What is the GENDER book?

The GENDER book is a colorful visual primer on the world of gender. It's a 90-page, fully-illustrated, educational book that teaches - and unteaches - some of the basics of gender theory in a way that is super fun, non-judgy, and full of COLOR. It's a handsome hardback book that you can sit and read in one sitting. 

• Use this book as a resource for therapists and other health professionals, as well as in classrooms and organizations.
• Use this book to help you or someone you know come out to family and friends.
• This book can change the world for gender minorities, one opened mind at a time. 

What can you do to help?

Those numbers seem a little random; how'd you come up with that? Glad you asked. 

UPDATE Yay! As of 2:33pm December 3rd, we have met our initial goal. The first printing of the GENDER book is on! But remember folks, that was just our minimum. Now we can just have fun and see how far we can reach! Please keep up ordering your copies and telling your friends to do the same, and we'll rock this out until the new year! We've said all along, the real game is for $50,000. 

Why crowdsource it?

Have you ever printed a book before? We sure hadn't! We are three committed queers from Texas on a mission. Our research told us that print-on-demand, while awesome for lots of things, is pretty cost-prohibitive. For the kind of full-color, illustrated, hardback books we want at the quality we need, it just isn't feasible. So we looked into other options. We chose to send the book out for printing, but to do that, we need a bulk order. And to place a bulk order, we need the monies up front. This is where you come in. By ordering now - during the month of December only - you can secure your very own copy of the GENDER book, and we can fulfill our 1,000 copy print minimum to make it affordable to everyone.

The Impact

Your contribution goes straight into the project, to cover our print and shipping costs*. When we meet our goal, we will have a first print edition premiere of the book into the world, and you will have your very own copy, as well as some other exclusive goodies! With every contribution, you can choose to keep your book or donate it to a worthy cause- a GLBT center, library, or school of your choosing. 

Order an extra for friends and family- we'll give you an ebook to gift by Dec 25th. We truly believe art and education can change the world. For every dollar we make, we vow to donate 50 cents back into the community through free books and educational materials.

Feel-good bonuses

• The ebook will be available online free forever: We are committed to keeping the ebook online for free on our website in the interest of sharing lifesaving information. 

• All pages are free for educational use All our work is generously creative commons-licensed, which means educators and allies can use any image from the book to help teach the world about gender, so long as the images are unedited, the source is clear, and the educator is not making $$ off of it.   

• Book scholarship program: We will set aside a portion of all books printed to give away completely free of cost to the recipient (this can be an individual who could not otherwise afford it, a GLBT community center, a high school club, a public library, a health professional or a nonprofit, just to name a few options), provided they write an essay about how the book would be helpful to them and how they plan on sharing it. See our goals (above) for how many we can afford to set aside for this important work. You can also donate as many of your copies as you'd like to our scholarship program and we'll give them in your name- just let us know by email.

the GENDER book is a book of over 200 peoples stories want to see some of them?

click here

Why buy one now?

Frankly, as it stands right now, this is your only chance to get a copy of the book printed. While we might maybe possibly do print-on-demand later to keep it available, it's going to be more expensive and less high quality. Only by ordering in bulk can we get discounts and true offset printing. This is your chance to get it first, in the best quality, and help the most people. Plus, you get exclusive content and goodies and recognition. Score!

Other Ways You Can Help

Some people just can’t contribute financially, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help:

• Earn a FREE copy of the book by spreading the word! (Learn more!)
• Please, use your social might! Tweet about us, like us on Facebook, or write a blog post! 
• You are more popular and more important than you could ever know! Thanks for helping us get the word out.

Thank you for all that you do!

With deep community love,

Mel Reiff Hill, Jay Mays, and Robin Mack

Creators of the GENDER book

* The Fine Print Shipping is free worldwide for digital Perks. The cost of shipping is included for tangible Perks shipped in the United States. For our international friends, thank you for allowing us to follow up with you to cover extra international shipping costs. Please note that some Perks could be shipped separately from other Perks in the campaign. And please know that printing and shipping could take longer than projected due to unforeseen hiccups in the production and distribution process. We are prepared to be in full communication with each of our contributors about any out-of-our-hands delays. Thank you for your support.

WIN FREE BOOKS!

We will send a free, autographed copy of the GENDER book to folks just for sharing and caring about the project. The person who refers the most # of people total, the most # of contributors, and the most # of dollars will each win their bonus signed copy. All you have to do is use the Indiegogo share tools while logged into your (free) Indiegogo account and we'll track it magically. 

For more ways to win books and other prizes, or for extra creative ideas to help out team GENDER book, you can join the GENDER SCOUTS for weekly assignments and updates. 

MEET YOUR PERKS

Shiny 11x17 posters signed by the artist

1, 4, 10, 30? We've got you covered! Looking for EVEN more books for your store, school district, or library? Email us and we'll hook you up with wholesale discounts.

For a cool grand, the GENDER book's resident artist Mel will draw you (or a loved one) into any page of the GENDER book. Neat! Other ideas include sneaking in a pet, or swapping some words around. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination!

What the original art looks like- the ultra-limited piece-of-history pencil & ink sketches made in the creation of a page process- not photocopies or facsimilies.