I wrote this first on Bluesky where there is a 300 character limit. It came to 11 posts. I'm gonna miss this place.
I'm thinking a lot about Nevada by Imogen Binnie this week.
I brought it up to my best friend while we were discussing a mutual acquaintance and I (a bit meanly) said the main character of the book reminded me of this person a bit. He decided he needs to read it. Whoops, haha? I'm interested to hear what his thoughts are on the book from a cis male perspective. I would have to guess it's not gonna be exactly the most relatable experience.
As a trans woman though who read it right when I was diving into transition I have never felt myself so vividly represented in a work of fiction before. Feelings I never had the words to express, and secrets I never had the will to put to words were just set out on the page before me and fuck was it exciting. Liberating. A little bit scary so be seen so seen.
I don't read much, ADHD has made that pasttime more difficult than it should be. I still buy books cause I'm a fool and like the concept of reading even if I won't do it anymore. I bought Nevada on the heavy recommendation of a trans friend who I look up to considerably, she would not stop singing its praises. It's not a long book by any means, 288 pages, but I powered through it like I haven't with a book for half a decade. I read through the entire thing in a night and a day in between other things.
I finished Nevada the day that I got my prescription for HRT. That felt big, like I'm officially trans now not just cause I've got the pills but because I READ A TRANS THING! Like somehow both of those things were important to making it real. Of course it was real before that, I'm not going to get into what if anything makes you TRULY trans or what milestones yadda yadda fuck that, but on that afternoon it did feel that way. It was an exciting synchronicity of events that I hadn't planned for but just kinda worked for me. Like hey, I'm moving from one main character of this book to another! I was James H. and next I'll be Maria Griffiths! Who is a disaster and whose life sucks, oh no! But I guess with having read Nevada I felt like you know, the worst stuff could now be in the past and even if the future's not exactly bright, its bad stuff is gonna be different, and if I can be less of a disaster human as Maria it might not happen at all.
I compared my friend and I's mutual acquaintance to Maria a bit meanly, but I was burying the lede by not comparing myself as well. A lot of the points of comparison come from the experience and trauma of being trans and what that does to a person. None of us have the same experience, but we share experiences, plural. Nevada is based on a lot of those experiences of the author and it really nailed the ones that overlapped with mine. Some I couldn't relate to but I definitely understood, when you've shared pain you can go "I don't understand that one, but I do GET it".
So I'm interested to hear what my friend thinks of it. He's a cis, bi, white man who is and has for a while been doing really well for himself. I wouldn't have recommended Nevada to him.
But if you're trans, especially trans femme and bonus points for being gay, check it out.