Transland is a fiery and revealing memoir that delves into what happens when a non-binary person goes looking for self-worth and a sense of belonging in fetish subculture, only to find that fetish communities come with just as many problematic rules, expectations, and hierarchies as mainstream ones.

Moving from wide-eyed optimism that the fetish community is the promised land to realizing the ways fetish communities – even queer ones – reinforce the commodification of bodies, Mx. Sly examines how BDSM helped them understand and articulate their gender, how kink helped them turn shameful experiences into liberating ones, and how they became disillusioned with the BDSM scene – without rejecting the lessons fetish taught them.

The stories in this memoir explore PTSD, intergenerational trauma, memory, consent, gender transition and diversity, queer relationships and subculture, and a lot of bondage. From dating a charismatic Toronto femmedom to being bone bros with an Aussie rope bondage expert, Transland is an odyssey of kinky hookups and gender euphoria and a wandering quest through sensuality toward personal strength and self-reliance.

Sexy, gutting, graphic, and existential, Transland is about finding oneself through intense sensations, reaching a point where being hit has diminishing returns, and coming out wiser on the other side.

Available from Arsenal Pulp Press

Mx. Sly is a non-binary writer, theatre creator, and producer. Their first play, Charisma Furs, was published in the anthology Q2Q: Queer Canadian Performance Texts (finalist in the 2019 Lambda Literary Awards). Sly is developing Canada’s first gender diverse performance anthology, to be published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2024. They have lived in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. Transland is their first book.

Read a Q&A with Mx Sly

 

About the Author

Bryen Dunn is a freelance journalist based in Toronto with a focus on tourism, lifestyle, entertainment and community issues. He has written several travel articles and has an extensive portfolio of celebrity interviews with musicians, actors and other public personalities. He’s willing to take on any assignments of interest, attend parties with free booze, listen to rants, and travel the world in search of the great unknown. He’s eager to discover the new, remember the past, and look into the future.