Sapphic and Trans Femme Relationships: Resources, Readings, and Reflections
This page contains resources on Sapphics and Trans Femme Relationships, as well as our posts on the topic and some suggested reading. What does that cover? Any and all content especially geared towards the relationships of women loving women, nonbinary folks, trans femme individuals, and more. Harkening back over 2,000 years to Sappho, “sapphic” is an umbrella term covering a lot of ways of relating, being, and loving. The resources and readings on this page explore these rich histories and lived experiences.
Table of Contents
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If you’d like to read more of our thoughts, here is a carousel of some of our most recent posts on sapphic and trans femme relationships. Below that are further resources and suggestions. You can also see all of our posts on this topic at its category page.
Resources on Sapphic and Trans Femme Relationships
Want to learn more about this topic? These are educational resources that we have personally vetted—no spam to be found here. If you’re still new to this topic, start with the resources on the first list. For those more familiar, the second list has more in-depth resources.
Covering the basics:
- The Many Ways Trans Women Find Sapphic Love (Eva Reign, Autostraddle)
- Masc/femme couples open up about lesbian stereotypes (Megan Wallace, Cosmopolitan)
- A Brief History Of The Word “Femme” (Kasandra Brabaw, Refinery 29)
- The History of Trans & Non Binary Lesbians (Red Broadwell, Rainbow & Co)
A deeper dive:
- She’s always a woman: Butch lesbian trans women in the lesbian community (Hannah Rossiter, University of Auckland)
- Butch-Fem Relationships: Sexual Courage in the 1950’s (Joan Nestle, Queer Geek Theory)
- Introduction: Feeling Femme, Femme Feels (Lore/tta LeMaster, Women’s Studies in Communication)
Do you know of other resources that would be a good fit for this list? Reach out to ash@ashtonrosewrites.com, and we’ll take a look and let you know if we want to add it!
Recommended reading:
(and viewing, listening, etc.)
7 Transfeminine Sapphic Books I Read In 2022 by Sritama Sen on Lesbrary
“It’s a tough time to be trans, more so with the socio-cultural complicity and transmisogyny one witnesses even within supposedly progressive queer circles these days. However, as a trans masc author myself, I want to emphasize that while it is alright to call for the boycott of bigoted authors, it is equally—if not more—important to re-center trans women in this discourse, and to amplify transfeminine writing and voices, instead of wasting energy and resources debating about fandom legacies.
Below, I have highlighted seven transfeminine sapphic books I read in 2025, all written by trans women, across a variety of genres. I created this list to address the fact that a lot of modern sapphic stories are not mindful of bio-essentialist language and transmisogynist rhetoric, causing considerable harm and compounding transfeminine invisibility in LGBTQ+ reader spaces. All of these are essential reading for anyone who considers themselves trans allies, but please do your own research regarding any trigger warnings.”
The Half of It, directed and written by Alice Wu
Is it Netflix? Yes. But is it a delightful coming-of-age story featuring pleasantly awkward sapphic moments? Also yes. It’s worth a watch, or two, or five.
Sapphic books with a trans character from Jae Fiction
“This month’s Book Unicorn category features sapphic books with a trans character.
Generally, the term ‘trans’ (short for ‘transgender’) can be used in two different ways:
- Trans or transgender is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of gender identities. It includes everyone whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. Many nonbinary people consider themselves trans since they don’t (exclusively) identify as male or female.
- Trans or transgender can also be used for a more specific identity under that umbrella. Trans women are women who were assigned male at birth. They may or may not have surgery and/or take hormones to bring their bodies into alignment with their gender identity.”
Sinister Wisdom 138: Lesbian Stories from Sinister Wisdom
“This issue of Sinister Wisdom, Sinister Wisdom 138: Lesbian Stories is dedicated to Dorothy Allison—and continues her legacy of telling lesbian stories. The issue opens with a stunning collection of photographs by Morgan Gwenwald, Rachel Gold, Katherine V. Forrest, Penny Mickelbury, Judith Katz and an amazing team of students from Macalester College, Addie Daab, Kendall Kieras, Beja Puškášová, Ella Stern, and Jamila Sigal Vásquez, worked for well over a year to curate this issue of Sinister Wisdom. I hope you will love what they have done! Sinister Wisdom 138: Lesbian Stories is a blend of fiction and non-fiction and an intentional intergenerational collaboration of lesbian and queer women writers seeking their truths and making promises to us all to share our stories.”
Including my own books:
Each of these topics is important to me, which also means they show up in my own novels. For suggestions on which book is best for you, see my guide on where to start with my novels.