Aidan Key & Ren Cedar Fuller, TRANS CHILDREN IN TODAY'S SCHOOLS & BIGGER

Aidan Key and Ren Cedar Fuller visit the store to discuss their books Trans Children in Today's Schools and Bigger: Essays. Key is the founder of Gender Diversity and TransFamilies and Fuller is a parent facilitator at TransFamililes, a national organization that provides support and resources for families raising gender diverse children.

About Trans Children in Today's Schools

Supporting transgender children in school means far more than deciding which bathroom they use or on which sports team they play

Schools across the nation are seeing an increasing presence of transgender students and many school leaders, teachers, and community stakeholders feel they have nowhere to turn for resources or guidance for what can be a volatile, confusing, and controversial subject. The parents of transgender children, who are themselves urgently looking for advice and support, often feel thrust into an adversarial position as they become advocates for the safety, wellbeing, acceptance, and happiness of their child.

The purpose of this book is to move beyond the unproductive and polarizing debates that occur over which bathroom/locker room they should use, on which sports team they should participate, and whether or not they are a threat to the safety of other students. We can't move beyond these debates until we respectfully consider and address the factors that contribute to this contention in the first place. Aidan Key masterfully cuts through the misinformation and distractions to get at the only issues that truly matter - ensuring our children, ALL of our children - can count on a safe and welcoming learning environment.

Trans Children in Today's Schools provides an understanding of the internal and external variables that a trans child navigates as they explore their gender identity and the challenges experienced by these children and their families. Key explores the barriers encountered by schools as they attempt to create gender-inclusive environments, including the resistance of a misinformed society whose only framework of gender is one rigidly set in an only-male/only-female context. Readers will come away with manageable, step-by-step pathways to support and include trans youth in our schools and communities. The book places these ideas - and the youth who embody them - in context within a society whose understanding and expectations of gender norms are at the brink of a paradigm shift.

About Bigger

Winner of the 2024 Autumn House Nonfiction Prize, this large-hearted personal essay collection by Ren Cedar Fuller invites us to imagine a more generous way of being in the world, drawing on Fuller’s experiences as a daughter, sister, mother, teacher, and patient.

A father’s hurtful rigidity becomes slightly more comprehensible when viewed through a lens of neurodivergence, and a mother’s well-timed lie allows her children to see an escape from fundamentalist strictures. Parents build support systems for their transgender child, and a disability that makes it impossible for the author to cry tears opens up new paths for expressing emotions.

With disarming charm and good humor, Fuller charts a clear-eyed path for not only accepting but celebrating differences of all kinds. Bigger explores how we want the world to be as large and open as possible for the people we love—and how this kind of love expands our own world too.

Aidan Key, founder of Gender Diversity, is a national consultant for school districts, sports organizations, and youth agencies about supporting gender diverse children. He also founded TransFamilies.org, which provides online support nationally to families of gender diverse children. Aidan’s book Trans Children in Today's Schools was featured on NPR's Fresh Air. He also contributed to Trans Bodies, Trans Selves and Gender Cognition in Transgender Children. Aidan has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show. He was named one of Seattle Magazine's Most Influential People of the Year as well as the Greater Seattle Business Association’s Humanitarian of the Year.

Ren Cedar Fuller's debut book Bigger: Essays won the Autumn House Press Nonfiction Prize and was a finalist for the Iron Horse Prize and the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards Program. Her essays have appeared in Hippocampus, New England Review, and North American Review, and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays. Ren is a parent facilitator at TransFamilies, an online hub for families with gender diverse children. After teaching public school, she founded a nonprofit preschool, where she continues teaching parent education. Ren lives in Seattle and loves to kayak slowly on the Salish Sea.

Host or Publisher Elliott Bay Book Company