The Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature is a prestigious literary honor dedicated to celebrating and promoting the creative works of transgender and gender-variant authors. Inaugurated in the spring of 2016, as The Publishing Triangle Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature, this award recognizes outstanding work from the gender-nonconforming community.

Renamed in memory of Leslie Feinberg, a pioneering activist and author known for Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue, and the groundbreaking novel Stone Butch Blues, this award recognizes outstanding contributions to the world of literature that explore themes of gender identity, diversity, and the lived experiences of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals.

Established to foster inclusivity and representation in literature, the award seeks to highlight the importance of transgender voices and perspectives in storytelling. It acknowledges a wide range of literary genres, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and more, showcasing the richness and diversity of transgender and gender-variant literary talent.

This award stands as a beacon of support for authors who strive to break new ground, challenge societal norms, and inspire change through their written words, honoring Leslie Feinberg’s legacy of advocacy and creativity. The winner receives a prize of $1000, which is underwritten by Lisa Brown and Daniel Handler.

Each year’s finalists were published the preceding year, and the finalists and winners are determined by a panel of judges appointed by the Publishing Triangle’s awards committee.

Submissions for The Leslie Feinberg Award for Trans and Gender-Variant Literature and all other Publishing Triangle Awards will open toward the end of September 2023. Finalists will be announced March 2024 and the awards ceremony will be held in April 2024.

Previous winners include:

Togetherness, by Wo Chan (Nightboat Books) (2023)

A Symmetry, by Ari Banias (W. W. Norton) (2022)

Trans Care, by Hil Malatino (University of Minnesota Press) (2021)

I Hope We Choose Love, by Kai Cheng Thom (Arsenal Pulp Press) (2020)

Some Animal, by Ely Shipley (Nightboat Books) (2019)

Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility, edited by Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley and Johanna Burton (The MIT Press) (2018)

Even This Page Is White, by Vivek Shraya (Arsenal Pulp Press) (2017)

The Middle Notebookes, by Nathanaël (Nightboat Books) (2016)