The Transfeminine Review

Welcome back! I hope you all enjoyed the launch of our two big running series, Books by Transfemmes You Should Read and A Brief History of Transfeminine Literature. Alas it is October and, like clockwork, I have come down with my yearly cold, so we’re gonna go a lot more casual, and I’m just gonna give you a chill overview of major trans publishers, a brief look at their histories, major titles and authors, accomplishments, etc. A lot of the presses on this list will be covered in the later entries of the Brief History series, so you could also consider this a preview for what’s to come :))

I’ll include an index here in case anyone’s doing research and wants quick navigation:

1. Chevalier Publications (1960-1986)
2. Sandy Thomas Advertising (198(?)x – Present)
3. Reluctant Press (1989 – Present)
4. DopplerPress (2007 – Present)
5. Topside Press (2011-2017)
6. Metonymy Press (2014 – Present)
7. Honorable Mention: Arsenal Pulp Press (1971 – Present)
8. Instar Books (2014-Present)
9. Cipher Press (2020 – Present)
10. LittlePuss Press (2021 – Present)

Anyway, we’ll be going chronologically by founding date. Let’s get right to it!

History: In 1952, transgender activist Louise Lawrence and her circle of friends founded a short-lived publication called Transvestia: Journal for the American Society for Equality in Dress, which aimed to combat stigma and discrimination against cross-dressers in the United States. Lawrence had been responsible for developing a vast network of trans people and sexologists around both America and the world during the 1940s and 1950s. Part of her research with sexologist Alfred Kinsey had also involved the recording and transcription of a genre of British erotica known as Petticoat Punishment fiction, which involved young men getting punished for poor manners or bad behavior with corsets and petticoats, usually with a sadomasochistic bent. Out of this body of both fiction and activism, Virginia Prince would adopt and adapt Lawrence’s publishing model into her own publishing company, excluding Lawrence and most transsexuals in the process, leading to the birth of Chevalier Publications (presumably in reference to Chevalier d’Eon).

Virginia Prince would publish a significant body of fiction over her two decades at the helm of the press, including a giant wad of short stories and a number of novellas, many of which can still be found for sale today. The novellas were sanitized and prudish compared to their Petticoating ancestors, but they carried a distinct style and thematic presence that can still be seen in modern Transition Fantasy fiction today. Among them, notable titles include 1960’s Fated for Feminity for its fantasia of open and t4t relationships and 1965’s Double Switch for its depiction of both transfemmes and transmascs. Also notable was the adoption of an anonymous model of publishing that also persists in online circles to our modern day, though whether that arose out of safety concerns or Prince’s exploitation of Lawrence’s organizing work and unnamed trans authors, we may never know.

History: Mags Inc, the parent company of Reluctant Press, predates it, going back more than fifty years, though I have not been able to find a date of inception. Going off of that, the company has existed since the 1970s; however, the Reluctant Press imprint was created in 1989 and is the primary object of our concern, so we’ll be focusing on that.

Reluctant Press is in many ways a transitional point between the anonymized transvestite presses of the 20th Century and the public-facing trans indie presses of the 21st. Unlike Chevalier Publications or Sandy Thomas Advertising, all authors of novellas received bylines for their work. They also received pay by the page, albeit a rate which Diane Woods has described as “a pittance.” While the majority of the Reluctant Press corpus still falls under the broad umbrella of “transvestite/cross-dresser fiction,” they are also extremely notable for being one of the earliest publishers of out femme transsexual writers, including one important figure in black transfemme literary history, Roberta Angela Dee, who published a number of novellas in the late 90s and early 00s about black transsexual life and was an influence on other major figures in black trans literary history, including Monica Roberts (author of TransGriot) and Pamela Hayes (a novelist in the 00s). They are still publishing new fiction and accepting new submissions today (though at a flat rate of $2 a page, don’t expect to make more than $300 a pop).

History: Founded in 2001 and building off of a previous website Erin Halfelven had hosted with NaughtyWords, BigCloset TopShelf was designed as a competitor to other major publishers of online trans fiction at the time, especially Fictionmania. It’s ironic in hindsight considering that Fictionmania is still online today, but both BigCloset and Crystal’s Story Site were created because Fictionmania had announced it was shutting down, leading to a mass exodus of authors in 2001 to other locales. When Fictionmania returned to its throne atop the online TG/TF landscape, this original purpose had been effectively neutered, and for several years, BigCloset TopShelf was little more than an alternative to other trans fiction sites, primarily celebrated for its tolerable UI and web design that didn’t look like it had crawled out of the depths of the early 90s.

What set BigCloset apart from its competitors came in 2007 with the formation of DopplerPress, a new company designed to help BigCloset authors who had finished their serials get their work published. DopplerPress used the wealth of manuscript work on BigCloset to help build their catalog. Without competition, the most important author to publish through DopplerPress was Katie Leone, who sadly passed away a few years ago. Leone’s contribution to the early days of the trans publishing boom are often overlooked, but her focus on the trans child and the various legal and physical hardships that trans kids so often endure were completely groundbreaking at the time, and deserve to be remembered. DopplerPress is also noteworthy for publishing some of the earliest transfemme YA with Zoe Taylor’s Becoming Robin series, as well as publishing some classic TG/TF titles like Melanie Brown’s The Reluctant Girlfriend. What also should be noted is that DopplerPress also developed a pathway for self-published authors who chose not to use the imprint. Authors like Tanya Allan have found successful careers by following the Doppler blueprint. Doppler was also a major influence on the development of transfeminine self-publishing in the late 2010s, and ought to be seen as one of the early prototypes for the vibrancy of transfemme selfpub circles today.

Major Awards: Five Lambda Literary Awards (Two in Transgender Fiction, one in Transgender Poetry, one in Bisexual, and one in Anthology), 2018 Stonewall Book Awards for Literature (Meanwhile, Elsewhere)

History: One of the big articles I’m planning down the line (in the six-month-to-year timeframe) is a retrospective and autopsy of Topside Press, so now is as good a time as any to plug that: if you were personally involved in Topside or have perspectives on the press, I would love to hear them. My inbox is open to anyone at thetransfemininereview@gmail.com, or you can reach out to me on socials.

There’s a lot here, but I’m only gonna give broad strokes in this article. Topside Press was born out of another website, prettyqueer.com, which was run by Tom Léger, Julie Blair, Riley Macleod, and Red Durkin, the same group that would go on to found the press. Much like DopplerPress before it, Topside was born out of a frustration with discrimination against trans writers in the publishing industry and a desire to get the various networks of trans writers who had been orbiting around the website and irl communities published on trans terms. The products of their efforts speak for themselves. Contemporary readers will obviously be most familiar with Nevada by Imogen Binnie, which has transcended trans publishing into “Best Books of the 21st Century” lists and other such faffery. But perhaps the most significant thing about Topside is how it launched not just novels but authors. Basically every major traditionally published author who broke out in the 2010s was involved with Topside in one way or another, either by affiliation or antipathy. In 2016, Topside also organized the Topside Literary Workshops aimed at cultivating a new generation of trans authors, and while the press fell apart shortly after that, several of the writers from those workshops have gone on to have successful transliterary careers in their own right.

We’ll be discussing this history in Part Nine of the A Brief History series, and then even more at length when my Topside article is fully researched and ready, so I won’t beat the dead horse here. Suffice it to say that Topside was beset with systemic issues for the majority of its short time in the limelight, and fell apart as quickly as it came into being. A brilliant fire that burned fast and hot, leaving ashes and saplings in its wake.

Major Awards: 2017 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction (Small Beauty), Two-time Writer’s Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers (Kai Cheng Thom, Jas M. Morgan), Expozine Alternative Press Award (Little Blue Encyclopedia), Quebec Writers’ Federation Concordia University First Book Prize (nîtisânak)

History: Metonymy is the first publisher on this list to benefit from the Topside boom, and in the wake of Topside’s collapse, is likely the best established and most successful trans-forward avant garde press on the market (though LittlePuss is gunning for the tiara). Friends and neighbors Ashley Fortier and Oliver Fugler founded the press together in 2014, and its business model has proved very successful in Canada and across the English-speaking world. There’s not all that much to say about Metonymy in full honesty. They’ve got an extremely well-defined niche, they execute said niche to perfection, and they’ve had a lot of success in doing so. They’ve got a vibe and an aesthetic and they stick to it. I don’t know about you, but I’ll always root for more successful trans-forward businesses that don’t have backstories so messy that they could fill up an entire book (or multiple books, in Topside’s case).

History: Much like Metonymy, Instar is a press that has a successful niche and does a great job at implementing it. Their recent series on internet history seems to be the current focus of the press, but they also published some great fiction in the 10s. Definitely worth checking out.

History: Similarly, Cipher is another small independent press started in Topside’s wake that’s been publishing some really exciting trans fiction. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on them as they grow their catalogue!

And last but certainly not least:

Major Awards: 2023 ALA Stonewall Israel Fishman Nonfiction Award (Faltas)

History: Casey Plett and Cat Fitzpatrick edited Meanwhile, Elsewhere for Topside in 2017, right before the press fell to pieces, and have described themselves as “escapees and survivors from the wreck of the HMS Topside Press.” Topside may be well in the rearview mirror by 2024, but LittlePuss has taken up the torch left largely diffused over the last few years, far more a spiritual successor to Topside than any of the other post-Topside presses mentioned on this list. In terms of energy, industry presence, buzz (most of my queer and trans college friends don’t know much about trans publishing as a whole, but basically everyone has heard of Emily Zhou), and commercial success, LittlePuss is in an extremely promising spot to leave its own unique legacy on the industry, and to expand into the broader publishing mantle that Topside left behind. I for one am extremely excited to see where the team takes their work next!

Concluding Thoughts

Obviously this is not a comprehensive list of every publishing company that has ever published more than one book by a transfemme author. Hence why it’s a list of “major” publishers. Are you the lead editor of an indie trans press that you want people to know about? Feel free to sound off in the comments! We’d love to hear from you too.

At a quick glance, we can sort these publishers into three groups. There’s the Pre-Topside Presses (Chevalier, Sandy Thomas, Reluctant, Doppler) and the Post-Topside Presses (Metonymy, Cipher, Instar, LittlePuss), with Topside the elephant in the room between. There are other presses that are more minor that broadly can fall in the first or third category, and a bunch of other trad presses that have made a real tangible commitment to platforming transfemmes like Arsenal Pulp, but none distinguish themselves enough from the crowd to bear mention. I would caution my reader against falling into this sort of before-and-after thinking, though. Looking at the current shape of the industry, it’s my opinion that we’re sitting at another inflection point, and that in five to ten years, this period will be seen as distinct from 2010s-era trans publishing in a way that “Post-Topside” doesn’t really adequately capture. The Metonymy rush has been fading, traditional publishing with Big Five publishers is a more viable path for transfemme authors than ever before, and LittlePuss ducks such bland narrativization. What the future holds, nobody knows – though keen authors and editors may be figuring it out 😉

In any case, shout-out to indie presses and indie publishing. Y’all are killing it with shoestring budgets and second jobs, and this community wouldn’t be half of what it is right now without you! To all of my readers, go show your favorite trans indies some love.

TL;DR – The future of trans publishing right now is bright, and I’m excited to see what new presses and innovations the coming years and decades bring!

Cheers, Beth

LAST WEDNESDAY: #4 – How I Discover Transfeminine Fiction

NEXT WEDNESDAY: #6 – 15 Black Transfeminine Novelists You Should Read