“Beam does an admirable job grappling with the complexities of gender, race and class that shape the lives of transgender teens…Beam also manages to draw out warmth, love, and good humor in her empathetic narrative.” –Out

“This is a serious piece of investigative reporting…[and] will prove indispensible to the small but growing literature on transgender teens.” –Curve

 “Beam built a deep understanding of the psyche of disadvantaged transgender youth, and her richly detailed, sympathetic book attempts to paint a picture of their complex lives.” -Bitch

“Beam knows how to tell a story…Whether Beam is recounting statistics from a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on homeless youth or how treatment of transgender people in prison violates the Eighth Amendment, she keeps it stimulating….But it's also a love story about one young woman reaching out and helping another one claim her place in the world.” -San Francisco Chronicle

“Beam vividly conveys the alienation that shapes their lives as she peeks into the bleak underworlds of prostitution and black market hormones.” –Entertainment Weekly

 "A gripping, illuminating, and deeply moving portrait of transgender teens in Los Angeles [where] the smallest incidents reverberate sharply." -Publisher's Weekly (starred review) 

"TRANSPARENT is a remarkable book - captivating, powerful, funny, and wise. Without ever upstaging her subjects, Beam explains how she fell in love with them, and so allows us to do the same. This is literature of the first order."- Andrew Solomon, author of THE NOONDAY DEMON

"These kids are most usually known about rather than known. But Cris Beam knows them. Bless her for so eloquently and respectfully sharing their stories with the rest of us." -Kate Bornstein, author of HELLO, CRUEL WORLD: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws

"Putting aside the gob-smacking strength, humanity, and hard-won wisdom in both the writer and her subjects, TRANSPARENT is just an astonishing book and Cris Beam, an extraordinary talent. This is everything that writing should be: gripping, desperate, heart-breaking and joyous." -David Rakoff, author of DON'T GET TOO COMFORTABLE

 “Every once in a while you come across a book that feels so necessary, a book so engrossing that you want to put a copy of it into everyone’s hands. Transparent is that book.” –Alison Smith, author of NAME ALL THE ANIMALS

 “An unprecedented window into the lives of transgender teens, Transparent is a testament to the resilience of young adults trying to find themselves in a world that would prefer them lost. I couldn’t put it down.” -Rachel Simmons, author of ODD GIRL OUT: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls

"Cris Beam has written a terrific book, both tender and tough, about brave sexual travelers who violate borders in search of new worlds."- Richard Rodriguez, author of BROWN