A Trans Man Walks Into a Gay Bar is a memoir about a trans man coming out as gay and exploring the possibilities open to him and the challenges too. Harry Nicholas starts with the breakup that kickstarted his acceptance of being gay and then looks at his teenage years to see the trajectory of how the labels he used changed. The book focuses then on a lot of gay spaces, as the title suggests, and finding and having sex as a gay trans man, before moving onto his most recent experiences and thinking about longevity and relationships.

Nicholas tries to avoid making the memoir solely about trauma, as is one of the trans memoir stereotypes, and there is plenty of moments where even more negative experiences are framed as being important to him and his acceptance of himself. The book comes out of his desire to see books for and about gay trans men when he couldn't find them, but it is also not a guide book and he is careful to highlight that this is his own experiences and only one example of being a gay trans man. Other than Lou Sullivan, there isn't much engagement with other content made by gay trans men, for example online or outside of traditional mainstream publishing, and it might've been good to point towards some of this more at the end, which has a good list of non-fiction and poetry Nicholas found useful. The framing often comes from Nicholas feeling alone as a gay trans man, and by the end it might've been good to return to the fact that this isn't the case.

A memoir can be a great way to highlight how experiences can change and show journeys that are less traditional, and this book does that well, particularly around gay spaces and gay sex as a trans man. As it is a memoir, there's a lot of things that are mentioned but not really explored (bisexuality in relation to these spaces and being trans, for example), so there's probably space in the market for more books that use this kind of honesty combined with more analysis or guidance. The title is a clever one and will hopefully draw a lot of people, including cis people, in to read about Nicholas' experiences, and the book combines memoir with some snippets of gay history to show how finding joy in yourself can also mean finding community.

This made me cry (with joy, heartbreak, jealous, and a whole lot of other things) and I desperately hope that Harry keeps writing.

This book was a fantastic read. It touched on serval more nuanced topics that I see discussed more and more in trans and queer spaces and the author handled then with care. Every aspect of the author's life that was was discussed was described in a way that really had the impression that they were chosen with care. I think this book would be great for an older teen or young adult audience.

That being said, there were a few things I want to find of. For instance, some of the language used for terms such as lesbian and gay was described in a very binary way. In a "traditional sense", lesbian and gay identities have been defined by finding the same gender as attractive, whereas now, lesbians are defined as non men who like non men and vice versa. This move to define it that way was in order to include nonbinary people in the labels.

That being said, the author talks a lot about transness and the boxes that we have put ourselves into. I was happy to read how inclusive the conversation on gender and gender expression was.

The timeline of the book threw me off a bit towards the end. In one of the later chapters, you go from reading about the author's first sexual experience to the next chapter being about the author coming out to his parents. The change in the author's age was a bit hard to keep track of during his life events because of this.

The author also did a wonderful job recounting his life experiences and connecting it to queer history. We as queer people have to actively work to educate ourselves on our history because it is not taught in any type of curriculum (at least not in the US). The ability to tie the author's experience to events and people who worked incredibly hard to get us to where we are now is one of my favorite parts of the book.

The ending was very sweet and left me with a deep feeling of hopefulness which I think is very important for a book like this. Yes, queer people face a lot of adversity but there is also a great deal of community and freedom.

*Note: I am a trans, non binary, queer, white and disabled person. I want to thank Harry Nicholas and Jessica Kingsley Publishers for the opportunity to access an eARC of this book.

The thing that sold me on this book was the cover (gorgeous and eye-catching colours, well chosen font choice and photo) and the title (clever and sets the whole mood for the tone and themes of this book, honestly, it’s genius). The designer deserves recognition!

Onto the contents! Now, I’m hesitant to read a lot of trans biographies and memoirs, especially as this year I decided to steer away from ‘trans trauma’ narratives. Often the trans narrative is focused solely on our trauma - on the abuse and exclusion and pain we all suffer at one point or another (weekly, daily, even hourly).

While this narrative is important to bring awareness to, it can also be dangerous - and is the main (if only) genre of any trans narrative, fiction or non-fiction. Being trans is so much more than, and honestly, not even about, pain. It’s about joy - joy in our gender euphoria, our discovery of ourselves, what makes us happy, how we WANT to live and feel, be seen, and express ourselves as.

I say all this to praise this book, because Harry, while of course discussing the trauma and pain he has encountered, focuses mainly on the joy and rhythm of his journey. His ups and downs, his smiles and sorrows, all while his main goal is to educate and tie each anecdote to a current or pressing issue. Just as with everyone, the sorrows of his life are always companions to fun, wild, dangerous, and fulfilling experiences.
His humor never misses, nor does it feel shoved in as an afterthought to lighten a harrowing moment. Instead, Harry flawlessly navigates the complicated and nuanced flood of emotions so well that no moment is ever the ‘trauma’ moment or the ‘happy’ moment. That just doesn't exist in life. We FEEL so much in each second. Yet he’s able to convey these without complication or overbearance.

If I could wish for changes, (especially as Harry wrote this book because he could not find books on this very topic (being a gay trans man in gay spaces)) I would have loved him to offer tips and advice on things he’s learned in a summary of each section. What should one prepare for and take to a gay bar? How can one take safety precautions on a date? What are the social rules and practices of a gay sauna? What can you do to prepare for transphobia on a date? Mind you, a lot of advice is given during or after anecdotes, but I, being a list person, would have appreciated some bullet-point summaries at the end.

During the section on the issues around ‘passing’ (which was brilliantly done, don’t get me wrong) he failed to mention how it affects androgynous presenting trans folk (such as myself), intersex people and trans folk who happily present as the gender they are assigned at birth but are another gender entirely. Passing isn’t even an option for some of us (some don’t want to) and some (like me) who won’t ever get the option in their lifetime. That’s honestly a large portion of our trans population that got left out of this discussion.

Lastly, this is another (as far as I’ve been able to tell) book from a white perspective. Harry does mention the need to listen to and be aware of BIPOC trans folk, but I felt that a lot of Harry’s experiences were grounded in the safety of whiteness. It limits how well this book could help BIPOC trans men looking for the book Harry set out to make. It is helpful to white folks, sure, but leaves out much needed help to our trans BIPOC siblings. I’d love for this same book to be written from a Black, Indigenous or Takatāpui lens.

Overall, I do rate this a 4.5 for white readers - as it will help them. For non-white readers, I’m not qualified to rate, but I will suggest it leaves out critical information and help for them (but I implore we listen to BIPOC reviewers always in this area rather than myself).

Harry Nicholas’s first book, an autobiographical work, contains an impressive amount of interesting and considered thought in its 224 pages. At its core, the book is an eloquent narrative of his journey from one relationship to another, with transformative self-discovery in between.

But, of course, it is so much more than that, as any such tale always is. Not least because it is very clear that Harry has thought a great deal about his place in patriarchy — from when he was growing up in what he thought was girlhood, via how he’s been perceived through transition to now, existing and socialising in queer male spaces that are almost always cis-sexist and can often also be misogynistic, with transphobic microaggressions. His thoughts are well-framed and prompt consideration, for example:
<blockquote>Words and labels are incredibly important — I love being gay and trans and wearing those labels with pride — but they should breathe life into us rather than suck it out. We should let the light in rather than close a door on it, expanding our horizon of gayness and transness to mean whatever the hell we want them to mean. They’re ours to own.</blockquote>
Harry is a funny, witty writer; I laughed out loud at his comparison of conversations on Grindr with the amazing, heartbreaking <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-vIBq2lTn0">“I belong to a culture” monologue</a> from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Kramer">Larry Kramer</a>’s <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Normal_Heart">A Normal Heart</a></em>. He also covers aspects of queer history that were unfamiliar to me, including Princess Seraphina, possibly Britain’s first trans or drag appearance, at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_Gardens">Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens</a> in 1732; the <a href="https://artuk.org/discover/stories/henry-scott-tuke-capturing-light-and-the-homoerotic-gaze">naked young men painted by Henry Scott Tuke</a> (1858–1929); artists such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Minton_(artist)">John Minton</a> (1917–57) and the other mid-20th century queer artists of Bedford Gardens; and an early gay trans man <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Sullivan">Lou Sullivan</a> (1951–91), who I only knew from his frustrations around accessing gender-affirming care because he was gay. Harry supplements the book with a bibliography of recommended reading, as well as repeated shout-outs to <a href="https://www.stonewall.org.uk/people/juno-roche">Juno Roche</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Alabanza">Travis Alabanza</a>.

Obviously, I am not the primary target audience of this work — as Harry writes himself, he realised that this book didn’t exist when he needed it himself, to help him understand what it means to be a gay trans man:
<blockquote>What space I can take up; how I navigate sex and dating; … how I can interpret my own masculinity, femininity and campness; how I can navigate (often) hypersexualized gay spaces</blockquote>
But it is definitely the case there is plenty in this book that cis queer men (like me) can also benefit from. Aside from the obvious — like observations about patriarchy and cis-sexism from someone who has been perceived as female in the past and as male now — Harry is, of course, a gay man, with lived experiences that are often no different from that of cis gay men. For example, in a chapter about dating, he describes a very familiar concept of self-worth through being desired:
<blockquote>If nobody wanted to have sex with me, I felt like I was unattractive and therefore valueless as a person.</blockquote>
I think most queer men will be able to recognise that sense of seeking value and validation through the gaze and desire of other men. And, to be honest, anyone can learn from how <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lockdown_in_the_United_Kingdom">first Covid lockdown</a> helped interrupt his self-destructive way of handling those feelings:
<blockquote>I wanted to fuck and dance and hurt. But a state-enforced lockdown put an end to my man-to-man-to-man-to-man behaviour.</blockquote>
There are eloquent, important sections about the disappearance of queer spaces and about the lack of queer male elders and generational trauma that he describes in the context of his self-examination during lockdown, which segues nicely into the start of a new romantic relationship, with very familiar descriptions of “I was used to fucking first, friends later” that I know plenty of queer men will understand only too well.

Likewise, as well as thoroughly deserving the <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryNicholas_/status/1601226301305602049">“chapter title of the year award” from his publisher</a>, his “My Knight in a Shining Jockstrap” (IKR!) is also a thoughtful, sensitive description of the anxious exploration of new spaces — I remember the same feelings on my own first visit to Clone Zone on Old Compton Street — and also of both dysphoric trauma and how to breathe through a panic attack, that latter also very familiar to me.

Similarly, while some of his first experiences visiting saunas are obviously specific to being trans, others have more universal resonance. There is, however, discussion of the parlous state of trans healthcare in the UK; we cis allies should definitely be more aware of quite how dysfunctional, gatekept and cis-sexist our current processes are. (I hold out some hope, with the passage of the <a href="https://www.parliament.scot/bills-and-laws/bills/gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill">Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill</a> and the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-64228256">Welsh Government’s support</a> both showing support for rational, evidence-based respect for trans people’s human rights, that at least the devolved health services might be able to make some improvements there.)

There’s also, to be honest, important moments of sitting with my own discomfort as I realise I had made gut-reaction cis-sexist assumptions while reading. Being a cis-queer ally to our trans family is <em>obviously</em> important, especially in this time of fascist rising and hostility, with trans lives being cynically used as a wedge that threatens the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. But allyship is a journey not a destination; we always have more to learn and there is plenty we can learn from Harry here. (One of the bemusing benefits of living through the horrors of renewed fascism is that at least this 47-year-old has become accustomed to learning how to be a better human from people over 2 decades my junior.)

But there’s also beautiful moments that brought tears to my eyes, both early on and later: Harry’s first gay male sex is a lovely, “relaxed and joyful” moment, as is his description of coming out as trans to his parents. And his boyfriend — now fiancé — Liam sounds like an absolute sweetheart. The way they marked the absent Pride and Glastonbury milestones from 2020 is incredibly romantic, even before the more vulnerable and sensitive conversations Harry describes towards the end of the book. They seem like such a healthy, delightful couple — both from Harry’s writing here and from what I’ve already seen <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryNicholas_">following Harry on Twitter</a> — that it fills my jaded old heart with joy.

This is an interesting and engaging read as well as covering important topics and, most importantly, providing some much-needed representation for other gay trans men — as he quotes from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Jarman">Derek Jarman</a>: “When I was young the absence of the past was a terror. That’s why I wrote autobiography”. And it’s a quick read too. Because Harry’s prose is so engaging, I finished reading less than 24 hours; I absolutely devoured this book.

I received an advance copy for free from NetGalley, on the expectation that I would provide an honest review.