text-only GENDER book companions

Searchable, selectable, accessible, translatable

Can you help translate the GENDER book?

We have individuals and teams working on text-only versions of the GENDER book in languages they are familiar with, to be released under an Attribution Creative Commons license. You will retain the rights to your translation work, and may use it in any way you like. We are also happy to promote your work, give you lots of credit and thanks, and provide references for jobs, etc. based on your work.

You get a free copy of the book if you want to translate, but other than that, it's pro-bono work until the time (if and when, depending on demand and our time limitations) we are able to fundraise to put your words into an illustrated version (at which time we would pay you per-Chinese illustrated book sold as a co-creator). In the meantime, we'll make your text-only translation available for free on our website, in the interest of sharing important gender knowledge and helping the book reach farther.

If this sounds like something you're still interested in, fabulous! The first step would be to ask around to the community centers and your friends to build a team. we've found the more folks collaborating, the quicker the work goes.

How to start?

1. Download the GENDER ebook and the text-only version if you haven't already. If it's also handy to have a hardcover version of the book while you work (to make notations, or if you have limited screen real-estate), let us know and we'll get you one.

2. Open this google document. It's an all-text English language template for you to start from. If you don't have a google account already, it's free and would help us out a lot with sharing the files.

3. In the top left, under the File menu, click "Make a Copy." Name it "the GENDER book- (your language here) translation" and make sure to check "Share it with the same people" so we can cheer on your progress!

4. Now you can edit away! The first thing to do is fill out the blanks with your name (as you'd like to be credited), and start thinking about your bio, which will go in the creator section alongside ours. :)

5. You may find it helpful to auto-translate a copy of your document- Google has this option under Tools-> translate document (in the top menu). Feel free to copy and paste this auto-translated version into your main document as a starting point, but please do go through it and add the finesse only a human mind can. You are better than a robot!

A note about words: If you get stuck on words that don't exist yet in your language, use your best judgment. You can always leave it in English and define in your language or make a new word in your language that is similar grammatically (i.e. "genderqueer" could translate to a new compound word that combines the semantic equivalents of the "gender" and "funky/queer/weird" words in your language). When in doubt, ask around if you can find transgender communities in your country (or online in their chatrooms, forums, etc.) which words they prefer.