[nod] I am glad you feel that way, and that you are interested in reading beyond what's put in front of you.

I just happen to be pretty jaded from helpful would-be allies doing the whole "look, this has a trans guy/non-Western gender concepts in! You should like it!" thing and am at the point where I'd rather read freely (where I usually default to the past...all right, dead Asian guys and dead white women aren't that far off the beaten track, but by the time anthropologists have got at most records of areas I'm interested in, it's more about the colonisers' perspective) and come to a shiny piece by happy chance than slog through a hall of funhouse mirrors until I wonder if I really am that ugly, using up all my energy and cope.

Do you make art? You sound like you'd be good at wordsmithing.