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Date: 2025-04-23 07:28 pm (UTC)I too hunger for more queer variations on the crossdressing trope. The only other one I know of that runs with trans themes for a main crossdressing character is Unmasked by the Marquess, by Cat Sebastian, but tbh other than the gender stuff I found the book merely ok.
You might also find that The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho is relevant to this trope, though. One of the characters is an afab person presenting as a man, and it is unclear what gender he actually identifies as though he isn't a woman, so it might be some form of crossdressing or it might be him dressing in confluence with his gender. I do think that he was written in response to the ubiquity of clearly cis crossdressing girls! the ambiguity is deliberate, as a good representation of how gender can sometimes be complicated, imo.
Oh, and The Unbinding of Mary Reade, by Miriam McNamara, also is doing interesting things with gender and queerness and crossdressing, though coming at it from a different direction. One of the main characters is a cis woman, but for most of her childhood her mother has her pretending to be her dead brother, so in many ways she had the experience of growing up assumed male, and transitioned in adulthood to presenting female, which happens to be her assigned gender at birth. And she gets a wlw romance!
also Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett is entirely about the crossdressing trope, and one of the secondary characters is definitely trans....depending on which edition of the book you have. Different editions use different pronouns for this character after his assigned gender at birth is revealed. But it is obvious from the narrative that he identifies as a man, imo.