Author Event! Nico Lang's "American Teenager"

Join us on March 22nd as we collaborate with Haus of Codec to bring you Nico Lang in conversation with Alex Wolff. Lang and Wolff will be discussing the former's important work centering trans youth, American Teenager: How Trans Kids are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era.

Although no one will be turned away for lack of funds, we highly encourage attendees to donate $10+ to help ensure Haus of Codec can continue to pursue its goal of ending transition-aged youth homelessness in Providence.

For the event, Haus of Codec will be tabling to raise awareness about the challenges the youth in their care face and to sell their merchandise. This is a great oppurtinty for the community to come out and show strong support for the trans community during a time when trans rights are under attack.

About the book:

From an award-winning journalist comes a vivid and moving portrait of trans and nonbinary teenagers across the country, following their daily triumphs, struggles, and all that encompasses growing up trans in America today.

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: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era 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.

“An evocative and authentic story of the love and resilience of transgender teens and their families. Lang’s storytelling is intimate and illuminating, walking a tightrope between the complex narratives of trauma and joy, without ever leaning too heavily into one and discounting the importance of the other. Simultaneously heart-wrenching and heart-warming, American Teenager is an absolute must-read.” —RODRIGO HENG-LEHTINEN, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality

About the author:

Nico Lang (they/them) is a nonbinary award-winning journalist with over a decade of experience covering the transgender community’s fight for equality. Their work has appeared in major publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, The New York Times, Vox, The Wall Street Journal, Salon, Harper’s Bazaar, Time, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Lang is the creator of Queer News Daily and previously served as the deputy editor for Out magazine, the news editor for Them, the LGBTQ+ correspondent for VICE, and the editor and cofounder of the literary journal In Our Words . Their industry-leading contributions to queer media have resulted in a GLAAD Media Award, 10 awards from the National Association of LGBTQ Journalists (NLGJA), and three awards from the Los Angeles Press Club, including the 2023 Online Journalist of the Year. Lang is also the first-ever recipient of the Visibility Award from the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF), an honor created to recognize their impactful contributions to reporting on the lives of LGBTQ+ people.

About the moderator:

Alex Wolff (She/They) is the Louise Lamphere Visiting Assistant Professor in Anthropology and Gender & Sexuality Studies at Brown University. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University California, Irvine. Building on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, her research explores how queer and trans folk in South Korea create life and politics vis-à-vis contemporary economic transformations, demographic change, and shifting norms around adulthood. She is currently working on a book project entitled “Queer Dependencies: Economies of Kinship, Reproduction, and Politics in South Korea,” and her work has been published in the Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by the Social Science Research Council and The Korea Foundation, among others.

About Haus of Codec:

Building community through the arts and Educational Empowerment. Based in the Creative Capital, Haus of Codec is committed to ensuring an end to transition-aged youth homelessness in Providence through the arts and workforce development.

To create a safer and more accessible means to housing, care, and essential services for displaced transition aged youth.

Haus of Codec is providing a safe housing space for youth ages 18 - 24 to call home and help them find their own, more permanent housing solutions and workforce development opportunities. The shelter space hosts a food and clothing pantry, a self-service kitchen, a shared bathroom, access to essential services through partner providers, and a sense of community where there wasn't one before.

For more info about HoC, visit: https://www.hausofcodec.org/about

Signed copies of the book will be available for purchase during the event!

Host or Publisher Symposium Books Staff