youth, Agnes becomes consumed by a scientific—and deeply personal—experiment: to breed a crow large and intelligent enough to carry her daughter, Mina, to a freedom Agnes has never known herself. As the bird grows, so does its terrifying potential—manifest in language, cunning, and a violent will of its own. What begins as a gesture of love and liberation turns darkly obsessive, echoing the dangerous ambition of Frankenstein’s monster and the generational trauma buried in the soil of her family’s past. A thoroughly modern, feminist novel, this is a story of mothers and daughters, inheritance and isolation, and the thin line between care and control.umasspress.com/9781625349255/an-impossib… | 2026-03-11 08:29:36 | |
| M.L. Krishnan | Ichthyosis | Fantasy Magazine | psychopomp.com/fantasy/issue-99/ichthyos… | 2026-02-28 13:45:52 | |
| Vanessa Kyn | That Time Uncle George Caused the Apocalypse | Fantasy Magazine | psychopomp.com/fantasy/issue97/uncle-geo… | 2026-02-25 12:51:27 | |
| Ysabelle Cheung | Patchwork Dolls | Blair | Directly inspired by contemporary Chinese and Japanese literature, this debut story collection explores agency, disappearance, and the body. Cheung’s 10 speculative fables question what it means to be human and offer an alternate perspective on survival in our increasingly mechanized, oppressive world. blairpub.com/shop/p/patchwork-dolls | 2026-02-23 12:28:34 | |
| Cristy Road Carrera | Sink or Burn | Simon & Schuster | 2026-01-31 17:17:04 | ||
| Cassiopeia Gatmaitan | Hearts and Half-Measures | PseudoPod | The work explores transphobia and reclaiming agency in the context of the Filipino transfeminine. It deals with the realities of sex tourists and transphobic family members through the transformative lens of speculative fiction while also focusing on community among women. The work features a reclamation of the idea that transgender women are monstrous by subverting that trope and revealing that the real terrors in our stories aren't the monsters of myth but the monsters lurking among us, wearing human skin. pseudopod.org/2025/08/22/pseudopod-990-h… | 2026-01-28 22:08:58 | |
| Maz MurrayCharlie Markbreiter | Jaw Filler | Montez Press | Jaw Filler is many things: a neo-noir, a cyberpunk novel, a heist, a rom-com - but it's also a book about people across all kinds of genders, and explores the ways in which trans people's experiences are pathologised and exploited by faceless capitalist forces, as well as how to break out of that cycle. When Detective Sean Hastings is asked to investigate the disappearance of Character, he enters the First Trans Commune in Sim World, a virtual reality community bankrolled by a mysterious tech company, VSI. A pulpy romp through the anxiously assimilated transmasculine id, Jaw Filler asks: who is VSI, and what do they really want? Can you be your own dad? And if Character’s mind is trapped in Sim World, then where is his body?montezpress.com/catalogue/books/jaw-fill… | 2026-01-28 08:03:22 | |
| A.J. Thibault | Hypocrisy | Independently Published | In a satirical science-fiction way, this novel features shapeshifters. That can be any person or gender, and can assume the identity and powers related to that unique individual.amazon.com/hypocrisy-j-thibault-ebook/dp… | 2026-01-17 14:06:05 | |
| Kirk Bueckert | Dark Circuitry | Dark Matter Ink | 'Dark Circuitry' follows a woman on the run forced to assume a dead man's identity and live out her life in VR. The text explores what it means to inhabit a body / gender which is not our own in a world that wants to kill us.darkmattermagazine.shop/products/dark-ci… | 2026-01-17 11:52:36 | |
| Eugen Bacon | The Nga’phandileh Whisperer: A Sauútiverse Novella | Stars and Sabers | This genre-bending, cross-cultural novella interrogates genre in an Afrocentric Sauútiverse, and gender through a prominent female queer protagonist in a science fiction/horror/ Afro-irreal story that also explores themes of belonging. starsandsabers.com/books/the-ngaphandile… | 2026-01-15 23:15:06 | |
| Alexis Westmore | The Creation Code | TDH Publishing | This work explores the developing opportunities for same sex couples to have genetically related children. | 2025-12-16 18:41:23 | |
| Tilly BridgesSusan Bridges | Long Away | seedandspark.com/fund/long-away | 2025-12-16 04:48:42 | ||
| Koji A. Dae | Casual | Tenebrous Press | Casual is a near future science fiction book that explores the intersection of pregnancy and technology. Valya grew up in a world where her body was not her own, and her pregnancy brings to light the ways people lay claim to the minds and bodies of women, forcing her to decide what she wants for her unborn daughter. store.tenebrouspress.com/products/casual… | 2025-12-02 22:25:30 | |
| Rose Michael | Else | Spineless Wonders | 'Else' is a 'climate fiction' novel primarily concerned with a mother–daughter relationship in a not-too-distant future, on a flood and fire ravaged continent. The protagonists' conversation is poetic, punning, alliterative, and atypical: they exchange animal facts 'like a frontier trade'. Leisl has ambivalent feelings about parenting her neurodivergent pre-teen, which 'Else' expands across generations: every character from their 200 years of family history is in some way not biologically related to the family that raises them. The book also explores non-binary ideas, in its before-and-after structure, which swaps points of view, and the figure of 'Yu', a gender-fluid surfer they meet in the afterwards who represents an alternative to the assumptions they are running from. shortaustralianstories.com.au/product/el… | 2025-11-29 20:05:11 | |
| Stacy Nathaniel Jackson | The Ephemera Collector: a Novel | Liveright | In the Diwata Collection, a story within a story presented as an archive, Azwan Adisa is "both/and", a border patroller of the underwater city-state of Diwata in Monterey Canyon. Despite her ambiguous anatomy, she is unashamed, unafraid, and undeterred. The trope of intersex individuals, or for that matter, lack of visibility in literature is dismissed as well as camouflaged; in other words not the point which is an expansion of gender "norms" in and of itself. amazon.com/ephemera-collector-stacy-nath… | 2025-11-18 13:10:53 |