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, American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era, 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 paints a vivid portrait of what it’s actually like to grow up trans today.

Join the Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge, Rector of St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, for a conversation with Lang about the lives of these extraordinary young people, and their message of hope at a time when we all really need it.

The conversation is preceded by Vesper Light: Evening Eucharist on Trans Day of Visibility and all are welcome.

Buy the book

“American Teenager is a must-read on the trans teen experience . . . [An] important, powerful, and necessary book for these divided times . . . Groundbreaking, thoroughly informative, and compassionate . . . The empathetic yet noticeably objective stories Lang writes are as varied as they are inclusive — and each allows the myriad emotions of its subject, from fear and depression to confidence and pride, to truly shine.”―SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

About the Guest

Nico Lang 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, Harper’s Bazaar, The Washington Post, Vox, BuzzFeed, Jezebel, The Guardian, Out, The Advocate and the L.A. 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 co-founder 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.

Their new book, American Teenager: How Trans Kids Are Surviving Hate and Finding Joy in a Turbulent Era was published in the fall of 2024. 

About the Moderator

Cameron Partridge is an openly trans and genderqueer Episcopal priest, theologian, spouse, and dad of two middle and high school aged children. Originally from the East Bay, Cameron was ordained in 2004/5 in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts and completed his Th.D. in 2008. His scholarly work centers on conceptions of embodiment and of sexual difference in early and contemporary Christian theologies, as well as the intersections of trans and religious studies. He has served in parish, young adult, campus ministry and divinity school settings, and has long been involved in advocacy efforts for trans and non-binary people, both in civic and ecclesial contexts. Since 2016 he has been the rector of St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco.

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