Late post is late.

So. I was reading a random, generic, happy-ever-after book. It was OK, certainly the author is good at what she does, and overall I was pretty happy about having read it. It certainly didn't feel like I was wasting my time.
However, certain aspects displeased me immensely. Disclaimer: I'm a white, straight, cis-gendered woman. So, I am privileged in many ways and am still learning in many ways about politics and levels of privilege. This may very well come across as an ignorant post and if it does, I apologise because I mean no harm.
Anyway, onwards. There is a character in the book called Bella. Who is clearly a transwoman, but for most of the time she is referred to as 'he', and we know her primarily as him because she appears mostly in pre-op mode. I admit, I yelled in my head to the author to call her 'her', rather than 'him', until the end when she appears as a woman and is referred to as such. So, possibly got on my high horse. But throughout the book, language such as 'poof' and 'queer' was used; harmful language, the kind of language that can scar a kid. And, okay, that is realistic. It's used all the time. But I would have liked to have seen the characters pulled up on this implicit homophobia in some sense-for Bella herself to challenge these characters in their viewpoint. Instead, she is a caricature; catty, bitchy gay man pre-op who is possessive over his best mate and unnecessarily shitty to everyone else.
And if this bothers me, generic white-straight gal, I can only imagine what it must do to gay men and women reading this. Maybe I'm overreacting, but it annoyed me. So, a question. Can anyone recommend any books who deal with gender-identity, or sexual-identity, problems in a sympathetic, readable manner? I need to expand my reading material, and would like to start here, I think.