Stag Dance
“The whole world monitors and mocks my every waking moment!”
Title: Stag Dance
Author: Torrey Peters
Published: March 2025
Deep in the forest, a group of restless lumberjacks working an illegal logging outfit plan a winter dance that some will volunteer to attend as women; the broadest, strongest axeman finds himself caught in a rivalry with a pretty, young jack that culminates in jealousy, betrayal and an astonishing spectacle of transition. Meanwhile, in other times and places, the gender apocalypse is brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend; an illicit boarding-school romance surfaces intrigue and cruelty; and a Las Vegas party weekend turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between a thrilling mystery man or a veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.
In this quartet of tales, Torrey Peters' keen eye for the rough edges of desire reveals fresh possibilities. Acidly funny, boldly inventive and breathtaking in scope, Stag Dance provokes and unsettles, inspires and delights.
Letter From the Author
Dear Reader,
Thank you for taking a chance on Stag Dance. It took me about a decade to write — a decade that started with the period just after my gender transition and ran through the year or so after I published my first novel. Each time that I encountered something puzzling, incongruous, upsetting, or even infuriating, I found myself wanting to figure it out in narrative form (usually a novel or novella). Fiction can be a great test case for living. You just give your characters problems similar to (or more extreme than) your own, then leave it to them to solve — or at least, to better articulate. But looking back over what I wrote, I found that many of the pieces asked an ambiguous question by ghostly subtext: What does it even mean to be trans?
Obviously, in a general or political sense this question has been asked and answered many times over. But ot address the puzzles put to me by living life, I felt I needed to evade the usual approaches to the question. I needed to find a back door. Let me put it this way: Almost everything I read about transness seeks to complicate, destabilize, or even break down the binary between male and female, masculinity and femininity, men and women. That’s al well and good but, to be honest, after by first novel, Detransition Baby, I’ve felt less interested in exploring those distinctions.
What interests me, what has always interested me, is the binary between cis and trans. Where is the line? Is it even a binary?
This seems sort of theoretical. But that’s where Stag Dance comes in. This is m attempt to explore the murky and taboo edges of transness, where it’s not even clear what transness or cisness even is, where imperfect politics and outré sexuality lurk. Where we are just people yearning, crashing, loving, and messing up. I wrote these four pieces across genres, across time periods, and yes, across and within genders. I hope that the carried reveals a constant. By the end of Stag Dance, I hope you own views and certainties may have gotten a shake, so that you can’t for sure who counts as trans, who counts as cis. not only within the book, but even, and perhaps more freeingly, when you look up from the page.
With gratitude for your reading time,
Torrey
@torreyadora @serpentstail
#StagDance
Discussion Questions
Stag Dance spans multiple genres from historical fiction, dystopia, romance, to horror. How does the blending of genres shape the book’s exploration of gender and identity? Did any genre choices surprise you?
How do the stories in Stag Dance challenge traditional narratives of gender and sexuality? Were there moments that shifted your perspective or made you reconsider certain assumptions?
Humour and playfulness appear throughout the collection, even when tackling complex themes. Did you find any moments particularly funny or mischievous? How does this tone affect your reading experience?
The Masker explores the intersections of fetish, queerness, and gender identity, revealing complicated power dynamics. How did this story make you feel, and what questions did it raise for you?
Stag Dance, the title story, builds towards a striking and dramatic conclusion. What stood out to you about its structure and pacing?
The stories resist simple categorisation of gender identities, often complicating common narratives. How did this complexity enhance or challenge your engagement with the book?
The speculative elements in Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones imagine a world where people can no longer produce their own sex hormones. What does this premise suggest about control, autonomy, and the body?
The Chaser follows a young student in a Quaker boarding school navigating desire and repression. How does the setting influence the character’s sense of self?
Though written over a decade, the stories in Stag Dance feel connected. What themes or ideas do you see running through the collection as a whole?
This collection moves away from the contemporary, urban setting of Detransition, Baby and explores a range of historical and speculative landscapes. How does this shift in setting affect your understanding of the author’s body of work?
Many characters in these stories lack the language to fully articulate their identities. How does this affect their journeys, and what does it say about how gender has been understood in different times and spaces?
Were there any stories that made you feel particularly uncomfortable, unsettled, or deeply moved? Why do you think the author leans into these emotions?
Further Reading
Interview with Torrey Peters by Attitude
https://www.attitude.co.uk/culture/stag-dance-author-torrey-peters-trans-shame-horny-lumberjacks-483379/
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/books/review/stag-dance-torrey-peters.html
The Guardian Book Review
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/21/stag-dance-by-torrey-peters-review-genre-games-and-gender-mischief
