books for trans awareness week 2025 🩷🩵🤍

Fat Butch Romance Recs:

Nightingale by Frances M. Thompson [historical fiction, romance]: In 1990s London, a nurse develops feelings for a patient's friend/caregiver during the AIDS crisis. Butch-femme romance. Fat, Jewish butch lesbian protagonist.

My Best Friend's Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner [erotica, romance]: A spicy f/nb romance, where a young woman dumps her boyfriend days before their wedding, but chooses to go on her non-refundable honeymoon anyway–with her lifelong best friend instead. Butch-femme romance. Fat, non-binary butch lesbian protagonist.

A Little Kissing Between Friends by Chencia C. Higgins [romance]: Two best friends–a popular music producer and a strip club dancer–try in vain to deal with their complicated feelings for each other, without somehow ruining their existing bond. Black sapphic romance. Fat stud lesbian protagonist.

As The Sun Comes Up by Olive J. Kelley [slice of life, romance]: An agoraphobic young woman's life is thrown into turmoil when her crush–a gorgeous bed-and-breakfast owner–shows up to crash on her couch for a few days. Cozy, butch-femme lesbian romance with disability rep. Fat, Jewish butch lesbian love interest.

Higher by Roz Alexander [holiday romance]: An uptight, high-strung woman ends up in an awkward situation, when she realises she accidentally had a one-night stand with the artist commissioned by her temple for the Rosh Hashanah celebrations. Butch4butch holiday romance. Fat, Jewish butch lesbian lead with chronic migraines.

Mixing Up Mayhem by Heather Nix [paranormal, monster romance]: A pastry chef dealing with the aftermath of a terrible breakup has her life turned upside down, when a bizarre mishap unwittingly summons a hellish demon princess to her kitchen. Silly, steamy monster romance. Fat butch lesbian protagonist. (Sort of misleading cover; protagonist is explicitly described as fat)

Wrong Number, Right Woman by Jae [romance]: A random, out-of-the-blue text message about dating advice sets off an unexpected relationship between two women. Low angst romance. Fat butch lesbian protagonist.

Season of Love by Helena Greer [holiday romance]: A Jewish Christmas romance, about an artist who must put aside her rivalry with the worker at her family's tree farm, so that they can save the business together. Hallmark-y butch-femme holiday romance, mixed with heavier themes of trauma and healing (look up tws). Fat butch lesbian protagonist.

a quick warning before you participate. reading queer books may result in:

feeling a lil too emotionally attached to fictional LGBTQ+ characters

learning something that changes how you see the world

making people who want to ban queer books very annoyed

immediately recommending "just one more" book to your friends

this month, we're reading LGBTQ+ books by LGBTQ+ authors, and we hope y'all will read along with us. we'll be introducing you to six incredible authors over the next few weeks, getting their reading reccs, talking about the stories behind their books, & celebrating why queer stories matter.

here's this year's list:

📖 Girls Like Girls — Hayley Kiyoko

📖 I Don't Wish You Well — Jumata Emill

📖 Shapes of Love — L.V. Peñalba

📖 The Names We Buried — Mia Siegert

📖 The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay — Ryan Douglass

📖 You Pierce My Soul — Jessica Mary Best

if you want to reallly make an impact, drop us a donation after every book (or do we hear every chapter??) you complete. every dollar helps us get more LGBTQ+ stories and resources in front of queer young people.

read something gay. donate along the way if you can. tell us what you're reading.

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more about the books and challenge here