The Black Trans Fairy Tales

Let these captivating fairy tale retellings sweep you into happily ever after. Re-imagined as black, trans women, come along with Cinderella, Erika, and Belle as they find love and laughter at the ends of their stories.

Ella’s stepmother insists she’s a boy, but the princess sees her for the woman she is. When Ella is dumped at the edge of the kingdom, she finds strength in herself to create a new life.

Erika’s father sends her across the ocean to the New World, only for a suspicious deckhand to throw her overboard mid-journey. With help from princess Ariel, and a little bit of magic, Erika learns how to live and love under the sea without her voice.

Belle has been harassed by Gaston for years, and escapes into her books and the abandoned castle in the woods to get away. It turns out, the castle isn’t abandoned, and the Guardian who lives there thinks Belle deserves the whole world.

Ella is transgender. She’s known since she was young; being a woman just fit better. She was happier in skirts than trousers, but that was before her stepmother moved in. Eleanor can’t stand her, and after Ella’s father passes she’s forced to revert to Cole, a lump of a son. She cooks, she cleans, and she tolerates being called the wrong name for the sake of a roof over her head. Where else can she go?

An opportunity to attend the royal ball transforms Ella’s life. For the first time, strangers see a woman when she walks down the stairs. While Princess Lizabetta invited Cole to the ball, she doesn’t blink an eye when Cinderella is the one who shows. The princess is elegant, bold, and everything Ella never knew she wanted. For a moment she glimpses a world that can accept her, and she holds on tight.

She should have known it wouldn’t last. Dumped by her wicked stepmother on the farthest edge of the kingdom, Ella must find a way to let go of the princess and the beautiful life they shared for an hour. She’ll never find her way back. But it’s hard to forget the greatest night of her life when every rose she plants is a reminder.

Erika is transgender. She’s known since she was young; being a woman just fit better. She loved to wear her mother’s dresses and tight corsets, but that was before the disease took her mother away. Erika’s father doesn’t see a daughter, he sees a confused son that needs a new start in a new city across the ocean. Erika has no place to go, so with the last of her mother’s dresses she packs for months on a sailing ship.

Halfway across the ocean, Erika’s life is forever altered. She sneaks on deck in her mother’s dress in the dead of night and a superstitious deckhand throws her overboard, dress and all. But drowning at sea isn’t how Erika plans to die. She cuts a deal with a sea witch for more than her life–for the first time, she is transformed into the woman she’s always known was inside. Her dress becomes a mermaid tail and all it took was her voice.

She should have known living her authentic life wouldn’t be so easy, though. The witch wants more than Erika’s voice, she’s on the hunt for the undersea throne, the seat of power. Ariel, the last daughter of the king must marry in three days or the first place Erika has ever called home will be destroyed. The magic of true love is the only thing that can save them now.

Belle is transgender. She’s known since she was young; being a woman just fit better. She enjoys wearing her late mother’s dresses and her father helps braid her hair into any style she can think of. She loves nothing more than to curl up in the courtyard of the abandoned castle in the woods with a mug of hot tea and a new book from her favorite store in town. Her life would be perfect except for one beastly, horrible Gaston. He’s a brute of a man, arrogant, tactless, and he won’t leave Belle alone.

Relief comes from an unexpected place. The castle in the woods isn’t so abandoned, and while the Guardian who lives there can’t speak, Belle learns to communicate with sign language. She discovers a heartbreaking tale and a whole castle full of friends who quickly become extended family. Until Gaston senses Belle slipping from his grasp.

Belle knew ignoring the problem wouldn’t make him go away, and now Gaston threatens more than just Belle’s happiness. He has a sword, an ax, and an entire village of scared people storming the castle to kill the Guardian. He means to steal Belle from the first real community she’s ever found. But Belle has learned a thing or two about the magic of love, and a small man like Gaston can’t destroy that.