The book, and even Luna herself, calls trans women “TGs” and “transgenders” and calls cis women, “GGs - genetic girls.” It talks a lot about following the Harry Benjamin standards of care, and there’s a huge emphasis on passing, getting surgery and going stealth. Luna and Regan are both very insistent that she’s a girl, the book talks about how gender and sexuality aren’t the same thing, it talks about how gender isn’t necessarily a binary, it even mentions Two Spirit people and other indigenous genders that don’t exist within the confines of the Western Gender Binary. Still, the book is largely positive in the way it treats Luna. Because of this, we see Luna through her sister’s eyes, and so we read a lot of Regan being confused about what it means to have a transgender sister. There’s Regan’s story about trying to get the guy and find her place in high school, there’s the story of Regan and Luna trying to find out how Luna can be herself, and there are flashbacks that help Regan remember that Luna’s always been this girl, not the older brother that everyone thinks she is. The book is kind of three stories woven together. What makes the book stand out, though, is that she also has a sister named Luna who’s a trans girl stuck pretending to be a cis boy. She’s not too great at school, she has few friends, and she has a crush on a guy who’s way out of her league - but has a crush on her anyway. Instead, it’s about a high school girl named Regan, just your Average Girl. Luna, by Julie Anne Peters (who’s book Keeping You a Secret was the second ever lesbian book I read, after Annie on My Mind), was not just the first book I read that starred a trans character, it’s the first piece of fiction I can remember seeing that treated its trans character as something other than a one-dimensional victim, a freak, a predator or a joke.

My entire body remembers what it felt like to be afraid and nervous and excited - mostly excited - to finally read a book that was about someone like me. It’s the same feeling that you get when you’re going up on a roller coaster right before the first big drop.

When I first picked up Luna almost a decade after I first read it, I could feel the buzz that I used to get from reading it spreading all throughout my body. Welcome to Were We Ever So Young, a series where we revisit gay/queer books we read as young people that were Very Significant for us and rereading them as adults, noting the differences in our reactions. The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.

Julie anne peters books