Being a trans teenager isn’t easy, especially when politicians and school boards keep trying to legislate against you. If trying to get through high school and understand your own gender identity wasn’t enough, we’ve seen an explosion of anti-trans bills in the last decade. For those who might not know everything there is to know about gender identity, it seems far to easy to forget that these people are just humans who want to live their lives.
Kelly Vincent, an agender author, is helping to tackle that problem in their latest books. The recently-published Ugliest is a standalone read, but also the third book in The Art of being Ugly trilogy. Teenager Nic Summers has come to understand their own gender identity, and has found their own queer friend group. But their story is challenged by the real world legislative moves taking place in Oklahoma and other states and the teens’ need to fight back to keep their rights.
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Vincent’s book provides an accessible window for readers, be they teens or adults, LGBTQ+ or cishet, to understand what is happening in the United States. As fact meets fiction, Nic and their friends just want to get through their assignments and talk about books on TikTok, but the role of activist is thrust upon them.
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INTO spoke with Vincent about their latest book, their late-life discovery of their own gender identity, and the politics and activism around trans rights in America.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Can you tell us about how The Art of Being Ugly series came to be and what inspired the latest installment?
I struggled a lot with my gender growing up and I thought that I must not be the only one, and that maybe I have something to say. So, I decided to write about it in Ugly, [the first book]. And it was actually after I had started writing about it when I learned about this concept of gender not being binary.
I don’t know how I missed this, but I missed it. So, I was already writing the book when I figured it out and it blew my mind. I was like, this makes my whole life make sense. And so that ended up coming into the book. I actually kind of went through a lot of the experience that [the main character,] Nic had. I got on Google and did the research. And that’s what went into the book, what would Nic have queried. And, obviously, I’m an adult, and Nic was a teenager, so maybe not the exact same queries. I learned all that stuff through writing the book.
The core problem in Ugly is that Nic lives in a small town in Oklahoma. So they’re bullied a lot. And they were still identifying as cis theoretically—technically gender-nonconforming, but they were still using she/her pronouns. There’s just no way that Nic or I would have come out at that point and tried to use they/them pronouns, just way too unsafe. I wrote [Ugly], and then I got to the end, and I was like, “I actually think I have something here.” I think I found something to say.
Because, yes, those ideas are out there. But when you’re a teenager, growing up in a conservative place, those ideas don’t really seem related to you in any way, even if you hear them. Somehow, it’s just not acceptable. And then I wanted to continue the story.
You’ve mentioned that you started using they/them pronouns in 2023. How did you find that writing this fictional account altered your own perception of gender with regards to yourself?
I mentioned that I learned about the nonbinary concept in roughly 2018. I’m almost 50. And I’m also, for various reasons, completely out of the idea of trying to be in a romantic relationship. I’m just beyond that, I’m just done. I’m happy with how things are.
So it seemed like, what’s the point of coming out as they/them? It seemed to me like a lot of identifying differently is more relevant when it comes to relationships. Not just romantic relationships, but who you’re friends with, and who your friend group is, and your community. And I’m like, I just don’t think that I’m part of that. I just didn’t think that I should.
And I actually won an award in January, and that is what triggered me to finally go, you know what? this is who I am. I’m going to do this. Somebody read this book, and it sounded authentic to them. They felt like it told them something, it taught them something. And I’m like, I think I am worthy. It wasn’t quite like, I didn’t feel like I was worthy, but it was kind of like that. It was kind of winning that award and realizing that I was being taken seriously as being different.
You talked a bit about feeling like you had found that you had something to say with these books. Who do you see as your readership here? I mean, I’m guessing you’re not expecting a lot of Republican legislature to pick up the book. And what is it that you’re hoping the readers will take away from it?
So these are not my first YA books. I have three that were out prior to Ugly, and none of them are LGBTQ+. They were feminist and about strong female characters and stuff. Most of my readership was adult. I didn’t know how to reach younger readers. It was just a huge struggle. And with Ugly, that’s who I really wanted to reach, the teens who maybe this would resonate with, maybe it would make them feel seen.
I finally started getting some feedback occasionally from adult readers who were always like, “This was amazing. I understand something I didn’t understand before.” So that message is getting there, but I still just couldn’t get to teen readers.
That’s one of the reasons I hired the publicist at great expense for the third book. And I knew I wouldn’t make my money back. But I felt like this stuff is politically important. And I wanted people who maybe didn’t understand these things to see why it matters and that there’s actual legal stuff that matters about this. And I was hoping to get them to vote, people who might not.
I really want this to get to teenagers, but it’s just really difficult. So, I’m not sure. But in general, I think it’s most valuable in terms of helping other people understand where these kids are coming from. People think they’re just being difficult, or that it’s a phase, and all these dismissive things, when it’s actually an excruciatingly painful thing to be uncertain about your gender identity, and I assume your sexuality. It’s so confusing. And you’re like, do I want to be different? Usually, people don’t. Usually, people wish they were the same. And eventually they become proud of who they are. But in the beginning, you’re going to set yourself up as being different. And that isn’t usually what people want. I think it helps people understand that it’s a real struggle for people.
At the risk of getting into some heavier stuff, you dedicated Ugliest to the memory of Nex Benedict. How did that affect your writing of the book and events that take place?
It was actually kind of an excruciating experience. I was finishing the book in February. My parents live in Tulsa, and I’d gone home to visit because my dad had fallen and broken his arm and we were worried. So, I go home for a week to see my family, and right before I left was when the story about Nex broke. There was actually a vigil in Oklahoma City while I was there, but I didn’t know about it in advance, or I probably would have gone. But I’m sitting here and I’m like, this is who my book is about, this exact kid.
At the time, I had moved the whole second book forward a year, because I wanted it to happen the year of the election. The previous one had happened in 2022. I wanted it to be happening in 2024, which is weird, but I was gonna put a note in there. But the problem was, things were happening at the same exact time that the Nex stuff was happening. Like the vigil that I had in the book was like a week after Nex’s actual vigil, the one in Oklahoma City at least. And I was like, I can’t do that. Because people who read the other books might understand, but the fact that I moved it forward a year would be suspicious. I wanted to get that story in there, because I actually wrote a scene where Jenna comes and tells Nic about Nex. But I was like, I can’t do that. So, I moved it back to 2023.
I was going to make the election a big part of it. But because it was then moved back to 2023, I had to go in and find different incidents to talk about in terms of laws and things. But I did that. The whole time my emotional level was just so high, because I’m upset about Nex. And I’m literally 15 miles from where his school was. It felt very personal, and very upsetting.
You talk about having to find relevant legislation that was taking place to include in the book, and between that, name dropping influential politicians, and the importance of TikTok, the book is very much set at a particular time. What drove the decision to lock it down so precisely like that?
I wanted to convey how real this is, that this is not made up. These things are really happening to real people. It’s people like the kids in the book, and Oklahoma is one of the worst for trans-related laws. It’s not the very worst, but it’s one of the bad ones.
People are kind of interesting. They believe stuff in books, even when it’s fiction, and even when they shouldn’t. So, I was like, if I make it real, if anybody is curious if this is real, they can look it up right there. And also it kind of made it easy, too, because I didn’t have to make it up. But it was interesting, because like, how do I find these things?
Well, the way I found them was through Erin in the Morning. I subscribed and went through my email one after the other. “Oh, what happened on this day?” “Oh, look, I’m looking at this range of dates. What happened?” And there was always something.
Yeah, Erin in the Morning is doing great work. I got to the point in the book fairly early on where Mack is going, “hey, did you know about this great newsletter?” And I just stopped for a moment and went “that must be Erin.”
Just to loop back on to TikTok. You’ve been pretty active on there in the past, but what was the driving force that meant that TikTok became so central to this book?
It was just that [TikTok] was a place they could do it. And TikTok is popular with kids, so they kind of stumble into it.
I was on BookTok, and I enjoyed it. But I gave it up because it takes some time and I would never get past 250 views, no matter what. And I would sometimes get to 250 in like an hour, sometimes I’d get there in 24 hours, and it would just stop. It’s a known thing; I’m just never gonna get out of this whatever it is. So I’m like, there’s no point, even though I have like 1500 followers on there. I was kind of sad to give that up, but that was why I stopped.
It’s still a good place. If you don’t get accidentally stuck in jail, like I did, people can blow up on there. And it can happen also on Instagram and other places, but I was fairly familiar with BookTok so it seemed like an easy one to do.
Obviously you had you own experiences with gender, and that comes through authentically in Ugliest. But you also capture the nature of the teenagers going through this in a very authentic way. Was there specific research you did to help you find that voice for that experience?
I started reading some YA. I read a lot of YA just in general. So, I find myself pretty in tune with teenage mentality. Because my teenage years were so powerful in a negative way. I so remember being a teenager, so I can get into the mindset, especially with Nic. In the early books even more, Nic is just not really forgiving of other people. They get mad when people judge them, but they judge others. That was kind of based on my own personal experiences.
I have read some LGBTQ+ stuff, and I’ve looked for stuff dealing with gender identity. There’s not a lot of it out there that I’ve been able to find. There’s definitely more than there used to be. So I’ve read some of that. But honestly, I swear, I think most of it just came from putting myself into my teenage head, and just living it through while informed about other things. But that’s really where that voice comes from.
As you’ve said your journey of gender exploration has happened fairly recently. You talk about Nic’s story being fairly autobiographical in Ugly, just reimagined in the 2020s. Growing up when you did, how do you feel things have changed? And how do you feel that that’s positive of negative, the pros and cons of the two times?
I feel like the only really, really important difference is social media, and the Internet in general. And that is both a positive and a negative, because it brings ideas to people who would never, ever experience them otherwise.
Like, I knew about gay people. That was sort of my whole experience when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. I graduated high school in ‘93. So it was more kind of 80s. I didn’t have any of that exposure to ideas. But kids nowadays have that and that’s great. They can sometimes find communities online where they can talk to people and that can be really powerful.
But I personally feel like social media is more negative than positive, especially for teenagers, because it sets them up with such unrealistic expectations about what they should look like and how they should be. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have some positives, but bullying happens on the internet a lot, as we know. And I think that can be really devastating for teens.
And I think just living in a world with the Internet makes everything in life more immediate. If you said something stupid to somebody on a Friday when I was a kid, nobody would know about it till Monday. But in Ugly, Nic does this thing Friday night and Saturday morning their brother is taunting them about it. Everything happens so much faster, which is one of the reasons I think that kids can be more likely to feel suicidal and react more quickly to things instead of having time to kind of mull over it, and maybe calm down. It’s like right there. I think that’s really the main difference.
And also, of course, there’s more understanding of LGBTQ+ people. But there’s also more hate. And it’s a little different. It’s socially acceptable to be hateful now. Whereas back then, it wasn’t even thought about most of the time. I was kind of ignored if people didn’t want to make a deal out of it.
We talked about voting and activism a little bit. In the book, Nic is very busy with everything else. There’s a lot going on. They have this full life that they’re trying to lead. And their identity informs some of it, but their gender isn’t their identity. But they end up in this position where they’re having to be an activist, where they’re having to lead a school walkout. They’re not given a choice there. Was there a particular inspiration for that? And what led to that being included in the book?
I’ve thought a fair bit recently about how unjust it is that people in minority groups have to waste time advocating for themselves, where people who aren’t don’t have to spend that time. It’s no wonder more white men write books and do things, because they have the time. They’re not trying to make the world better.
I remember reading something where the pandemic was actually kind of good for a lot of women in corporate jobs, because they weren’t mentoring as much. They got more of their own work done. And that just really stuck with me. Why do women have to spend so much energy helping other women? Why can’t white men help women? That sort of general idea, that you shouldn’t feel like you have to advocate.
Especially because it’s often more for other people than yourself, because often people who are in a position to help mentor or advocate have already kind of gotten there. They’ve gotten somewhere. They’ve managed to rise above a lot of the challenges and they want other people to be able to do the same. And it’s just not really fair. I mean, what if you don’t want to do it? That’s kind of my thing.
I have a lot of other stuff going on. I kind of feel like this was my contribution, writing these books. But then I also feel like I should do more. And it’s this sense of guilt that I think people have. In a lot of situations, I think if you don’t help, you look like a crappy person to other people.
Having gone through this journey and explored gender through these books, is there anything you’ve taken away from the experience that you’d like people to know?
Actually, one of the things I’ve become aware of in the last six months or less is the incredible benefit to my mental health of recognizing and understanding to myself that I’m agender. Nic kind of talks about this, but I felt like a complete failure at being human, which seems weird, but I just felt like I wasn’t human somehow, in a way. And now that I’ve understood that I don’t fit the gender binary, I don’t feel that way anymore. I’m weirdly more confident. I don’t assume everybody’s going to hate me or think I’m a weirdo like I used to. I talk to people in public sometimes. That never would have happened before because I would have instinctively assumed they wouldn’t like me.
I think that is a valuable thing, even for people who aren’t in a safe place to come out, to just believe that about themselves and to understand that’s what it is. I’ve had a lot of mental health challenges, and I take medicine, and it has helped a ton, but this has been a complete revelation in how I feel.
And in fact, when people used to say things to me about my gender, like personal attacks of some type in public, which used to happen frequently, especially in Oklahoma, I would be shocked and shut down and have nothing to say. I couldn’t respond. And recently I had someone at Target ask me, “Are you a man or a woman? I can’t tell.” And I was shocked for a second. And then I was mad, and never before would I have gotten mad right away.
I cussed her out and I don’t regret it. And I wasn’t out of control or yelling or anything, but I was like, that was sort of amazing. My reaction to that attack was completely different from all of the other ones my whole life. And I think that’s because I understand myself better. So anyways, I think that’s something that people can do for themselves potentially.♦
Ugliest and the rest of Kelly Vincent’s The Art of Being Ugly trilogy, as well as their other books, are available now.
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