In Raising Harriet, 22-year-old Lorraine Coleman faces challenges raising three young kids in Uravan, Colorado where her husband works as a geologist in 1952. The novel’s setting highlights a little-known chapter in American history when the United States employed civilians to locate uranium during the nuclear arms race with the Soviets. Meanwhile, a Lavender Scare lurked in the shadows of the Red Scare. One casualty of the times, Christine Jorgensen, made international headlines as the first U.S. transgender woman who received hormone treatments and gender-affirming surgeries abroad. The novel opens with Lorraine’s granddaughter, Jessica, unearthing a photograph that compels the older woman to recount the 11-month period when she formed a lasting friendship with Marjorie, a fellow USGS wife and mother. Their friendship enabled Lorraine to relinquish religious trauma and accept her four-year-old son’s claim: “I aint a boy.”