LGBTQ+ journalist and author to hold book reading and Q&A in Champaign in May

Nico Lang, author of "American Teenager," will hold a book reading and Q&A at New Covenant Fellowship in Champaign next month, documenting the lives of transgender teens across seven states.

Event poster advertising a Reading and Q&A with Nico Lang for 'American Teenager'; man wearing a hat on a yellow panel with event details and a QR code in the corner.

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CHAMPAIGN, IL (Chambana Today) — Nico Lang, a longtime LGBTQ+ journalist and the author of “American Teenager” will be visiting Champaign early next month to hold a book reading and Q&A session.

“American Teenager” documents the lives of transgender kids and their loved ones in seven different states.

“My goal was to speak back to extreme anti-trans rhetoric about youth by showing trans young people as they actually are: powerfully human,” Lang said. Their reading and Q&A will be held at New Covenant Fellowship, located at 124 West White Street in Champaign at around 3 p.m.

While media coverage tends to sensationalize the fight over trans children and their rights, Lang’s book looks to give voice to the people at the center of the debate: transgender and gender nonconforming kids themselves. Lang spent a year traveling the country to document the lives of transgender, nonbinary, and genderfluid teens and their families, speaking to them over hundreds of hours of on-the-ground interviews with them and the people in their communities.

The main figures in Lang’s book range from Florida’s panhandle to queer communities in California, and Texas churches to mosques in Illinois.

Resource tables and refreshments will be provided by Good Judy’s from 3 p.m., while the book reading and Q&A portion of the event will begin at 3:30 p.m.