Bridget Liang self-describes as a mixed race (Eurasian), disabled, neurodiverse, fat, trans fangirl. They completed their MA in Critical Disability Studies at York University and are involved with community research, fan fic culture, creative writing, workshop and group facilitation, and doing performance art. Liang is a PhD candidate in the Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies Program at York University. With Noah Adams, Liang wrote Trans and Autistic: Stories from Life at the Intersection (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2020).
Fiction (Young adult)
What Makes You Beautiful
Toronto: Lorimer, 2020.
Series: Real Love.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Ma misses the sun, warmth and colors of their faraway homeland, but her daughter sees magic in everything — the clouds in the winter sky, the “firework” display when she throws an armful of snow into the air, making snow angels, tasting snowflakes. And in the end, her joy is contagious. Home is where family is, after all.
Logan Osborne knows he likes boys, but has not come out to his family or at school, and no one knows that he likes to sometimes wear girls’ clothes and makeup. When he starts at a school for the arts he finds a wider range of gender and orientation being accepted. Logan is attracted to Kyle, who has gay dads. But Kyle is straight. Logan finds he doesn’t like the way gay boys treat him, and a disturbing hookup with a boy who is fetishistic about Logan’s half-Asian background makes Logan even more confused about what he wants and who he is.
Encouraged and supported by his friends at school, Logan experiments with nail polish and more feminine clothes in public. Logan begins questioning his gender and decides to use they pronouns while trying to figure things out. Logan meets a classmate’s chosen mother, who is a transgender Chinese woman, and begins to come to terms with their gender identity. Realizing they are not a gay boy, but a transgender girl, Logan asks for people to call them Veronica. As a girl, does Veronica stand a chance with Kyle?