Start with the title. Rebent Sinner is a play on “repent, sinner,” the kind of thing shouted from street corners at people like Ivan Coyote. Change one letter and it becomes something else: a sinner who has been bent, and bent again, and is still standing. Coyote has always been good at taking a slur and turning it into a story.
If you haven’t encountered Coyote yet, you’ve probably heard their name. They’re one of the best-known storytellers and performers in North America, raised in Whitehorse, Yukon, and a fixture on Canadian stages for decades. Their TED talk has been viewed more than 1.6 million times. Rebent Sinner, published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2019, is their twelfth book. The one before it, Tomboy Survival Guide, was shortlisted for a Writers’ Trust prize and named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association.
This collection spans thirty years. It deals with patriarchy and politics as well as the most personal parts of Coyote’s life, and it asks what it means to be trans and non-binary now, when so many people insist on misgendering them or deny they exist at all. There are run-ins with trans-exclusionary activists, legislators and self-appointed bathroom monitors. Anyone who has followed the news about bathroom bills will know exactly how that goes.
But the part that makes this book special is the gratitude. Coyote takes time to honour their personal heroes, including two who matter enormously to lesbian and trans history. Leslie Feinberg wrote Stone Butch Blues, a book that has saved more than a few lives. Ferron is the Canadian folk singer whose songs were the soundtrack of a generation of lesbian kitchens and festivals. Seeing those two named together tells you a lot about where Coyote comes from: the butch, working-class, women’s-music world that raised many of us before the language for trans and non-binary people was widely available.
That’s the bridge this book builds. Coyote speaks to the old dykes who remember Ferron on cassette and to younger trans readers who are just finding their way. To those younger readers, the message is clear. There’s a way out of the dark, and people have walked it before you.
The /books entry calls it “the work of an accomplished artist,” and the book’s candour about Coyote’s own experience is what makes it so human. They’re angry in places, and they have every reason to be. But they’re also tender, funny and generous, and the joy is just as present as the struggle.
This is for Coyote fans, and for anyone who grew up butch or gender-nonconforming in a small town. It’s also for Ferron and Feinberg readers who want to see how that legacy carries forward, for younger trans and non-binary readers looking for elders, and for parents and allies who want to understand what the fight looks like from the inside.
In the comments: who are your heroes, the people whose work made your life possible? Did you discover Ferron or Stone Butch Blues at the right moment? And have you seen Coyote perform live?
Publication details are on the Rebent Sinner entry in the Lesbian Bibliography.