Nico Lang

During our current election cycle, it’s been impossible to avoid ads from right-wing candidates or their surrogates demonizing the trans community, and particularly trans youth. Heard far less often are the voices of trans individuals. Journalist Nico Lang, founder of Queer News Daily and a former deputy editor of Out magazine, documents the lives of trans youth, their families and communities in the new book American Teenager: How Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. Lang will discuss the book with author Hugh Ryan in this Crowdcast webinar hosted by A Room of One’s Own; register at crowdcast.io.

media release: A Room of One's Own is thrilled to virtually host NICO LANG, in celebration of his new release American Teenager: How Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era. Stream the event anywhere online, or watch the recorded event at your leisure!

About the book

Media coverage tends to sensationalize the fight over how trans kids should be allowed to live, but what is incredibly rare are the voices of the people at the heart of this debate: transgender and gender nonconforming kids themselves.

For their groundbreaking new book, journalist Nico Lang spent a year traveling the country to document the lives of transgender, nonbinary, and genderfluid teens and their families. Drawing on hundreds of hours of on-the-ground interviews with them and the people in their communities, American Teenager paints a vivid portrait of what it’s actually like to grow up trans today.

From the tip of Florida’s conservative panhandle to vibrant queer communities in California, and from Texas churches to mosques in Illinois, American Teenager gives readers a window into the lives of Wyatt, Rhydian, Mykah, Clint, Ruby, Augie, Jack, and Kylie, eight teens who, despite what some lawmakers might want us to believe, are truly just kids looking for a brighter future.

Nico Lang is a journalist, editor, culture critic, and essayist. Lang is the founder of Queer News Daily and has previously worked as the deputy editor of Out magazine, an LGBTQ+ correspondent for Vice, the news editor at Them, and a contributing editor at Xtra magazine. Their work has been published in Rolling Stone, Esquire, The Daily Beast, HuffPost, and BuzzFeed News, among others. Lang was named the 2023 Online Journalist of the Year by the Los Angeles Press Club Association and is the recipient of 10 awards from the National Association of LGBTQ+ Journalist, a GLAAD Award, and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund’s inaugural Visibility Award.

Hugh Ryan is the award-winning author of The Women's House of Detention and When Brooklyn Was Queer.