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Your Trans Cousin

@yourtranscousin.bsky.social
35 followers 52 following 42 posts

A personal touch on trans issues, backed by science. substack.com/@transcousin & willcolewrites.com

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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 18h
Book rec: The Sound of Gravel, a memoir by Ruth Wariner recounting her young life growing up as a daughter in a Mormon polygamist village in Mexico, after her bio dad was killed by leader and his brother, Ervil LeBaron. It’s a rough read, with abuse, neglect, and death, but Ruth escapes eventually.
Book cover showing a photograph of four young children, all with white-blond hair, smiling for the camera.
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Book rec: The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker. From baby showers to book groups, leadership summits to intimate dinner parties, Parker explains how to make them all special and impactful. #amreading #amwriting
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I’m pleased to share my interview with Atmosphere Press about my in-progress memoir about growing up as a Mormon girl and the embodied cost of silence, invisibility, and “smiling that frown away.” atmospherepress.com/interview-wi...
atmospherepress.com
An Interview with Will Cole | Atmosphere Press
Will Cole is a queer, transgender man, professor, scientist, activist, a “seahorse dad” to an adult son, and proud husband to a fellow writer. In 2026, he completed an MA in Writing Nonfiction at John...
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
#booktok #bookrec Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. A fantastic read for someone like me who was raised to be a housewife and stay-at-home mom, navigating that tension between expectation, presentability, and ambition in a social media age.
The cover of Yesteryear, a warped view of a remote farm with mountains in the distance
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Book rec: Normal Life by @deanspade.bsky.social Written 15 years ago, he predicted how we are screwing this up. #booksky #amwriting
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Rec: Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H, a gorgeous intersectional memoir that queers Islamic prophets & stories. Can’t wait for their next book!
A white person’s hand holding up paperback of Hijab Butch Blues, a hijabi person facing away and wearing a hoodie.
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Book rec: American Teenager by Nico Lang. Traveling the country to spend time with each of eight teens and their families, Nico highlights the joys, challenges, and normalcy of being teens who happen to be trans, while the political tides were turning against us. #writing #amWriting #booksky
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
One year since Open Secrets published my Pushcart-nominated essay about literal and figurative baggage. yourtranscousin.substack.com/p/one-year-s... #AmWriting #AmQuerying #WritingCommunity
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Honored w/ the David Everett Award for Outstanding Thesis! @jhuartssciences.bsky.social @jhu.edu #KSASgrad
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
I’m graduating this weekend from @jhuaap.bsky.social w/ a MA in #Writing #CreativeNonfiction. A Light in Outer Darkness, a memoir-in-essays, reckons with layered identity, the embodied cost of self-erasure, and the long arc of queer self-discovery. #AmWriting #AmQuerying #KSASgrad #WritingCommunity
A close up of a graduation tassel with 2026 pendant. Text reads “I mastered it at JHU class of 2026” and “Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Book rec: Telling Stories: The Craft of Narrative and the Writing Life by Lee Martin. An excellent guide for writers and teachers of writing, this book is full advice and prompts to get those creative juices flowing. #amwriting #writelife #WriterSky
A white hand holds up the book against a dark teal wall
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Book rec: Everything is Tuberculosis by @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social a horrible disease but a delightful read for a public health nerd like me. #booksky #publichealth
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
Congrats to the finalists! Adding to my TBR tower. #writingcommunity #lgbtq #writerscommunity lambdaliterary.org/2026/03/anno...
lambdaliterary.org
Announcing the Finalists for the 38th Lambda Literary Awards
Read the announcement of the 2026 shortlist for the Lambda Literary Awards!
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
New post up! open.substack.com/pub/swcole/p... #trans #transrights
open.substack.com
What does the evidence actually say about the "trans bathroom issue"?
Why does hypothetical discomfort outweigh actual harm?
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
#bookrec The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick. “Truth in a memoir…is achieved when the reader comes to believe that the writer is working hard to engage with the experience at hand…What matters is the large sense that the writer is able to make of what happened.” #writingcommunity
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Reposted by Your Trans Cousin
Rob Bignell, Editor/Author @inventingreality.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
Marketing scams aimed at writers via email are on the uptick. Here’s the latest list of scammers: Morethan Classic <morethanaclassicbookclubo@gmail.com> Sarah Laurent <sarah.audiomarketing@gmail.com> #bookmarketingscam #writingcommunity #author #writing #amwriting #writer #writerslife #booksky
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Book rec: Celestial Monsters by Aiden Thomas @aidenschmaiden.bsky.social, a trans, Latinx best-selling author. This is part 2 of a #YAfiction duology following demigod Téo and his demigod friends as they save the world—after almost destroying it. Hooray gay #trans boys! He finally kisses his crush!
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
DM me: live reading #AWP Mar 4 7:30pm “Why can’t you just be a masculine woman?" I said, “It’s not that I don’t want to be a woman. There’s nothing wrong with being a woman. I’m just not one. Besides, we also need tender, feminist men.” #trans #he4she #writer @storydistrict.bsky.social
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
open.substack.com/pub/swcole/p...
open.substack.com
Identity vs Deviance: The origins of incompatible views of transness & the fight for trans rights
Social constructionism vs biological determinism explained
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
open.substack.com/pub/swcole/p...
open.substack.com
Identity vs Deviance: The origins of incompatible views of transness & the fight for trans rights
Social constructionism vs biological determinism explained
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
I’m proud of every rejection I get because it means I tried. But this one is an amazing rejection. “…we ultimately felt this piece wasn't right for us, I wanted you to know that we love your voice and I hope you'll submit to us again in the future. Until then, I hope this finds a good home soon.”
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Book rec: Love in Exile by Shon Faye. Faye explores #love in its many forms—sexual, romantic, platonic, and for the self—from the point of view of a human who happens to be a #trans woman.
A white person’s hand holds up the book Love in Exile by Shon Faye. The book cover is solid red, the title in white, and the author name in lavender. Small print inside the O of Shon states Author of the Transgender Issue.
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
As a fellow queer, Utahn ex-Mormon, I appreciate #davidarchuleta’s #Devout’s candor about the fear, confusion, and psychological harm of being queer in a high-control religion. Like him, I wrestled with denial, undeveloped sense of self, and fawning and freezing as primary survival responses. #lgbtq
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 18/02/2026
Book rec: Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee. Part #craft advice, part #memoir, McPhee shares behind-the-scenes anecdotes from his long #creativenonfiction career at Time and The New Yorker.
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Book rec: Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison, for every fiction and creative nonfiction writer. Offers advice and analysis on story structure outside of the “masculo-sexual” rising action, climax, denouement triangle. Fractals! Mirrors! Radials!
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Brainstorming an abstract for my literary nonfiction thesis. After a girlhood in a big Mormon family, all-consuming religious devotion, and becoming a wife at nineteen, the now middle-aged narrator navigates masculinity, divorce, and romance as a queer, transgender man….
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Reposted by Your Trans Cousin
Manuscript Wish List® @manuscriptwishlist.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Hello Writing Community! We are delighted to announce our Second Official Bluesky *** #MSWL Day *** February 26, 2026. 🎉🎉🎉 Agents + editors can post what they ✨wish✨ they had in their inboxes; writers can find their next best fit for querying. Learn more: manuscriptwishlist.com/2025/01/the-...
manuscriptwishlist.com
The Next Official #MSWL Day: February 26, 2026 – The Official Manuscript Wish List Website
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
I am proud to share my newest literary piece, “The Aspens Quaked Their Whispers in the Wind,” now published in The Portland Review. Only after I grew from a Mormon teenage girl to a middle-aged transgender man could I grasp my decades-long queer denial. portlandreview.org/the-aspens-q...
portlandreview.org
The Aspens Quaked Their Whispers in the Wind
If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.George Orwell, 19841996The last time I see Angel, I’m sweating in the July sun on the grounds of a Mormon churc
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
Submitted my creative nonfiction master’s thesis! “The third night of camp, we snuck out under the moonlit pines to leave our sigils in drying cement. I felt her fingertips stretch to mine within a hair’s breadth. The silence passed between us. The aspens quaked their whispers in the wind.”
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Book rec: Shame on You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification, by Melissa Petro. She explores how and why shame plagues (not just white, cis) women in modern Western society (misogyny is a huge part!) and what we can do about it (name it, share it, connect). + She’s a great writing teacher
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
Book rec: Make Good Trouble by @jamiaawilson.bsky.social. Great for inspiring young adult readers (and olds like me) in these awful times. The varied fonts, speech bubbles, and drawings keep things fresh and AHDH friendly. I was lucky to meet Jamia at @opensecretsmag.bsky.social ‘s 2025 conference
A white person’s hand holds up a book in front of a dark teal background. The book is Make Good Trouble: Discovering Movements that Sparked Change by Jamia Wilson. On the cover is a stylized cartoon drawing of a young Black woman on one knee and calling out to make her voice heard.
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Book rec: Tanked. Exploration of identities, authenticity, and self-acceptance. And fighting bad guys. Delightful break from my usual heavy reads. @kellyfaewilson.bsky.social is my SIL! I’m so proud of her. Lastly, the scene where the main character adopts his new name—I bawled shamelessly!
A white person's hand holds up a paperback book called Tanked by Kelly Fae Wilson. The cover shows a strong White man superhero holding an open book, glancing at a Hawaiian woman in a pink T-shirt and jean shorts. She has a flower behind her left ear. Both look toward each other and smile.
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Reposted by Your Trans Cousin
Mason Jar Press @masonjarpress.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Read the heartbreakingly honest "Confessions of a Toddler" by Will Cole in the latest issue of Jarnal! Order here: masonjarpress.com/chapbooks-1/... @yourtranscousin.bsky.social #literarymagazine #literaryjournal #poetrycommunity #fictioncommunity #creativenonfiction
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Tips & Scripts for supporting trans & nonbinary loved ones during the holidays! Follow the link for more! bit.ly/4iXZAXW
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
From my new essay: A yard from me, the baby stands on its back legs, makes eye contact, and extends its left hand, as if offering an invisible toy. I crave to reach out but resist. @sciwritermag.bsky.social www.thesciencewriter.org/borders-stor...
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
An open letter to parents of newly out trans kids. A real letter I wrote to a couple whose teen had just come out as a girl. swcole.substack.com/p/an-open-le...
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
Loving seeing my piece in print! Thanks, @masonjarpress.bsky.social
A literary journal held open to an essay “Confessions of a Toddler” by Will Cole
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
My memoir essay, Confessions of a Toddler, is now out in this volume of Jarnal! Order now. "I begged you to let me swim shirtless like my brothers. One day, you relented. I can still feel the ecstatic triumph when I lowered my bare chest into the water, giddy and euphoric."
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Book rec: My Child Is Trans, Now What? A Joy-Centered Approach to Support by Ben Greene of Good Queer News. Greene, a white trans man, reframes transness as a call for joy and celebration. Parents, teachers, relatives, etc. of trans people, especially young ones, will benefit from this book.
A white person's hand holds up a book, My Child Is Trans, Now What by Ben V. Greene. The cover is off white and has a simple line drawing that forms the profile of a child. A strip of trans pride colors runs vertically.
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Book rec: Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender by Kit Heyam (white, nonbinary person, he/they) This book is a fascinating stroll through history and across continents, exploring various genders, gender bending, nonconformity, social roles, and people who lived outside the gender boxes.
A white person's hand holds the book Before We Were Trans by Kit Heyam. The cover is an abstract painting with a dark background and human figures in red, orange, and light blue.
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Book rec: He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters by Schuyler Bailar. Everyone, read it! Schuyler (pinkmantaray) is a fierce, whip-smart author and advocate for trans rights. He swam for Harvard’s men’s swim team. As a Korean American, he brings a less-heard perspective.
White person's hand holding the book He/She/They by Schuyler Bailar. The cover is light blue and show Schuyler, a Korean American young man, facing the camera. He has a serious face, white T shirt, and black pants.
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Your Trans Cousin @yourtranscousin.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Book rec: Transgender Inclusion: All the Things You Wanted to Ask Your Transgender Coworker But Shouldn’t by AC Fowlkes, PhD. Great for HR and coworkers of trans folks! Fowlkes is a clinical psychologist and Black trans man. He serves on the board of the Trevor Project, where I used to work.
A white person's hand holding the book "Transgender Inclusion" by AC Fowlkes. The cover is white with a thin horizontal strip showing trans pride colors.
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