None of the Above, by Travis Alabanza

celebrating nonbinary books

I’ve contemplated reviewing books here before, but this is my first foray into that world. Let’s all agree on a couple of points before we start:

1. I have absolutely no idea how to review a book. There are plenty of people in the world who do this all the time, they’ve got the cred, I don’t, so what you’re getting here is just some straight-up fanboy musings of work I really like.

You know, I really thought I’d have more points to review than that, but apparently not. So let’s boogie on and talk about this book.

None of the Above, Reflections on Life Beyond the Binary, by Travis Alabanza

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Travis Alabanza (they/them) writes and performs live theater in the UK and internationally. Their first published work was a script for their theater show Burgerz (London: Oberon Books, 2018). None of the Above was first published in 2022 (UK: Canongate Books).

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If my local public library has a book written by a queer, trans, or nonbinary author, I’ve read it. I devour these books. I’ll even read them on a tablet if I can’t get hold of a physical copy. Queer memoirs are particularly important to me as an aspect of research supporting my own memoir crafting. It’s not just about learning the technique of memoir crafting, it’s about building up a more versatile sensation of the work that is out there and where I can add diversity, depth, nuance. I don’t want to write “another” trans memoir. I want to write something unique, something no other author has approached in their writing.

I want to write something like what Travis Alabanza has created in None of the Above.

Right off the shelf (literally), I found myself holding a book bound in bubblegum pink, fronted with a checkbox, and I will not obscure the fact that it felt exposing to walk through the building with that under my arm. Wearing nonbinary-ness feels like that. And Alabanza doesn’t shy away from those feelings either.

Let’s review our roadmap together. Alabanza’s book is divided up into chapters built upon quotes shared with them in conversation with others. These are the innocuous little things people say off the cuff, between drinks at a table, in bed in intimate moments, in the shop on the corner. They’re the type of thing we have all brushed off, and yet Alabanza teases them out of context, recontextualizing them, decontextualizing them, reimagining them, parading them, alluding to them, pleading with them.

We begin together at an identifiable location in the early paragraphs of a chapter, but then Alabanza takes the wheel, we skip three freeway exits, and I find myself examining those same words alongside them in awe at how craftily Alabanza can deconstruct a gender binary without having to be constrained by it.

I should say this another way. Travis Alabanza is a wordsmith. Maybe they’re even a gendersmith.

And it’s not like I had any expectations when I casually lifted this book off the library shelf and opened it one afternoon for a light read. It’s a small book. There is nothing overwhelming or pretentious about it. But at the third line of the first chapter I found myself so completely absorbed I considered asking my wife if she would mind me disappearing for the next 18 hours so that I could wrap myself in Alabanza’s words and emotions and revelations like a soft blanket of understanding.

They begin by invoking the same thing so many of us have heard in the doctor’s office, “So when did you know?” It’s a simple question, and I can’t recall ever watching another nonbinary or transgender person admit that truth held inside so many of us, that maybe we don’t know. Maybe none of us really knows who we are or what gender we might be or what our gender even means. But we all respond to the question in a patterned way to get the healthcare we need, to get the treatment we need, to go along with the unwritten script of binarynormativity.

And they don’t stop there. These questions and statements – things that are indicative of any communication between marginalized and nonmarginalized persons – guide each chapter, taking us deeper into unending questions about how any of us would or could or should examine our gender and what it means to us.

I’m not sure my gender has ever felt more seen, more affirmed, than it did in reading this book. It left me with more questions than answers, but the questions don’t hurt when I know I share them with the likes of Alabanza. They feel normalized.

I appreciate that Alabanza is willing to say things that their reader likely will not expect, things that might get push-back or ruffled feathers, and that they go right on with their thoughts anyway. Because how dare we – we nonbinary, trans, queer, genderdiverse creatures – break rank with the prescriptive narrative provided for us? How dare we question ourselves at a time when the rest of the world is furiously questioning us and having “open conversations” about whether or not we should or do exist? That’s dangerous. It’s inflammatory.

It's entrancing.

It’s necessary.

There have been other books in my life that have made their mark for one reason or another, sometimes humor, sometimes emotional sincerity, sometimes beautiful diction. Rarely I come upon one that I refer to as an “oracle” which I may “consult,” which involves closing your eyes, humming softly to clear the mind, and then opening the book to a random page to receive its wisdom. None of the Above is one of those books, and let me prove it to you.

I’m humming, my eyes are closed, and I’m opening my mind to whatever the universe wants to spill out for me:

“On reflection, it feels like a sacrifice that trans people know very well – one I have spoken about in these pages – choosing between our safety and our joy. The sacrifice we make when filling out forms, choosing which option may fit us best rather than the thing we actually are. Or the sacrifice we make going to bathrooms, trying to guess how the other customers will se us so we can make the safe choice. Even the sacrifice we make when not correcting someone on our pronouns, choosing instead not to disrupt the conversation.”

Having read a fairly tall stack of books by and about trans people, and having found as many books by and about nonbinary people as I can (a much more limited list), I can say with confidence that no one else has ever helped me give a better side-eye to my own interactions with the gender binary than Travis Alabanza did in 203 pages of some of the most touching prose ever published inside this shade of pink. It was well worth the risk to scan it in front of the entire library audience, and I am confident enough now in its gifts to me that I would wear it as a garment on a rush-hour city bus.

I do not often purchase books (because I am a cheap-ass), but I will happily pay full price for this book for myself and for anyone else in my life who I think would benefit from it (which is a lot of people). If you have access to it at a library, or if you’re willing to trust me (which you absolutely should), loan it or buy it for yourself. I’d love to hear your take on it when you finish.

Perhaps the entire concept of borrowing or buying queer/trans/enby books is new to you, so allow me to shamelessly promote this aspect of my community…

LGBTQIA2S+ authors are woefully underrepresented in books, film, music, and all types of media. It takes hard work, strength of will, perseverance, and a helluva lot of nerve to be visible as a queer creator. Please consider this when you see queer media in the world. Your support of this community makes real differences in real lives, and it helps all of us feel more seen and more welcome.

So please pay for queer art! Buy queer books, see queer plays, throw money dangerously at queer creators.

Your trans friend,

Robin

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