Failing Forward, Over A Decade of Queer and Trans Liberatory Writings
Texts by Be Oakley and Yvonne LeBien
Designed by Be Oakley
1st Edition of 335
Risograph Printed (Black, Flat Gold, and Raspberry)
Published by GenderFail
Queens, NY, October 2026

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Failing Forward, Over A Decade of Queer and Trans Liberatory Writings is an anthology publication featuring 19 essays spanning over a decade of work by GenderFail Press. Many of the included works are many out of print by GenderFail founder Be Oakley and editor Yvonne LeBien.  These 160 pages encompass the best of our ongoing and hopefully lifelong practice of queer and trans focused independent self-publishing. This book, retitled Failing Forward, is the extended successor of our GenderFail, a Decade of Queer and Trans Libratory writing. Each new edition features texts not included in any previous editions. This edition features new essays published for the first time in this series, including Against Pride During a Fucking Genocide, As Glamorous as a Rotting Animal: Queerness and Mental Health, and Radical Softness as a Boundless Form of Resistance, An Essay and Reflection.  If you are new to GenderFail, this handmade 160-page risograph-printed book is the perfect way to start exploring our work.

From the preface to the book:

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we released our first GenderFail Reader. This first edition compiled essays from previously published zines and other written essays by myself (Be Oakley) and my partner, Yvonne LeBien. We have published four volumes of our GenderFail Reader series in the last three years. This book you are currently holding is a capstone of all four volumes, including essays, artworks, and ideas that have helped to formulate GenderFail during the last 10 years of the project. These essays speak to the interests, research, and passions that drive GenderFail and highlight the powerful agency behind self and small publishing. I hope that these essays inspire you to future actions, dreams, hopes, and new worlds that center people and communities fighting for a world without colonialism, white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and heteronormative oppression."