Inaugurated in the spring of 2016, this award recognizes outstanding work from the gender-nonconforming community. Poetry, fiction (including for children), and nonfiction by trans or gender-variant (T/GV) authors is eligible. Nonfiction authored or co-authored by cis authors that is primarily about the T/GV experience or community is also eligible.

The winner receives a prize of $1000. Each year’s finalists were published the preceding year (i.e., the 2019 award below honored books published in 2018).

The finalists and winners are determined by a panel of judges appointed by the Publishing Triangle’s awards committee. In the list below, finalists are presented in alphabetical order by book title. Bold type and a triangle indicate winners.

2022

Detransition, Baby, by Torrey Peters (One World)

A Dream of a Woman, by Casey Plett (Arsenal Pulp Press)

The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes, by Zoë Playdon (Scribner)

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

2021

The Death of Vivek Oji, by Akwaeke Emezi (Riverhead)

My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites, by S. Brook Corfman (Fordham University Press)

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

We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetry, edited by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel (Nightboat Books)

2020

Disintegrate/Dissociate, by Arielle Twist (Arsenal Pulp Press)

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

The Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian), by Hazel Jane Plante (Metonymy Press)

We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan, 1961–1991, edited by Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma (Nightboat Books)

2019

Confessions of the Fox, by Jordy Rosenberg (One World/Random House)

Holy Wild, by Gwen Benaway (Bookthug Press)

Some Animal, by Ely Shipley (Nightboat Books)

The Soul of the Stranger, by Joy Ladin (Brandeis University Press)

2018

Don’t Call Us Dead, by Danez Smith (Graywolf Press)

A Place Called No Homeland, by Kai Cheng Thom (Arsenal Pulp Press)

Prayers for My 17th Chromosome, by Amir Rabiyah (Sibling Rivalry Press)

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

2017

Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory, by Qwo-Li Driskill (University of Arizona Press)

Chelate, by Jay Besemer (Brooklyn Arts Press)

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

A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder, by Ma-Nee Chacaby with Mary Louise Plummer (University of Manitoba Press)

2016

The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson (Graywolf Press)

Debridement, by Corrina Bain (Great Weather for Media)

The Middle Notebookes, by Nathanaël (Nightboat Books)

Trans/Portraits: Voices from Transgender Communities, by Jackson Wright Schultz (Dartmouth College Press)