by Nico Lang
Beacon Press
9/16/2025, paperback
SKU: 9781419773839
From an award-winning journalist comes a vivid and moving portrait of eight trans and nonbinary teenagers across the country, following their daily triumphs, struggles, and all that encompasses growing up trans in America today
Media coverage tends to sensationalize the fight over how trans kids should be allowed to live, but what is incredibly rare are the voices of the people at the heart of this debate: transgender and gender nonconforming kids themselves.
For their groundbreaking new book, journalist Nico Lang spent a year traveling the country to document the lives of transgender, nonbinary, and genderfluid teens and their families. Drawing on hundreds of hours of on-the-ground interviews with them and the people in their communities, American Teenager paints a vivid portrait of what it's actually like to grow up trans today.
From the tip of Florida's conservative panhandle to vibrant queer communities in California, and from Texas churches to mosques in Illinois, American Teenager gives readers a window into the lives of Wyatt, Rhydian, Mykah, Clint, Ruby, Augie, Jack, and Kylie, eight teens who, despite what some lawmakers might want us to believe, are truly just kids looking for a brighter future.
Reviews:
"With humor and compassion, Lang shows trans teenagers as they really are: kids trying their best." -- Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer: A Memoir
"An urgently necessary book. By allowing trans teens to tell their stories themselves, Lang has given them--and by extension, all of us--a great gift." -- Hugh Ryan, award-winning author of When Brooklyn Was Queer
"American Teenager provides a beautiful--often uplifting, occasionally heart-wrenching--window into the lives of contemporary trans kids and their families as they navigate their teen years amid ever-increasing anti-trans legislation and prejudice. Tune out the politicians and pundits, and pick up this book if you actually want to learn more about trans kids." -- Julia Serano, author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
About the Author:
Nico Lang (they/them) is a nonbinary award-winning journalist with over a decade of experience covering the transgender community's fight for equality. Their work has appeared in major publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, the New York Times, Vox, the Wall Street Journal, Salon, Harper's Bazaar, Time, The Washington Post, and the L.A. Times. Lang is the creator of Queer News Daily and previously served as the deputy editor for Out magazine, the news editor for Them, the LGBTQ+ correspondent for VICE, and the editor and cofounder of the literary journal In Our Words. Their industry-leading contributions to queer media have resulted in a GLAAD Media Award and 10 awards from the National Association of LGBTQ Journalists (NLGJA). Lang is also the first-ever recipient of the Visibility Award from the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF), an honor created to recognize their impactful contributions to reporting on the lives of LGBTQ+ people.