TJ Alexander

they/them. Writing queer romance. Please consider my books and/or my tip jar.

[tjalexandernyc]

Out Feb. 9, 2027

Illustration by Liam Eisenberg. Art direction by James Iacobelli.

Synopsis:

From the nationally bestselling author of Chef's Kiss and A Lady for All Seasons, a COVID-conscious trans romance in which a cryptid hunter searching for a mythical lake monster finds love with a grumpy skeptic. Twenty-something Nathan Camber is fresh out of both grad school and ideas on what to do next. Dealing with a dire job market is hard enough as a gay neurodivergent man—so he doesn’t. Instead, he decides to pursue his lifelong hyperfixation: cryptids. Leaving the city behind for the rugged, pine-scented landscape of upstate New York, Nathan sets his sights on the Salamander Man, a Nessie-like local legend with none of the Loch Ness clout. (Start small, his therapist always tells him!) But Nathan’s new fifty-something landlord, Mack, is a grumpy, grizzled, handsome skeptic who wants to protect his peaceful isolation and hard-earned safety deep in the woods. Nathan refuses to settle for a lackluster, normie life, though, and convinces the stoic recluse to help him find the creature. As the hunt (and their growing attraction) heats up, Nathan and Mack realize there’s more than one mystery to uncover in the lake. But if the secrets they’re keeping from each other come to light, they might both get dragged under. Kinky hijinks and monstrous mayhem abound in this queer, trans love story for our bizarre modern age.

Preorder at your local shop or retailer of choice.

This Bookshop link gives me a tiny bit of $.

You can also order a signed, personalized copy from my local nonprofit bookstore Word Up Community Bookshop.

Content notes here. (Contains spoilers.)

[academic-vampire]

A crucial part of the bookstore experience is saying hi to all the books you’ve already read

[so-i-did-this-thing]

hi there, this is gonna be kinda rambly but i hope it makes sense. idk if you've been in this position before, but you're like. a Cool Internet Trans Uncle, so i hope it's okay to ask for advice anyways. i'm a 19 year old trans guy (or at least heavily guy-adjacent), and i've been wanting to go on hrt since i was 14, but i haven't been able to due to bullshit laws and then bullshit finances. but all those years have given me time to overthink it (like, way overthink it) and i guess i'm really worried that it's... not gonna work for me? or something? like, right now i'm seen as Young Woman (Fairly Pretty), and i'd give just about anything to be seen as Young Man (Fairly Handsome), but i'm scared that going on hrt will end up with me being seen as Young Adult Who's Not A Man But Also Who Is Far Away Enough From Cis Womanhood To Abuse. which would just result in dysphoria AND people treating me badly, which would be even worse than where i am right now. i guess the fear is that there'd be enough changes to take me away from safety but not enough to cause any comfort or joy? like, what if i'm just permanently fucked? i can't exactly take my skeleton back in and ask for a do-over. so yeah. like i said, this is rambly, but i'm hoping that you or your other followers might have some advice. i hope that you and your spouse and your cats are doing well and having a good day :)

Lemme break down some thoughts:

HRT has profound mental effects for a lot of us that is separate from, "I like what I see in the mirror". My brain is calmer on T and I am overall much more emotionally regulated. This is a huge, huge benefit for me and 100% internal.

You are going to get clocked throughout your life. It will happen a lot as you begin transition and it will happen in surprising ways when you think you pass. It's a thing we have to always be prepared for.

On HRT, you will more likely be seen as teenage boy than anything else. This may last years.

If you are white, thin, and/or able-bodied, you are still going to be invisible to a lot of people.

Cis-passing is not a guarantee against transphobic violence. You may be safer from random street violence, but you are still subject to violence from the State. All bets are off once you are outed and paperwork trails are everywhere. Passing privilege is extremely easily revoked.

Be very aware how much the desire to look conventionally attractive in a cis-passing way is influencing you. Be ok with the idea of just being Some Guy. Be especially ok with looking like some of the men in your family. And never equate your value with beauty. Even if you achieve it, it's fleeting.

If you are worried about safety, start mitigating that now. We all have to do risk calculus every time we leave the house. Look to community as your safety net. Be very picky about who you choose to bring into your life. And of course, if you have the means, look for work and a home in progressive areas and always have a Plan B in case you lose your job or housing.

A lot of cis people honestly do not give a shit in either direction about trans people. There is some safety in that ambivalence.

You can always stop HRT and even detransition. Some effects are permanent, but if trans women can voice train and laser their beards, so can you.

Make more friends with visibly queer trans/nonbinary/gnc people. Consume more queer art. go to queer meetups and other events. Recalibrate your brain to celebrate visible transness & gender fuckery, instead of seeing it primarily as a threat to your safety.

I think it's all worth it. <3

[tjalexandernyc]

hey anon I'm a 40 something part time guy who went on hrt a year ago and if you're worried that trying it will only cause problems I can only tell you that, for me, the problem of feeling worse with every passing year was enough of a reason to take the chance.

Yeah, it's possible the T might not give you any positive benefits.

It's also possible that it will.

Can you imagine that possibility with the clarity and vividness you're imagining the reverse? It's a worthwhile exercise. Good luck ❤️

[eilooxara]

Oat milk was discovered much more recently than you may have known. Like many now-familiar technologies, it was found by accident during the Apollo program when NASA learned what a zero-g environment does to goat milk.

[lakevida]

trying to communicate ideas through language and it doesnt suffice so you turn to the abstract image and then people want to be talking to you about the images NO!!!!!! ! ! ! ! ! !

[lakevida]

precisely

[wolfythewitch]

On my tenth cup of coffee getting dead wife flashbacks that never happened

[nepenthean-sleep]

straight white people making a romance movie: haha what if it was illegal to have sex? wait what's lawrence v texas. wait what's mclaughlin v florida. wait what's loving v virginia

[ninewheels]

As preposterous and stupid as this fucking movie's premise sounded (for a light-hearted rom-com, and not The Handmaid's Tale) I didn't want to think about it too much until the movie actually came out, and then I could see if it was somehow more intelligent and subversive than the trailer let on, but guess what, it's even worse!

One Night Only review: Pull out from this sex-negative rom-com

If this is what it takes to get a rom-com greenlit these days, maybe we should just let them die.

Sex workers are thrown under the bus, shown only as thieves who fleece men in the woods at night, while queer sexuality is relegated to a few scenes with Allie’s roommate (a woefully underused Quintessa Swindell) and a handful of pans past blurry same-sex extras making out in the background. “This night is for the straights,” Swindell’s character says to Allie, before saying that queer people have worked around straight laws for centuries.  This is supposed to be a nod to queer resilience, but largely comes off as straightwashing the history of anti-LGBTQ legislation in this country that led towards raids of queer clubs and incarceration of queer people in the not-too-distant past (let alone the current barrage of anti-Trans and LGBTQ legislation currently in the works and on the books). It’s also ignorant of the long and fraught fight for the normalization of age-of-consent laws, which, by the way, did not happen in all states in this very country until 2003. Yes, that’s not even thirty years ago.  By the end, our intrepid protagonists have not had sex with anyone, because this is a film about Romance with a Capital R (and I guess sex is not part of romance!) and for that very same reason they ultimately embrace the fascist state of things. They aren’t the only ones who refuse to fight back. No one in this cursed film is protesting this mandate beyond “repeal” signs in various windows and some creative graffiti (...) (...) If we are supposed to believe that the film is making some subversive statement about the state of sex and bodily autonomy in this country, it cannot end with its leads embracing their chains. That’s just warmed-over conservatism running around in sheep’s clothing.

[nepenthean-sleep]

yeah i wrote this post having only seen the trailer, but jesus christ. was this movie a psyop LMAO??

also, for the unaware: mclaughlin v. florida was a 1964 supreme court case that struck down a florida anti-miscegenation law that criminalized cohabitation (and thus, as implied, sex) between white people and people of color of opposite genders. anti-miscegenation laws made marriage and sexual relationships between white people and people of color, most often specifically black people, a FELONY in several states in the united states up until the 1950s and 1960s. though it was already struck down by the supreme court, the state of alabama didn't repeal their law until 2000! there were THREE ATTEMPTS at codifying anti-miscegenation into the us constitution!

like yes, the issue here is partially straight white people's ignorance on the united states's history of homophobic policy, but it's also really important to recognize that arguably the majority of the issue here is straight white people's ignorance of the united states's history of codifying eugenics and antiblack racism.

the premise could have been interesting as a serious dystopian story, especially taking that history into account, but it wasn't written that way at all. this movie should never have been a fucking romcom making light of the violence the united states (and many other countries) has enacted on any kinds of sexual relationships it deems undesirable.

[nepenthean-sleep]

can y’all maybe reblog this version i feel like people are forgetting about the racism and just focusing on the homophobia

[camilleflyingrotten]

[sweatermuppet]

real question i just had to answer for my top surgery screening

[clickholeofficial]

This Make-A-Wish Kid Couldn’t Decide What He Wanted So They Slid Him Along A Deli Counter Like A Sandwich

[kermitlesbian]

fuck i can’t believe i wasted my entire life being moved by art and beauty and the indomitable human spirit ugh i should’ve been making money through internet scams

[tjalexandernyc]

there is something very satisfying about game changer getting alex horne to provide score commentary for the earwigs episode. i hope it happened exactly like when jason mantzoukas was asked to do commentary for the conkers game on taskmaster and he said "what is this footage? I don't understand what's going on" and they told him oh it's conkers to which he said "what the fuck is conkers??" meanwhile alex horne would have received the game changer footage with no additional information and gone "right they're all wearing wigs, they've all got earpieces, it's your standard triple layer fakeout mini games within games game" and did it all in one take

[guerrillatech]

[kedreeva]

if you, like me, are hesitant to enjoy what kinda sounds like "relaxes food standards" on the surface, I'm happy to report that this isn't "everyone can do what they want with your food supply without oversight" but rather a case where in NYC you had to have a permit to sell food and a second, superfluous permit to sell frozen desserts. This action simply removes the need for the second permit, rolling it into the first permit in order to help small businesses. Yay!

[tjalexandernyc]

the amount of red tape and double or sometimes triple redundant permits in new york city makes sense only if you understand the city's long history of grift and bribery. If you need 1 permit to open your ice cream store, and you can apply for that permit thru 1 city agency, then the chances of a shop owner getting hustled are pretty low. If there are 5 levels to go thru with 5 different applications, then plenty of people along that chain can get their beaks wet noir style. now I'm not saying every municipal employee involved will be defrauding applicants but the chances are higher.

republicans have been screaming about small government for forever, but they don't mean fixing things like this, where the system has become so bloated it's a danger and inconvenience to someone trying to open an ice cream shop. they mean letting huge companies dump waste in the river.

[saturnisfallingdown]

the worst part of the deleted scenes is that i understand why they cut every single one and theres this palpable difference where you can tell its moreso just ryan gosling and james ortiz having fun on set than narratively serving grace and rocky. this however has led to my new demand for a 3 hour movie of ryan gosling and james ortiz having fun on set muppet style.

[chernozemm]

🤌🤌🤌

[a-magpie-in-ankh-morpork]

prev this is a genius idea @littlelatinboy-sindrag

#genuinely a show of just like. ten to fifteen minute segments#each episode detailing a different silly adventure on Erid or the trip to Erid#where they’re just goofing around and there’s no plot just fun and friendship

[genderkoolaid]

as a lover of historical fiction and art about women and horny art and silly art i am so so into this premise. everyone can't stop being like "ohh his is dick made of wood too" it's magic dumbass. i am obsessed with how this sounds like an obscure medieval european folk tale. peter dinklage plays a basketmaker with the power to bring life to inanimate objects for an spinste's sexual pleasure. suspend your disbelief about his cock and have a little fun

[genderkoolaid]

and the leading lady is played by a woman whose gay man. perfect movie perhaps

[genderkoolaid]

for those who haven't seen the trailer.

[genderkoolaid]

#I assume his dick is ribbed for her pleasure and well-lacquered#like yes I assume the wicker guy who is ostentatiously 100% wicker everywhere we can see also has a wicker dick#I also assume a basket-making wizard who can make a whole-ass articulated dude out of wicker in one month#while *also* keeping up with his bill-paying day-job baskets#knows how to make a dick where none of the pokery is anywhere near the jiggery#sorry to everyone who's only seen shitty big-box store baskets that are made out of spite and neoliberalism#his dong is wicker and also perfectly fit for purpose#wicker? I hardly knew her! etc.

beautiful + true tags from @tyrannosaurus-trainwreck

[solivagantingrebel]

editing is so funny because it's like "damn, i wrote 'before' two times within three paragraphs. they are going to stone me in the town square for this"

[strangesmallbard]

no nuance friday. i wish ai was a person who i could turn into a flea. a harmless, little flea. and then i’ll put that flea in a box, and then i’ll put that box inside of another box, and then i’ll mail that box to myself, and when it arrives i’ll smash it WITH a hammer!!