James Greig: As a trans author, how do you feel about your work inevitably being read in the context of the anti-trans culture war which is so prominent right now? The book is also very funny. There’s a humorous account of them winding up a wealthy donor at a charity function – who demanded ‘so, when did you first know?’ – by spinning an elaborate and at first plausible yarn, which ends with a three-year-old Alabanza visiting a doctor and saying their first words: “Doctor, I am actually a cross-dressing, gender non-conforming deviant.” Their interlocutor didn’t find this quite so amusing.

When Our Worlds Collided follows what happens to three teenagers from different walks of life after a 14-year-old called Shaq is stabbed outside a busy shopping centre in Manchester.In the 70s and 8s you could be a man and wear your hair long, and wear make up and no one wondered if they had changed gender. Hair bands, Goths… Travis Alabanza writes about gender and its possibilities with such generosity and ease even the most provocative suggestions start to seem obvious, despite their challenges to society at large. This anti-memoir, which is at times both profound and funny, will make anyone question the stories we tell about ourselves, how we tell them and even who the telling is for -- SHON FAYE, author of THE TRANSGENDER ISSUE

None of the Above] is timely and timeless, courageous as well as meticulously crafted.” —Sunny Singh, director of the Jhalak Prize Arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes coupled with rage when frustrated, contradicted, or confronted A vivid reminder that, to be neither, within a binary world, is to sacrifice both state and sometimes community protection." Pursuing the endless goal of perfect equality, left wing liberalism has become its own carcinogen. By providing preferential treatment to those with recognised protected characteristics, it incentivises an endless multiplication of identities, each demanding the power of the state is used to rescue it from its oppression. If the political left has come to believe that future of the modern state is as a kind of identerian Leviathan, then non-binary identities actually threaten to become a kind of Russell’s Paradox at its heart, an identity, which is not an identity, and so collapses identities into a subjective, ungovernable morass, as hard categories are replaced with spectra of subjective feelings, which are impossible to ground political power in.Travis Alabanza: ‘What is terrifying is that for a long time I felt I owed every question an answer.’ All portraits: Harry Borden/The Guardian. Makeup: Montell-Dominique The “proper” could mean the trans people who have had to save, or fundraise, or wait to afford the costly and arduous medical procedures to make changes to their bodies.

I also think it’s too early to pass any kind of lucid judgment on this process, including whether it’s a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing. At this moment in history, when we’re starting to gain a foothold on some kind of perspective, all we can do is pass our own individual judgments in comparison with our own experiences. But to add, that those experiences didn’t lead to a particularly coherent society, or a peaceful one either! Alabanza's memoir is separated into seven chapters, each with a phrase that has been directed at them throughout their life. As a gender-nonconforming, mixed-race person, Travis talks about their life and struggles from living in an estate town to being who they truly are in a binary-focused world. Fellow judge Irfan Master said the book stood out for its “craft, courage and connection”, while Yaba Badoe, also judging, said “every teenager” should read the book. When you are someone that falls outside of categories in so many ways, a lot of things are said to you. And I have had a lot of things said to me.' In None of the Above, Travis Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them about their gender identity. These phrases have stayed with them over the years. Feels entitled. Expects unreasonable or special and favorable priority treatment. Demands automatic and full compliance with his or her expectations

Summary

Sometimes when identities are under heavy scrutiny, we build special rules around them to protect ourselves. But I just don’t want to be working from a place of protection anymore. I don’t want to make transness this special identity that you can’t critique. We’ve seen with identity politics, that just leads to bullshit, you know? It leads to a dialogue that isn’t healthy, and a situation where we are unable to make a class-based analysis of anything. That’s just what happens when an identity becomes this circle that you can’t touch – I guess I just wanted to burst that a bit. Surely this was how I knew? If I were telling this story at a dinner party, in response to another person asking me the question yet again, I would receive full marks for this one. There are the clear signifiers that link this story to the mainstream perception of trans identity, particularly those of us assigned male at birth: the high-heeled shoe and the performative nature of the song effortlessly blends with the public imagination of how all transfeminine people discover our gender. Blended with the quirkiness of a hunky German lodger, this story, when told right, often results in a sea of smiles, unthreatened nods and a calmness washing over the room. A calmness that is specific to liberal cisgender people feeling comfortable again because they have you all figured out.