Ranked Competitive Breast Growth - Beth Leigh-Ann and Talia Bhatt (Self-published, 2025)

There isn’t a lot to laugh about for trans people right now. There is anti-trans legislation being promoted in Canada, the United States, and in England. Political campaigns have been dabbling in transphobia and the media is “just asking questions” about who should be allowed to transition and under what circumstances. Things can feel pretty dire and overwhelming at times.

With life feeling so oppressive, one looks to literature to get away from it all: from the catharsis of Alyson Greaves’s Dorley novels to the comedy of Zoe Storm’s stories, there’s a growing amount of trans literature that’s light in tone. One of the funniest is Ranked Competitive Breast Growth,  which first ran as a serial novel online and is now available in collected form on Itch.io. It’s a delicious satire and a wild ride, and for my money one of the funniest pieces of trans literature I’ve read.

It follows four roommates who all enter an online contest where cis men take hormones to see who can grow the biggest breasts and get a financial prize. There’s Jeff who’s pretending to be straight while pining for his roommate Kyle; Daniel (soon to be Katherine), who talks like an anime villain; and Nicolas (later Nichole) who is looking for an easy way to transition. But then again, so is everyone else on the server: despite the rules, nobody here is actually cis. 

At its core, RCBG is a serial novel about brainworms and the myriad ways trans women talk themselves into thinking they aren’t trans, can’t be trans, and will never be trans. It can be as simple as pretending to only be interested in the money to the twisted logic of Mike, a contestant who uses mangled gender theory to explain why getting bottom surgery makes them more of a man. Mike, soon to be Laura, is a standout character who runs away with any scene she’s in: she’s a force of nature, a domineering personality, and one always eager for a round of “discursive combat.”

But it’s also a romance, or at least at several attempted romances. Characters hook up and break up throughout the book. A chart of all their relationships would look like a bulletin board covered in red strings and photos!

As a genre, trans lit can be a little self serious. And for good reason: authors coming out of the New York City and Topside school - older writers like Jeanne Thornton and Torrey Peters, as well as younger ones like Grace Byron and Emily Zhou - write fiction that’s heavy because they’re pushing back on two fronts. First there’s the cis gaze, which wants a tragic story about someone who must suffer to be trans (think older memoirs like Diedre McCloskey’s Crossing), and second there’s the feeling that to be taken seriously they must write serious, adult fiction in the same way that, say Sally Rooney or Katie Kitamura do. 

This is not without merit. For example, while both Plett and Imogen Binnie’s debuts have been resurrected from out-of-print limbo, Sybil Lamb’s hilarious novel I’ve Got A Time Bomb hasn’t caught on among taste-makers and hasn’t been republished since Topside’s demise. Meanwhile the indie presses and self-published authors are dabbling in dark themes: witness the popularity of Kallidora Rho’s Warhound or Porpentine Charity Heartscape’s Serious Weakness. 

In this sense, RCBG is a breath of fresh air. It’s a riot where one moment it’ll be sending up an over-zealous ally and the next a character will think this while doing meal prep: 

I’ll have a light lunch today. Some eggs, maybe, or finishing off yesterday’s leftovers? Perhaps I’ll even try to get adventurous about it, in line with my new zest for life and how much hotter and spicier it’s becoming! So why not go ahead and try some of my man’s fancy spices? I do wonder what ‘ore gano’ tastes like.

Each of these characters has the ability to say exactly the wrong thing at any given moment, from calling out a sex move like an anime attack to an inability to read the room. But the thing is that almost all of them are also good people. The fight and lash out, but they’re just messy young adults trying to figure their shit out. In Leigh-Ann and Bhatt’s hands, nobody here is played like a cruel joke or used as a straw trans woman to advance a point. They’re goofs but they’re well intentioned goofs. And when they do actually hurt someone else they feel bad about it.

This sense of compassion and generosity is what pushed RCBG over the top from being just a riff on trans stereotypes and tropes. Both authors know their stuff - Bhatt’s published two well-received volumes of essays - and they know trans women are often punched down on or are the butt of bad jokes. So here the jokes come from everyone being silly, goofy, or hopelessly sheltered. They’re rarely mean out of spite and they are, there’s consequences. For example when Katherine is put on blast by Nichole, one of the other girls steps in to ask what the fuck is Nichole’s problem:

“Nichole.”

I look up, sniffling loudly, unable to wipe all the tears away.

“You’re not dealing with this well.” Emmy’s voice is much gentler now. “Okay, she hurt you. I get it, okay? I understand.”

“Yeah, she really fucking did.”

“So, you’re going to hurt her back? You’re going to hurt her worse?”

I say nothing.

“You don’t actually want that,” Emmy points out, correct as fucking always. “Whatever it is you want, you’re not going to get it by putting her on blast in the server. I hope you realize that.”

The other day, I was talking to someone I know about this book and they said it feels like “crystalized psychic damage aimed at trans people.” And that’s a fair read: there are many moments that will leave readers with their palms firmly on their face. But that’s also the point. Early transition is full of moments where people goof and make cringy mistakes. It’s all part of the process. And this book is packed with them. But it’s also packed with a lot of heart and a lot of love. I dare any reader to finish this book and not have a big grin on their face and a few laughs along the way. I certainly did.