None of the Above: Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary

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Travis Alabanza is a wise, hilarious, and sharp thinker—a writer who not only defies categorization, but who makes categorization itself seem fussy and obsolete.” —Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby: A Novel I once replied to a casting director: “When I played a witch in a school play; I was 13.” He nodded, as if that was an answer that made sense to him, so he could move on. He looked at the figure in front of him, saw the shadow poking through my jaw, and could draw the lines of where a witch once was, or could be.

In the 70s and 8s you could be a man and wear your hair long, and wear make up and no one wondered if they had changed gender. Hair bands, Goths… Truth is that rather than identify as she/her, he/she or they/them, most trans people identify as nothing but me/I. Travis' book will challenge the reader to reflect on the ways we treat each other, pushing for a brighter future where gender structures aren't being weaponised in the ways they currently are’ None of the Above by Travis Alabanza is a thoughtful, stunningly crafted meditation on identity, survival, resilience and defiance that inhabits the personal but also transcends it to speak to universal ethical, moral and human concerns,” she continued. “When Our Worlds Collided is compelling young adult novel that is urgent, necessary and intensely compassionate.”Travis Alabanza is no longer interested in convincing anyone that being trans is valid. “I make art; it’s not my job to say the right thing all the time or to be a spokesperson,” they tell me in the smoking area of a queer bar in east London, one glaringly hot afternoon in July. Speaking to Alabanza, they are warm, erudite and razor-sharp – qualities which can be found in abundance in their debut book, None of the Above: My Life Beyond the Binary . The writing in this memoir is truly remarkable and life-changing. Travis gives us room to question the society we live in where gender has been so structured up to the point that it is difficult to navigate a safe and comfortable world if you don't identify as 'male' or 'female'.

Judge Maisie Chan, who won in the children’s and young adult category last year, said Jawando’s book “is one that speaks to many young people today that have been vilified or who go unheard”. Alabanza’s book has a reflective quality that touches the heart and engages the mind,” said judge Anthony Vahni Capildeo. “It feels like being invited into someone’s interiority.” Arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes coupled with rage when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted A breath of fresh air . . . Anyone expecting a hand-holding guidebook will be disappointed by the candour, complexity and subjectivity of None of the Above. There's no memoir like it published in the UK . . . Alabanza's memoir offers welcome nuance to those willing to listen’ When someone refers to me as a “he” in passing I have to remind myself they could possibly be talking about me’My gender looks and feels so different when I’m not trying to persuade anyone else, when I’m not trying to make myself legible for others or worried about being misgendered” – Travis Alabanza TA: Maybe some people’s dysphoria was so strong that, from the moment they were born, it did feel like that. If that narrative is true for them, that’s great, but this reliance on it makes me nervous because it suggests that we are only asking for acceptance on the basis that we couldn’t possibly change. And that feels apologetic. I do feel like I chose this because in a parallel world there’s a version of me where I hid. Framing it as something that’s been out of my control since birth is so boring, and negates the power of making that choice in the first place. Some are deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or offensive, some celebratory; sentences that have impacted them for better and for worse; sentences that speak to the broader issues raised by a world that insists that gender must be a binary.

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Advance Praise

I needed to write this book because I want to tell my own narrative rather than let everyone fill in the blanks,” Alabanza said. “And I think when an award like this happens for trans people, it just continues to show that there are more people wanting to celebrate us than not.” Both writers express the same longing to inhabit the world in a more fluid, protean and self-created way. Water, swimming, tides, sea-life and blurring physically at the edges are recurring themes in Voice of the Fish, and Alabanza employs a similar aquatic metaphor: “A body of water, potential to do so much, yet eventually bottled.” The Library's buildings remain fully open but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We're Hangwolf, you have to introduce me with the name of the song I’m singing; you can’t just say my name!” I said offstage (which at this point in my life meant the living room). Travis Alabanza is an award-winning writer, performer and all-round LGBTQ+ icon. Their stage shows Burgerz and Overflow explored the joy and traumas of being a trans person in public spaces. Travis is now releasing their much anticipated memoir None of the Above.