American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era

From September 2022 to June 2023, journalist Nico Lang traveled the United States and interviewed seven families with eight trans kids: Wyatt, Rhydian, Mykah, Ruby, Clint, Augie, Jack, and Kylie. The teens were generally juniors and seniors in high school and lived all over the country, from states like Texas and Florida where laws about gender-affirming care are very strict to more liberal ones like California, and a few more in the South and Midwest.

Each chapter profiles these teens, and Lang does a phenomenal job of highlighting the diversity of their experiences, including families who are white, Black, Asian American, privileged and poor. Lang writes with empathy for each one of these kids and puts a human face on what our current show more political sphere treats as a problem or talking point. The notes, including many articles written by Lang and others, highlight laws that have been passed over the last few years in several states on bathrooms, sports, hormones, and - in Texas - saying that parents' affirming their child's trans identity is child abuse. This book is a cry to step away from the rhetoric and consider the actual people being affected by these laws: young people who want to go to prom and have relationships and simply be without fear. show less

Thank you to Shelf Awareness Pro and Abrams Books for the free ARC.
This slice-of-life book was both easy and hard to read. No individual chapter took long for me to get through, but some chapters really troubled me and made me re-read them before moving forward.
For readers who already recognize the humanity of trans youth, I find this useful for expanding sensitivity to a broader spectrum of trans kids. Not a masculine/feminine spectrum, but rather the kids stress-puking at every legislative cycle and those who really don't care that they're trans. I had ideas of how to support trans kids somewhere between those two positions and I feel slightly better equipped if I work with any of the more extreme ends.
For any reader who's coming in show more with another perspective, I fear that the realistic writing and the "just like other kids" thesis might reinforce the notion that gender nonconformity is just a phase. Teenagers do a lot of poorly-thought-out things, as evidenced within this book by many of the interactions with friends, family, schoolwork, etc. This book would not convince anyone that teenagers have the wisdom to determine their own gender identity. That's probably not the goal, it's just something that struck me. show less