About the Book:

"Being a girl was something that never really happened for me." — Rae Spoon

Ivan E. Coyote and Rae Spoon are accomplished, award-winning writers, musicians, and performers; they are also both admitted "gender failures." In their first collaborative book, Ivan and Rae explore and expose their failed attempts at fitting into the gender binary, and how ultimately our expectations and assumptions around traditional gender roles fail us all.

Based on their acclaimed live show that toured across North America and in Europe, Gender Failure is a poignant collection of autobiographical essays, lyrics, and images documenting Ivan and Rae's personal journeys from gender failure to gender self-acceptance. Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, it's a book that will touch LGBTQ readers and others, revealing, with candour and insight, that gender comes in more than two sizes.

What people say:

"Ivan and Rae have written a magical, down-to-earth, painfully honest step beyond any predetermined transgender narrative that I know of. At times hilarious, at times heartbreaking, their storytelling is top-notch. This book is unputdownable." — Kate Bornstein, author of A Queer and Pleasant Danger

"Coyote and Spoon's perspectives will be refreshing and thought-provoking for both trans and cisgender readers alike, pointing to the fact that the dominant two-gender system is deeply problematic and requires serious overhaul. This book is not to be missed." — Broken Pencil

"This book profoundly changed my life; I will step into the word and lexicon of 'gender' differently, I will never be in my body in the same way, I am a different reader forever, and I am grateful. Gender Failure will take you apart and put you back together—I laughed my ass off, I cried my heart out, I yelled my head off, and I ended up in the only place that matters: love, compassion, with our whole bodies." — Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water and Dora: A Head Case

"A funny, sad, touching, enraging collection of autobiographical essays by two seasoned performers ... The writing is pointed: To anyone who does not believe transphobia is real, please read the chapter on safety in public washrooms. But this book also speaks more broadly: Where gender is a strict definition based on a highly unrealistic ideal, very few - almost none? - of us are not gender failures in some way. This book demands we consider that it is the binary that has failed us instead." — The Globe and Mail

About the Author:

Ivan Coyote is the award-winning author of eleven books, the creator of four short films, and has released three albums that combine storytelling with music. He is a seasoned stage performer and over the last twenty years has become an audience favourite at storytelling, writer’s, film, poetry, and folk music festivals from Anchorage to Amsterdam. He lives in Vancouver.

Rae Spoon is a transgender musician/writer/workshop facilitator originally from Calgary. She has been nominated for a Polaris Prize, toured internationally, and released eight solo albums. She is the subject of a National Film Board documentary entitled My Prairie Home, which screened at film festivals internationally, including the Sundance Film Festival.