Five stars for NetGalley, though I do not usually give memoirs a star rating so my reviews elsewhere will not have a star rating.

This is an excellent and necessary story of discovery, as Harry narrates his experience as he goes from identifying as a lesbian to a gay man. As Harry states, there is a stark lack of resources for gay trans men, who exist at an intersection of identities that have their individual struggles and joys.

I really enjoyed this. Not only did it open me up to new experiences, it's also a really easy to read book about the state of trans existence, acceptance and healthcare in the UK (Spoiler alert: it's not good). While it's obviously not as thorough as The Transgender Issue (Shon Faye) for example, it presents information in a much easier to digest way.

I'd recommend this book for people just starting to delve into trans nonfiction.

Exploring queerness, identity and self-acceptance, this is a fast-paced exciting and unique memoir. It is highly recommended not only to transmen and those around them but to everyone to understand the hardships and journey trans people have to face.

In A Trans Man Walks Into a Gay Bar, Harry Nicholas recounts several pivotal moments in his intersectionality as a transgender gay man. Pulling only from his own experience, he also references a lot of queer media, influential figures, and historical events (most notably those in London), and how they relate to his experience growing into himself and adulthood.

This was an extremely compelling look into the nuances of being trans and gay, how those two identities merge and at times clash for Nicholas. He doesn't hold back in his honest portrayal of growing up with dysphoria, yet eventually celebrating his femininity as a gay man; his first time having sex with another man, and his sex life in general; his relationships, addiction to dating apps, and the impacts these things had on his mental health; and so much more. He challenges stereotypes at times and finds validation in them in others, and then unpacks that validation: why he feels he needs it but also acknowledges that it's not healthy. He dispels rumors like trans men being unable to conceive after years on testosterone, and how the healthcare system overall doesn't know how to handle trans people (nor does it really try to).

Being able to relate to his experiences as a gay man but also having my eyes opened to so many things I've never even thought about regarding the trans experience made for a very powerful read. I loved that Nicholas includes many resources and the names of places in his hometown that he's found safety and joy in. If these conversations interest you - and even if they don't, honestly - pick this one up.

(Side note, for some reason the formatting on my e-book copy was kind of weird, it didn't affect my reading experience but I'm assuming it'll be fixed at release. Or a likely possibility that it was just because of the ARC file I received on my Kindle - worth noting I guess).

Thank you Netgalley, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, and Harry Nicholas for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Harry Nicholas’ book provides a valuable insight into what life as a gay and trans man has been like for him. Of course, this will not a one size fits all experience, but that is not the point of this book. It’s all about Harry’s experiences and I found the book to be a very interesting and eye opening read. I definitely think this book will help other gay and trans people feel less alone.

I do think it would have been helpful to put the events in more of a chronological order, as opposed to splitting them into topics. Or maybe even have another chapter that better outlines the journey Harry has been on and having the topic chapters. Simply just to give people context as to what has happened when.

There are also some grammatical errors throughout, but the experiences covered are far more important than this minor critique as I do believe this book will really help people see themselves being represented in books.

Definitely glad I’ve read this book, as it’s opened my eyes further to the issues and types of experiences trans (and gay) people can face within society. Which is especially poignant in light of what is going on in the world currently.

Thank you to NetGalley and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This turned out to be one of the most captivating memoirs I've read, I loved getting to read about another trans spectrum persons experiences and life
Reading "a trans man walks into a gay bar" shows alot of things that you hardly ever see other trans people talking about too which was really nice to see

*Apologies for this devolving into a completely unnecessary personal anecdote for like 500 words in the middle… and y’know, for another review that has turned into a whole entire essay.*

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

This was an enjoyable, informative and important read.
For this to exist for gay trans men to see themselves or another self who is nothing like themselves is so brilliant. Harry Nicholas writes about the different stages of his life under different “labels”, he tells of his experiences of fear and hope in exploring the male gay community as a trans man both romantically and sexually, his life building upon and overlapping with queer history, and he does it all in a compelling, generous way.

This book drew me in more the further I got into it, I found it all interesting but I think my personal bias toward loving non-fiction that mixes memoir and history etc together made the fact that once he brought in more queer history and his navigation of the modern world with links to the past I was drawn in even more. I loved the theme of water that was brought up repeatedly throughout the book. I think a lot of queer, trans and gender non-conforming people can definitely relate to the struggle and euphoria that can come from that kind of space and I loved seeing his journey through it. In fact all of his descriptions of bravely entering new spaces that scared him were wonderful and relatable to read. I also feel as though I learnt a lot about queer (majority gay male skewed) spaces in London that I didn’t know about and will say, a little selfishly, it did make me sad to think that for queer women there is, as far as I know, not really anything like those much more direct feeling links to their history with spaces like that. I mean, queer women don’t even have modern spaces so it’s unsurprising. As someone who identifies mostly toward the queer/gay woman side (i think - fck binaries y’know) it makes me a little jealous but also so happy that spaces like the bathhouses/saunas, the history of Hampstead Heath and the Royal Vauxhall Tavern as queer spaces do exist and can still be lived in by people today, it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. (And for someone who did their dissertation on queer space and placemaking, I definitely feel drawn to any kind of exploration of that!)

A couple of little moments to do with street harassment really stood out to me personally and I related to the almost slight masochistic sort of positive reaction to it (if you can call it that, and those probably aren’t the right words to describe the feeling) - but this moment of being seen, being seen for what you are even by those who hate you, can hold some power. I remember being in my mid teens, having come out to one person (my clouded memory says it was that same day, it probably wasn’t, but it was very fresh) and walking down the highstreet of my town with that one friend I had told, feeling brave and queer and walking in such a way that I had this thought of, “I wonder if anyone can tell”, and feeling pride and confidence in that. I was high off the fact that I’d come out to one person and it had gone as well as it probably could and maybe it could continue going that way. Then a few minutes later we get shouted at, by a grown man, feet taller than us, from across the square, and I’m saturating in a little bit of that confidence still so I don’t back down and ignore when I should have and I escalate the situation. I remember partially feeling similar to how Harry describes earlier moments of harassment, looking around and thinking “why isn’t anyone doing anything?”, here are two young girls (who still get ID’d at 29 years old so how young did they look at 15) and no one is doing anything. But after that fear, after being worried I’d made some huge mistake by crossing the line into getting physical, and his lit cigarette was being waved about far too close to my face, I did feel a kind of warped pride in being seen, being recognised for the first time by anyone at all for that part of who I was. Which is not to put any levity into that situation, it was horrible and terrifying and we were children and he was an adult and we walked for half an hour as far as we could downtown shaking the whole time. I was terrified to bring it up later that night in the dark of the double bed in her spare room thinking how she must have already felt odd around me before (that shame already ingrained - she must have felt weird sharing a bed with me now right?) and now she must feel scared and disgusted and not want to be around me, why would she when I can put her in danger just for walking down the street. And it hadn’t just been me he’d singled out, he’d put her in that situation too, just by being beside me. But I was wrong, we made light of it that night as much as we could and she’s repeatedly shown me nothing but that since, and she’s still my best friend to this day. Did I learn my lesson from that moment and not engage when people harass me or my friends for being queer or trans, no, not always, and I’ve made decisions I wish I could take back because of it, but I don’t know, it's a line we walk I guess…. I don’t know why I spent like over 500 words telling you that, but it’s a moment I kept thinking about as Harry brought up various similar situations and how he felt differently about them to others he may have been with at the time. It made sense to me and I’m sure it makes sense to a lot of others; I’m sure a huge part of everything he wrote does.

“I thought I should be more upset by the shouting than I was. Of course I was bothered by it and I feel sadness when Liam does - I want to make things better and protect him in some way - but I wasn’t so bothered by it myself. If anything, it was also nice to be acknowledged. For a complete stranger to see me as a gay boy and us as a gay couple. It was almost like a confirmation - a rite of passage for a label I’d worked so hard for”.


This is a book made for gay trans men, as Nicholas repeatedly notes, he is filling a gap with something he desperately needed, creating representation for others where he couldn’t find it for himself. “To archive our reality.” He speaks of gaps in history, not just for trans men, but for queer people in general, and I suppose in a way, not just our pasts, but images of our futures. As he creates this piece of history for others to look toward to see themselves he takes note of those who aren’t around to be seen in theirs and how that impacts a generation:

“For a long time we didn’t have a blueprint of what older relationships could be. This was, in part due to the illegality of homosexuality, gay shame, a requirement to hide in the shadows and the AIDS crisis of the late eighties onwards. Huge numbers of young gay men died way before their time. In their prime, really. We have lost hundreds of thousands of gay men, who, if still around now, would comfortably be in their sixties and seventies. They should be here. For a long time, gay and trans people didn’t have a map or a pathway to follow. We couldn’t see what growing older queer might look like - what our possibilities were. What our weddings might look like (gay marriage was only legalised in the UK in 2014), what possibilities there might be for children or what our lives could look like without children. In a sense we’re still in the infancy of living out our lives.”


Nicholas weaves his own life story in with current and past political events and movements. He speaks on the rapidly growing terrifying fascist ideology in the UK and beyond, the “gender critical” movement, those who wish to exclude the T from LGBTQ+, and instances wherein these ‘movements’ have caused real damage, as they continue to do, alongside ways in which they contradict themselves in a darkly laughable way. And yet, Nicholas still manages to paint a picture of a future that has joy in it, that moves toward a future with strength in community and broader horizons for people; in regards to their bodies, their autonomy, their human rights, their relationships, their homes and their families (found, chosen, otherwise.)

“Resistance is in joy as well as struggle” and Harry Nicholas displays that beautifully all throughout his work here.

(I think the only thing that knocked off a star or maybe even just half a star was that I felt some parts were a little repetitive. Just within small sections, I’d see the same thing said a few times in slightly different ways, and I’d think, 'yes I know, you just said that', but I suppose it works to get the point you’re trying to make across! Very small thing, I’m being too picky I feel… maybe I'll change it, I hate rating things...)

I will definitely be recommending this to friends and especially (obviously) recommend for transmasc people and those who are still on their way, figuring out where their place is in the world, in their bodies and sexualities, and in the queer community - as if we ever really stop trying to figure that out.

This book is a touching exploration of the human experience, exploring themes of hope and queerness. Through the eyes Harry Nicholas, it examines the complexities of identity and the journey towards self-acceptance, portraying the beauty and strength of those who dare to be themselves in a world that often tries to force them into conformity. With its poignant insights and emotionally resonant storytelling, this is a book that will stay with you long after you've finished reading it. Exited to see what Nichols writes next.

A funny, moving and enlightening story of navigating gender and sexuality as a trans man with insights into the way they interrelate. This is a personal story and the author takes pains to be clear that this is not the story of all trans men or gay men. It was refreshing and encouraging to read such a story that is largely about the joy of discovering the true self, though the journey can be a winding and difficult one. Though Nicholas brings in recent stories of homophobia and transphobia to illustrate that these problems are still rife, and sadly rising, he finds plenty of humour and happiness to share with his self-effacing tone and his honesty about his own experience of learning to know and love himself and his body and to find joy and belonging in his trans identity and in the LGBTQ+ community. As Harry himself says, there is not much literature that tells the story of trans gay men and this is his excellent attempt to begin to address that gap. It is, above all, a hopeful book and a much needed to addition to the stories of trans and queer people.

I am a transgender man married to a cisgender man, and this is the first book I've read where I can say, "I see myself in the pages." I wish this book had been around when I first came out or when I was dating my husband. Visibility matters.
We meet Harry in the midst of a breakup, which allows him to completely explore his sexuality. In his narrative, he manages to be vulnerable while yet maintaining some privacy.
I hope this book would be less guarded and reveal more intimate details of Harry's sexual experimentation. That said, I was profoundly moved by this memoir.

The title for this book grabbed me the moment I saw it. It was the quickest I added a biography to my "to read" pile in years simply for the emotion it evoked in me. See, I have struggled my entire life to come to grips with what my gender (trans) and sexuality (not straight) truly mean in a world where neither is considered the norm, but it never once occurred to me that there would be a book like this out there, that was written by and focused upon the life of a man much like myself; that someone out there would have lived something similar and been able to offer, if not guidance, proof that other people experience similar struggles and concerns about their place in the world and have reached their own conclusions on the topics of gender and sexuality.

This story is not told fully chronologically. Instead, the chapters each have a central focus or theme, from pregnancy to ponds, and stick to them for quick dips in and out of Harry Nicholas' life while maintaining a general sense of forward progression. These experiences and topics can be as foreign as they are relatable, but the core questions underlying his thoughts remain consistent, and the emotions he speaks often strike a chord. As an example of one of these musings I related to (pulled from just before a hilarious section concerning Grindr), he asks, "How can I be a man when I never had a boyhood?" What a question! And it doesn't really have an answer, does it? To be trans is to exist in a state outside the normal boy-to-man or girl-to-woman experience of gender.

In the afterword, Nicholas mentions that he did not want to focus too much of his book on the difficulties he experienced being trans but that he didn't want to erase his struggles either. Personally, I think he accomplished a good balance. I found the emotional tone of the book solid because the book is broken into short chapters -- some mundane and meandering, some matter-of-fact, and some deeply intimate-- in such a way that showcases joy, love, fear, sex, mental health struggles, dating, relationships, daily living, and all other facets of the world in similar measure.

One potential issue with the book is that I felt thrown into Nicholas' life without any context for who he was as a person before he started reflecting on his life and experiences. As the book went on and I got a clearer picture of him this became less of an issue, but I do think a more strict timeline, or at least a more general introductory chapter to his life, would have made this book stronger on an narrative level.

Overall, this was a book that needed to be written, and I'm very glad that there will soon be a book people can read if they want insight into how at least one gay trans man lives -- it might even the first they pick up, it they're anything like me. There are recommendations for further reading in the back of the book and they are much appreciated both because I'd like more queer works to check out myself and because this is a biography, which by its nature is focused only the struggles the author himself faced. It does not nor does it intend to reflect trans lives as a whole.

I'd like to end off with one quote from the book that truly spoke to me in hopes it will give people the general vibes I got from the book:

"I did not pursue [surgery] in order to fix myself or for others to view me as fixed. I never viewed myself as a broken body in the first place. Rather, I took hormones and had surgery to become closer to the person I have always been and the person I want to become. It was about finding myself away from distraction. To feel present and closer to myself. For the world to view me as I always have. This does not mean my body is broken. For me, transitioning was more about coming home. It was the biggest act of self-care and self-love I have ever been able to offer myself."

This review of "A Trans Man Walks Into a Gay Bar" was provided in exchange for an advance copy through NetGalley. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity.

With this unique book of essays about queerness intersecting with transmasculinity, Harry Nicholas has written a book that belongs on shelves next to Lou Sullivan's "We Both Laughed in Pleasure".

Highly recommended read for queer trans men and the men who love them.

A very interesting and unique memoir. I've read a few books by trans authors before, but this one really got into the fine details about issues trans people face in everyday life. It made me realise my privilege as a cis woman. I struggled to understand some of the bits at the very beginning, but the majority of the book was easy to read and understand. I feel like I learnt a lot from this book. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of the book.

it’s great to see important queer stories starting to come to the forefront of the literary world. especially trans peoples stories.

Harry Nicholas’ book is an insightful look at one man’s journey and experiences being a trans gay man. He makes it very clear that this is a book about his personal experiences and it isn’t meant to represent all gay or trans men. While this is mostly focused on Harry’s own story he does also bring in queer and trans history in certain sections. And he also brings in more modern news stories of experiences of other queer and/or trans people.

I appreciated that while he does write about some of his own more difficult moments, or transphobia and homophobia in the news, this book as a whole is not about trauma. There are plenty of stories about joy and moments of euphoria.

The book isn’t written in a fully chronological way, it’s more focused around each chapter being about a different topic or theme. In the beginning I felt like I was just thrown into the book and wasn’t finding out enough about Harry as a person, just learning about experiences he was having. As it went on I settled more into the book, but I feel like I would have benefitted from the book being chronological so it would be easier to follow his progress and journey.

Overall I think this is an interesting memoir that details experiences that I haven’t seen much representation for in books. Definitely check it out if it sounds interesting to you.

A Trans Man Walks Into A Gay Bar is not the set up for a poor joke, but instead is a heartwarming, insightful and sometimes funny look into the journey @harrynicholas_ takes from north as a female, through to life as a lesbian, straight man, and then finally a gay man.

This is yet another memoir I have found my self reading lately that I have greatly enjoyed. The way that this book follows Harry on his journey was entertaining in that I could see some of the similarities that in the journey I took to acceptance as a gay man. The part on using Grindr for the first time was hilarious and I felt like I was reliving my own memories 😂

Now I’m not trying to compare myself to Harry because his journey is completely different, but is was refreshing to see that as a gay man, the journey can be the same no matter your starting point particularly when it comes to the pressures put on gay man by the wider community, and how much more freeing it is once you free yourself of those expectations.

Harry’s memoir comes out in May 2023, and I would highly recommend giving it a read!

This is very clear it isn't a guidebook but rather one person's story.
It's very honest and true to the author's experience, and exists because he couldn't find anything in a similar vein when coming out.
One thing I found novel about it was the addressing of things said by the LGB alliance from the basis of the author's experience.
It talks about navigating spaces like Grindr as well as living in a body read as female, and finding support and friendship.

3.75 stars
From the title I was hooked. When I started reading it was interesting to find out that before Harry transitioned he was a lesbian. It’s very interesting to read from a person who was once a girl and lesbian become a gay trans man. I found it eye opening how the reason he identified with being a lesbian is because that was what people labeled him. Because of his masculine appearance the only reasonable explanation to people was his sexuality and not his gender.
Harry discusses his many relations with men and although they are fleeting I think young trans folk will hope in his latest relationship where the man doesn’t care about his vagina. I think it will show trans folk that you don’t need to get surgery to be wanted and desired.
At the end of the book, Harry provides many book and poetry recommendations. I find that this will be really helpful to those who want to learn about gay and trans history.

i’m not huge on memoirs but this one was very interesting! harry’s experiences as a gay trans man were very illuminating, and i love that he put so much care & detail into this — i can already think of a couple of friends that i’ll definitely buy this one for. :)

What means the most to me about this book is the fact that it exists. That I’m able to read about another gay trans man’s experiences and see myself reflected in them - moments like ‘YES I’ve had this thought so many times’ and ‘oh, I really want this in my future’. The author wrote this book with exactly this in mind - not being able to find almost any books by and about gay trans men - and I am very glad that he did.

This book is very meaningful to me on a personal level as a trans person, but in general, the way it is written is also very accessible to cis people looking to read more about being trans. The author does a very good job at presenting important trans issues as well as trans & queer culture and history throughout, in a way that feels very personal but still informative.

Sections that stood out to me the most were the author’s relationship to water as a gay trans man, the whole issue surrounding healthcare and how even non-trans-specific healthcare can be a huge problem for trans people, and also the “but who will love you?” section (because which trans person hasn’t been asked that by their parents).

This quote I think captures very well why I found this book so important:

“Lou Sullivan [a gay trans activist] is quoted as saying, ‘I wanna look like what I am but I don’t know what someone like me looks like’. It’s been 32 years since his death date, and I am starting to see what people who are gay and trans look like, and I’m able to imagine endless possibilities of what we could be in the future. But in the meantime, I’m still searching for people like me.”

Transitioning as an act of coming home. What a beautiful memoir about self-exploration and the resilient act of "find[ing] warmth in cold places".

This was my first eARC of the year and I loved it.

Here's to hoping that through books like this one we can move away from a cis-until-outed world to one where love (in all its shapes) is the baseline.

Fuck the noise!