A random collection of over 1994 books and audiobooks authored by or about my transgender, intersex sisters, and gender-nonconforming persons all over the world. I read some of them, and I was inspired by some of them. I met some of the authors and heroines, some of them are my best friends, and I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing some of them. If you know of any transgender biography that I have not covered yet, please let me know.
Original title: "Travesti a invencao do feminino etnografia" (Travesti: The Invention of the Feminine – Ethnography) by Helio R. S. Silva.
Helio R. S. Silva has captured the attention of readers eager for fluid and engaging anthropological narratives with his book Travesti a invencao do feminino etnografia. The author presents an ethnography rooted in the Lapa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, approached as a social space and bohemian territory, where the focus of the study is the travesti community. It is precisely in the perplexity this research provokes in readers that the importance of reflection emerges, compelling us to pause and consider the nuances of both the subject and the method.
The study is carefully delimited, encompassing reflections that extend beyond mere humanitarian concern into theoretical and methodological considerations that shape both fieldwork and ethnographic writing. Silva alerts readers to critical issues, including the ever-present relationship between travestis and the broader society, as well as the risks of exoticizing or folklorizing the people under study. These are not abstract concerns but concrete ethical and analytical reflections that guide the ethnographer in approaching a community whose visibility in society is often filtered through sensationalist or stereotypical lenses.
1993,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Full title: "All About Yvie: Into the Oddity" by Yvie Oddly and Michael Bach.
All About Yvie: Into the Oddity, co-written by Yvie Oddly and Michael Bach, is a deeply personal exploration of the life of one of the world’s most unconventional and celebrated drag artists. The memoir traces Yvie’s journey from childhood to international stardom, offering readers an unflinching look at the challenges and triumphs that shaped their identity, artistry, and relationships. Born Jovan Jordan Bridges on August 22, 1993, in Denver, Colorado, Yvie’s early years were marked by a fascination with makeup and dress-up, often in defiance of traditional gender expectations.
Even as a six-year-old, Bridges expressed joy and comfort in skirts and makeup, a preference that would later evolve into the signature drag persona the world now knows. Gymnastics and other physically demanding activities were a part of their youth until a diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome at fifteen prompted a shift toward musical theatre, providing an alternative avenue for physical expression and performance. Yvie’s first encounter with drag came in middle school through the theatrical creativity of a classmate, inspiring their own playful exploration of costuming, attention, and performance. Their formative years included attending East High School and later the Auraria Campus in Denver, both of which contributed to the foundation of their artistry and understanding of self.
2024,
Drag queen,
English,
Yvie Oddly,
Full title: "Becoming Her: Transitioning After Forty" by Mallery GenX.
In a culture that glorifies wrinkle-free ambition and the illusion that personal reinvention expires sometime before your twenty-ninth birthday, Mallery GenX arrives with a story that gently but firmly sweeps that myth aside. Her memoir, Becoming Her: Transitioning After Forty, is an intimate testament to the truth that transformation does not diminish with age. If anything, it becomes richer, deeper, and undeniably more honest. Mallery steps into her womanhood not with the blinding glare of youthful urgency, but with the hard-earned clarity of lived experience. She is not trying to outrun time. She is trying to meet herself.
Before she ever questioned her own reflection, Mallery spent more than two decades helping other people assemble theirs. As a salon owner and stylist, she built confidence with scissors, color, and conversation. She knew how to craft beauty for others down to the smallest detail. What she did not know was how to navigate the quiet ache sitting beneath her own exterior, a longing planted in childhood when she wished she could “be a gul,” spoken in the language of innocence long before she understood what it meant. That longing follows her into adulthood, shadowing her successes and celebrations until the day she finally allows it to take shape in the open.
2025,
English,
Mallery GenX,
Original title: "台灣跨性別前史：醫療、風俗誌與亞際遭逢" (The Prehistory of Transgender in Taiwan: Medical Treatment, Customs, and Inter-Asian Encounters) by Chen Wei-chen (跨性別倡議站).
Chen Wei-chen’s book The Prehistory of Transgender in Taiwan: Medical Treatment, Customs, and Inter Asian Encounters is a rare example of transgender studies written from within the community rather than about it. Published in 2016 by the Transgender Advocacy Station, it appeared during a decade when Taiwanese LGBTQ scholarship was expanding rapidly, yet still tended to focus on the post-martial law era and on narratives that aligned neatly with Western academic categories. Chen’s work deliberately moves in the opposite direction.
Instead of accepting the familiar timeline in which transgender politics enter Taiwan through American second-wave feminism and gay liberation, the book explores what existed before these imported frameworks arrived and before the vocabulary of gender identity and LGBT politics became standardized. It begins with a simple question that turns out to be surprisingly disruptive. What if Taiwan always had its own forms of gender variance, its own aesthetic and cultural expressions, and its own political struggles, long before English terms shaped how such lives could be narrated. By going back into the mid-twentieth century and even earlier, Chen reveals a layered history of people whose lives were often recorded only through the eyes of doctors, journalists, police, and entertainment managers. Their experiences become a window into how Taiwanese society negotiated gender, desire, and respectability under rapidly changing political and economic conditions.
Full title: "All I ever wanted was just to be me" by Sophie Haugh.
Sophie Haugh’s book All I Ever Wanted Was Just to Be Me is an emotional, raw, and deeply personal journey through the complex and often misunderstood experience of gender transition. It is more than a memoir; it is a chronicle of four decades of longing, perseverance, and courage. Over the span of thirty-nine years, Sophie recorded her thoughts, experiences, and emotions, creating a powerful diary of what it means to live a life feeling trapped in the wrong body, and the eventual liberation of becoming who she always knew she was meant to be.
From the very first pages, the reader is drawn into the world of a young boy who senses early on that something about him does not align with what the world expects. This realization, while profound, becomes a lifelong struggle as Sophie faces confusion, rejection, and the internal torment of not being seen for who she truly is. The story unfolds through real events and genuine feelings, revealing both the painful and joyful moments that shaped her life. It is a book that captures the full spectrum of human emotion, fear, despair, hope, and, ultimately, triumph.
2024,
English,
Sophie Haugh,
Full title: "Venus Rising: The Unfinished Life of a Ballroom Icon Venus Xtravaganza" by Eleanor Hystoré.
Eleanor Hystoré’s Venus Rising: The Unfinished Life of a Ballroom Icon Venus Xtravaganza is a work of deep tenderness and fierce illumination. It reaches beyond the glitter of the ballroom floor to reveal the woman behind one of the most unforgettable faces of queer history. Through graceful prose and unflinching honesty, Hystoré brings Venus Pellagatti Xtravaganza back to life, tracing her journey from a teenage dreamer in Jersey City to a radiant symbol of self-creation and resilience in 1980s New York.
The book opens in the small, crowded home where Venus was born on May 5, 1965, the youngest of several siblings in an Italian-Puerto Rican family. Hystoré paints these early years with sensitivity, showing a child already attuned to beauty, movement, and performance. Venus’s first steps toward becoming herself were met with the kind of confusion and rejection familiar to many transgender people of her era. She left home young, seeking a world where her reflection would match her spirit. That world, she soon discovered, existed in the shadowy brilliance of the Harlem ballrooms.
It is here that Hystoré’s storytelling truly begins to shimmer.
2025,
Eleanor Hystoré,
English,
Venus Xtravaganza,
Original title: "Ik ben niet gek, ik ben een meisje. Mijn verandering" (I’m not crazy, I’m a girl. My transformation) by Hanne Wagenvoord. In 2016, the book was published in German under the title Ich bin nicht verrückt. Ich bin ein Mädchen! ("I'm not crazy. I am a girl!").
Ik ben niet gek, ik ben een meisje. Mijn verandering (I’m not crazy, I’m a girl. My transformation) by Hanne Wagenvoord is a deeply moving autobiography that captures one woman’s long and painful journey toward living as her true self. More than a personal memoir, it is a raw and tender exploration of identity, truth, and the price of silence. The book offers an intimate glimpse into the life of a transgender woman who spent half a century trapped in a role that was never hers. Written with honesty and quiet courage, it is both a confession and a celebration, a story about the liberation that comes when truth finally wins over fear.
Hanne Wagenvoord was born as Hans in the small Dutch town of Balkbrug, a child who quickly realized she was different from the other boys. At just six years old, she sensed that something inside her did not align with the expectations around her. While the other boys were racing toy cars and roughhousing in the playground, Hans preferred beautiful clothes and the company of girls. She loved to braid her classmates’ hair, dreaming of attending a household management school after primary school, a path reserved for girls in the conservative eastern Netherlands of the late 1950s. She adored helping the waitresses and cleaning ladies in her brother’s restaurant, listening to their stories about life, love, and laughter. Everything about her interests and gestures pointed toward girlhood, but the world stubbornly insisted that she was a boy.
2014,
Dutch,
Hanne Wagenvoord,
Original title: "Das jüngste Gerücht" (The Latest Rumor) by Frl. Wommy Wonder.
With a wink, a touch of irony, and a cascade of sequins, Das jüngste Gerücht (The Latest Rumor) by Frl. Wommy Wonder invites readers into the dazzling, unpredictable world of one of Germany’s most beloved travesty artists. It is much more than a collection of stage anecdotes or nostalgic memories, it is a vibrant portrait of a performer who has turned humor into philosophy and glitter into a form of resistance. Written by Michael Panzer, the man behind the character of Frl. Wommy Wonder, the book captures not only the laughter of a lifetime spent under the spotlight but also the quiet reflections of someone who has learned to see humanity through both mascara and theology.
Born in 1967 in the Swabian town of Riedlingen, Panzer grew up in a deeply traditional environment, studied Catholic theology and German philology with a focus on ancient languages, and completed his state examination but never entered the teaching profession. Instead, from 1984 onward, he stepped into the heels of Frl. Wommy Wonder, a character that would grow into a cultural landmark of wit, wisdom, and self-assurance. What began as playful performances at local galas soon evolved into a celebrated career that brought humor and tenderness to German cabaret stages.
2006,
Crossdressing,
Frl. Wommy Wonder,
German,
Robyn Casias, also known as Skyler Lott, continues her profound and emotionally charged literary journey through gender, identity, and transformation in her second book, Manlyhood, part of the four-volume series As the Carousel Turns: Gender War. The series traces a deeply personal evolution that begins with Gender Queer, continues through Manlyhood, and expands into The Great Gender Wall of China and Here Comes Meili, Ready or Not. Each book represents a distinct stage of Robyn’s transformation from living as a biologically male individual into embracing her authentic self as a woman. Yet it is in Manlyhood that the author’s internal conflict reaches its most intense and revealing stage, as she builds and then unravels the male persona she was forced to inhabit for much of her life.
In Gender Queer, readers first meet Meili, the author’s inner feminine essence, a joyful, curious, and expressive girl who existed from her earliest memories. Meili’s world was one of imagination, color, and self-expression, but society’s expectations and the limitations of the world around her forced that light to dim. The young Meili was not allowed to bloom openly, and so the author created a mask, a male persona she called Manly. This constructed self became both a shield and a prison, a way to survive in a world that did not understand her.
2020,
English,
Robyn Casias,
Skyler Lott,
Original title: "Entre a Batalha e o Direito: Prostituição, Travestilidade e Trabalho" (Between Battle and Law: Prostitution, Transsexualism, and Work) by Olívia Paixão.
In times when Brazil faces both political stagnation and moments of undeniable progress in the recognition of rights, the release of Olívia Paixão’s book Entre a Batalha e o Direito: Prostituição, Travestilidade e Trabalho stands as a powerful and timely contribution. The book emerges in the same month that the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court affirmed the right of trans women, trans men, and travestis to change their name and gender on official records, marking an important step in the struggle for dignity and legal equality. Against this backdrop, Paixão’s work brings to light another crucial aspect of trans existence often silenced in legal and academic discussions: the realities of trans women and travestis who engage in sex work.
The author, a lawyer and former member of the Human Rights and LGBT Citizenship Center (NUH) at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, has spent years researching and interacting with trans sex workers in the main prostitution zones of her city. Her observations and experiences form the backbone of this book, which is both a legal study and a sociopolitical testimony. She explores the dissonance between the formal language of law and the lived realities of those who fight daily for survival and recognition. The title itself, Between Battle and Law, captures this tension perfectly: the “battle” refers to the everyday struggle of travestis and trans women in the streets, while the “law” represents a world of formal justice that often overlooks them.
2018,
Olívia Paixão,
Portuguese,
Full title: "Blood, Sweat and Suspenders" by Andrea Aston Orme.
In Blood, Sweat and Suspenders, Andrea Aston Orme invites readers to travel with her through a life that defies convention and refuses to fit neatly into any single category. Her memoir unfolds like a vivid tapestry, each thread representing a challenge faced, a triumph earned, and a moment of self-discovery that shaped the person she became. It is a deeply human story, one that pulses with the raw energy of experience and the quiet grace of reflection. From the first page, Andrea makes it clear that hers is not a tale of smooth roads or easy victories. Instead, it is a story forged in the unpredictable fires of life, a story that refuses to be forgotten.
Born in Harrow in 1959, Andrea’s early years were marked by both curiosity and chaos. She grew up in a family that was, by her own admission, somewhat dysfunctional, and her childhood was not without its trials. Yet from a young age, she demonstrated an unyielding determination to explore the world around her, often placing herself in situations that tested both her courage and her capacity for resilience. School offered little comfort, though she left with a few CSEs to her name, including respectable marks in biology and art. At Harrow Technical College she discovered hairdressing, a skill that would become her ticket to independence and a means of creative expression. With credits and a distinction under her belt, she embarked on a career that sustained her through years of adventure, hardship, and transformation across England and beyond.
2024,
Andrea Aston Orme,
English,
Original title: "Para os olhos que não enxergaram a humanidade em mim" (For the Eyes That Didn't See the Humanity in Me) by Maria F. Nicolau.
Maria F. Nicolau’s Para os olhos que não enxergaram a humanidade em mim is not merely a book but an act of defiance, tenderness, and reclamation. It stands as a poetic manifesto written from the edge where the body meets the word, where silence gives way to speech, and where erasure is met with the persistence of existence. Every page breathes the pain and resilience of a life lived at the intersection of rejection and self-affirmation. The title itself, which translates as For the Eyes That Didn’t See the Humanity in Me, challenges the reader before the first line is even read. It dares those who have refused to recognize the author’s humanity to confront the weight of their blindness.
This work is structured into four sections: Gênese Amorosa da Travestilidade, Incisão da Necessidade, Anatomia da Humanidade Negada, and Geografia do Afeto. Each part moves through the layered landscape of travesti experience, one that combines memory, trauma, and revelation in a rhythm that feels both intimate and revolutionary. Nicolau’s writing resists the neat boundaries of genre; it is poetry and testimony, philosophy and cry. Her words are cut from the raw material of life itself, stitched together by the necessity of survival and the hunger for love.
2025,
Brazil,
Maria F. Nicolau,
Portuguese,
Full title: "Sobriety to Love: A Spiritual Life Journey Memoir" by Abigail Sciuto-Rountree.
There are books that reveal the complexity of a person’s soul, and Sobriety to Love: A Spiritual Life Journey Memoir by Abigail Sciuto-Rountree appears to be one of them. Although not much is known about this work, the small glimpse we have invites us into a deeply personal and transformative story. Abigail’s words suggest that this memoir is not just about recovery from addiction but also about self-discovery, healing, and spiritual awakening. She describes her book as a passionate sharing of her life story, from her transgender experience to her journey through addiction and sobriety. That alone sets the tone for an intimate and courageous narrative, one that intertwines struggle with revelation, pain with transcendence.
The title itself, Sobriety to Love, speaks volumes. It evokes the idea of moving from darkness into light, from dependence into self-awareness, and from isolation into connection. Sobriety is often seen as an ending, but in Abigail’s case, it seems to be a beginning, a doorway to love, both divine and human. Her life story seems to weave together the challenges of living authentically as a transgender woman with the equally profound struggle of overcoming addiction. For anyone who has fought for self-acceptance or freedom from destructive patterns, her message resonates as both familiar and inspiring.
2024,
Abigail Sciuto-Rountree,
English,
Susan Faludi’s W ciemni (originally In the Darkroom) is a book that begins like a thunderclap and never really lets up. It opens with an email from Faludi’s estranged father, a person she’s feared, avoided, and tried to forget for more than twenty-five years. The message is brief, almost casual: “Dear Susan, I’ve got some interesting news for you. I have decided that I have had enough of impersonating a macho aggressive man that I have never been inside.” Attached to the email are photos, her father, now wearing a sleeveless chemise and red skirt, signing off as “Love from your parent, Stefánie.” It’s both shocking and oddly intimate, like a ghost returning not to haunt but to demand recognition. Faludi, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and feminist thinker, is suddenly thrust into a story she never expected to write: that of a violent, domineering father who has transitioned into a woman in old age.
The book that follows is not a straightforward memoir or a sentimental reconciliation story. It is an excavation of identity, layered like an archaeological dig where every discovery only leads to another question. Faludi flies to Hungary to meet her newly transitioned father, equipped with tape recorders and reporter’s notebooks, as if bracing herself for an interview rather than a reunion. She finds a woman who insists she is “still your father,” who now wears sundresses and pearl earrings but retains the old authoritarian tone, the same need to control, to shape reality according to her will. The tension between daughter and parent is palpable from the start. Stefánie wants to be seen, adored even, in her new femininity. Susan wants to understand. But understanding, in this case, proves slippery.
2017,
Polish,
Stefánie Faludi,
Susan Faludi,
Full title: "Unveiling Jordan: Beyond The Veil, She Lives On" by Elizabeth Howe and Edward Marsh.
“Unveiling Jordan: Beyond The Veil, She Lives On” by Elizabeth Howe and Edward Marsh is a heartbreaking yet profoundly inspiring memoir that captures the essence of a mother’s unconditional love and the enduring spirit of her daughter. It is a story that reaches far beyond one family’s tragedy and becomes a reflection of humanity’s struggle to understand, accept, and embrace those who live their truth in a world that often turns away. Elizabeth Howe opens her heart and soul on every page, sharing the emotional weight of losing her daughter, Jordan, a young transgender woman whose life was cut tragically short by suicide. What emerges is not only a story of grief but also one of awakening, healing, and the power of remembrance.
At the center of the book stands Jordan Howe, a vibrant young woman filled with dreams, laughter, and a longing for acceptance. She was not defined by her struggles but by her courage to live authentically. Yet, the world around her was not always kind. Jordan faced the invisible battles so many transgender individuals endure, daily confrontations with misunderstanding, rejection, and prejudice. Through Elizabeth’s eyes, readers witness the profound disconnect between who Jordan was and how society chose to see her. The pages pulse with the raw pain of a mother who watched her daughter’s light flicker in the face of relentless adversity, and yet they also reveal the fierce beauty of a love that refuses to fade.
2025,
Elizabeth Howe,
English,
Original title: "Историята на едно обикновено момче, което се превърна в необикновено момиче" (The story of an ordinary boy who became an extraordinary girl) by Petra Hristova (Петра Христова).
There are books that do not simply tell a story but invite the reader to feel every emotion, to walk alongside the author through the valleys of pain and the peaks of self-discovery. The Story of an Ordinary Boy Who Became an Extraordinary Girl by Petra Hristova is such a book. It is not merely an autobiography but a heartfelt confession, a chronicle of courage, transformation, and rebirth. Petra, a 24-year-old woman from Gorna Oryahovitsa, Bulgaria, has written a deeply human and sincere account of what it means to search for one’s true self in a world that often resists difference.
The title may sound simple, but beneath its modest phrasing lies an entire universe of emotion and struggle. Petra’s journey begins long before her transition. From her earliest years, she felt the dissonance between how the world saw her and who she truly was. Even in kindergarten, her interests diverged from those expected of a boy; she was drawn to the toys and play of the girls. In school, she faced ridicule and isolation, branded with the cruel word “gay,” and left without friends. Only a few teachers saw the gentle, intelligent person behind the confusion and pain. Yet these moments of kindness were enough to plant the seed of resilience that would later allow her to bloom.
2022,
Bulgarian,
Petra Hristova,
Full title: "Hiding In Plain Sight: A Memoir" by Dana Abbott. The book was originally published in 2021 under the same title, but with a different name, Theresa Miles. In 2024, Theresa Miles published a sequel, "Full Disclosure: A Memoir".
Dana Abbott’s Hiding in Plain Sight: A Memoir is not the kind of book you simply read and set aside; it’s the kind that lingers, whispering reminders of courage and authenticity long after you close the final page. What began as a simple faith-inspired gratitude journal slowly grew into a profound exploration of identity, faith, and perseverance. For Dana, journaling was not merely an act of reflection, but a lifeline, a framework she clung to both before and after her transition. Through words that feel both intimate and universal, she invites readers to examine their own lives, to peel back the layers of fear and expectation, and to ask the most human question of all: who am I, really?
The memoir serves as more than a personal testimony. It’s a call to action, a mirror held up to society’s unrelenting pace and the individuals left gasping for air in its wake. Dana’s story reaches out to those who have been told to shrink themselves to fit within the limits of others’ comfort. She writes for anyone who has ever lived according to someone else’s script, lost in the chaos of unspoken doubts and unanswered questions. The book gently urges readers, especially LGBTQ+ youth and adults, to begin their own self-analysis, to rediscover what might have been buried under years of conformity. Rediscovery, Dana suggests, is not a single moment but a lifelong process, one of the most valuable and genuine parts of our journey on this Earth.
2021,
2025,
Dana Abbott,
English,
Theresa Miles,
Original title: "Diálogo das Bonecas" (Dialogue of the Dolls) by Jovanna Baby Cardoso da Silva.
In 1992, in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, a groundbreaking book titled Diálogo das Bonecas (Dialogue of the Dolls) emerged as a symbol of resistance, language, and identity. Written by Jovanna Baby Cardoso da Silva, one of Brazil’s most important trans and travesti activists, the book represented far more than a linguistic curiosity. It was the codification of a dialect born on the margins, a language created by travestis to communicate, protect themselves, and affirm their existence in a world that sought to erase them. The work was published by ASTRAL, the Associação de Travestis e Liberados, which was founded in the same year and recognized as the first association of travestis in the world. Both the organization and the book marked the birth of a new era in trans activism, an era in which the community began to name itself and to write its own history.
Diálogo das Bonecas was, in essence, the first dictionary of Bajubá, the secret language spoken among travestis, formed through a mixture of Portuguese, Yoruba, and words drawn from Afro-Brazilian religions such as Umbanda and Candomblé. Bajubá was a living archive of survival, humor, and rebellion. It emerged as a linguistic shield, allowing travestis to express themselves freely without fear of persecution or mockery. In a Brazil where being a travesti was often criminalized, this language became an act of coded defiance and solidarity. Jovanna Baby and her collaborators captured this living speech, transforming it into a written document that preserved the culture and ingenuity of a community that was always spoken about but rarely allowed to speak for itself.
1992,
Brazil,
Jovanna Baby Cardoso da Silva,
Jovanna Cardoso,
Portuguese,
Full title: "Dear Mom and Dad: A Conservative Transgender Memoir" by Camila Eran.
Camila Eran’s book Dear Mom and Dad: A Conservative Transgender Memoir is a raw, courageous, and deeply personal exploration of what it means to navigate life as a transgender person while maintaining a moderate, thoughtful perspective. In this memoir, Eran does not shy away from the emotional and physical realities of gender transition, laying bare her journey with honesty and clarity. She delves into the triumphs, the struggles, and the moments of profound self-discovery that have shaped her experience, offering readers an unflinching look at what it is like to live authentically in a world that often misunderstands or oversimplifies trans lives. Her reflections are as intimate as they are instructive, providing a lens into how transitioning has impacted her body, mind, relationships, and overall sense of self.
More than just a personal account, the book serves as a bridge between trans people and the people who love them. Eran writes directly to parents, family members, and friends who may be seeking clarity, understanding, or guidance. Her approach is compassionate, grounded, and deeply human, avoiding extremes, slogans, or the polarization that too often dominates discussions about gender identity. She takes care to explain her choices and experiences in a way that is accessible and relatable, inviting readers to step into her perspective and appreciate the nuance behind her decisions. Throughout the memoir, she grapples with the challenges of being a transgender person while maintaining a moderate voice, showing that it is possible to embrace one’s identity without subscribing to every prevailing ideology within the community.
2025,
Camila Eran,
English,
Original title: "Mi Cofre del Tesoro: Un viaje para encontrar la llave de mi felicidad" (My Treasure Chest: A Journey to Find the Key to My Happiness) by Paola Elena Flores.
In Mi Cofre del Tesoro: Un viaje para encontrar la llave de mi felicidad (My Treasure Chest: A Journey to Find the Key to My Happiness), Paola Elena Flores invites readers to embark on a deeply personal exploration of what it means to live authentically after years of conforming to roles imposed by family, faith, and culture. The book opens with a haunting question: what if the key to your happiness has always been in your own pocket, but you were taught to use everyone else’s? From this starting point, Paola builds a powerful metaphor that frames the entire memoir. Each of us, she suggests, is born with a treasure chest filled with joy, hope, and extraordinary moments, yet the chest is locked. Those around us, parents, teachers, and spiritual leaders, offer their keys, promising fulfillment if we follow their path. But for many, those borrowed keys fail to open the chest. Instead, they lead to guilt, shame, and a persistent feeling of not belonging.
Paola’s story is set against the backdrop of a strict fundamentalist Christian upbringing in Mexico, where faith dictated not only behavior but identity itself. From a young age, she was taught that happiness lay in obedience, sacrifice, and adherence to spiritual authority. As a youth pastor and seminary student, she tried to embody the perfect servant of God, a devoted husband and father who lived according to scripture. Yet beneath that façade was a deep and growing dissonance, an unspoken truth about who she really was. Her memoir unfolds as a battle between the person she was told to be and the person she always knew she was inside.
2025,
Mexico,
Paola Elena Flores,
Spanish,
Full title: "ULTRAVIOLET: A little outside the visible range" by Ariane Keudel.
Ariane Keudel’s book Ultraviolet: A Little Outside the Visible Range is not just an autobiography, it is a confession, a meditation, and a shimmering portrait of a woman who dared to live beyond the boundaries of what most people would call ordinary light. Translated from the original German edition Ultraviolett: Ein wenig außerhalb des sichtbaren Bereichs, this work takes the reader on a journey through the spectrum of existence, where love and loss, order and chaos, and spirituality and self-destruction blend into one luminous story. It is a book written from the edge of visibility, where reality fades into something mystical and deeply human.
Ariane begins her story with Andi, her brother, companion, and soulmate in spirit, the person whose life embodied the idea of living “a little outside the visible range.” He had a saying, “Lilac is the color of the season,” a phrase that became both a joke and a philosophy. Lilac, teetering on the border of ultraviolet, became his identity, a color just barely perceptible, one that suggests beauty, mystery, and transience all at once. Through him, Ariane introduces the central metaphor of the book: that some lives, like certain colors, are not easily seen but are nonetheless powerfully felt. Andi’s life, full of flamboyance and longing for recognition, becomes the first prism through which Ariane examines her own existence, her search for meaning, and her belief in the invisible patterns that connect us all.
2023,
Ariane Keudel,
English,
Original title: "Travestis brasileiras e escolas (da vida): cartografias do movimento social organizado aos gêneros nômades" (Brazilian transgenders and schools (of life): cartographies of the organized social movement to nomadic genders) by Adriana Sales.
The book Travestis brasileiras e escolas (da vida): cartografias do movimento social organizado aos gêneros nômades by Adriana Sales is a groundbreaking and deeply personal exploration of transgender existence and resistance in Brazil. It does not merely analyze the lives of travestis from an external academic perspective, but instead speaks from within their world, blending experience, activism, and research into a single, powerful narrative. What makes this work so important is that it was written by someone who has lived the history she describes. Adriana Sales is herself a travesti, an activist who has been part of the organized trans movement in Brazil since 1998. Her position as both an insider and a scholar allows her to approach her subject matter with sensitivity, complexity, and courage.
2020,
Adriana Sales,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Full title: "Beyond Gender Binaries: The History of Trans, Intersex, and Third-Gender Individuals (History of the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement)" by Rita Santos.
Rita Santos’s Beyond Gender Binaries: The History of Trans, Intersex, and Third-Gender Individuals opens with a bold and compassionate mission to remind readers that gender diversity is not a modern invention but a timeless reality woven through human history. Santos dives into the deep and often overlooked history of gender variance, exploring how people across time and cultures have lived, loved, and existed beyond the narrow categories of male and female. She writes with an awareness that while societies may have used different terms, gestures, or rituals to describe gender-nonconforming individuals, the essence of those experiences has always been part of humanity’s story.
From ancient civilizations to contemporary movements, the book traces how concepts of gender have been understood and redefined. Readers are taken on a journey through societies where gender diversity was celebrated as sacred and others where it was punished or erased. Santos highlights, for example, the revered roles of two-spirit people among Indigenous nations in North America, the hijras of South Asia who have existed for centuries as a recognized third gender, and the sworn virgins of the Balkans who challenged gender norms for social or familial reasons. Through these stories, the author shows that gender variance is neither new nor rare, but an enduring thread in the fabric of human life.
2018,
English,
Rita Santos,
Original title: "Gorset, wstyd i kocie uszka. O transkobiecości" (Corset, Shame, and Cat Ears: On Transfemininity) by J. Szpilka.
“Corset, Shame, and Cat Ears: On Transfemininity” by J. Szpilka is one of those rare books that reshapes the conversation about trans lives without asking for pity or applause. It refuses to be another elegy about violence or another manifesto pleading for respect. Instead, it insists on life, messy, sensual, awkward, intellectual, and sometimes hilarious life. Szpilka’s book is a kind of reclamation, a way of saying that transfemininity does not need to justify itself through pain. It exists, it shines, it plays video games, reads theory, shops for corsets, listens to music, and dreams of better worlds.
Szpilka weaves a deeply personal yet sharply analytical narrative that draws from feminist theory, pop culture, erotic fantasy, and lived experience. There are traces of growing up in front of computer screens, of navigating shame and pleasure, and of learning to inhabit a trans life with tenderness rather than apology. The book’s rhythm moves between theory and confession, between citation and emotion. It is part essay, part love letter, part resistance text. Szpilka does not simply talk about transfemininity as a category; she performs it on the page, with all its contradictions intact. Her writing feels like an invitation to witness the texture of being trans rather than a demand to understand it.
2024,
J. Szpilka,
Polish,
Full title: "My 60 Years To Womanhood" by Cathy Heart.
Cathy Heart’s My 60 Years To Womanhood stands as a remarkable chronicle of courage, endurance, and the lifelong pursuit of authenticity. It is not simply a memoir but a testament to identity and resilience, beginning with a universal truth that transcends gender or orientation, that the world can be a hard and often hostile place for those who do not easily fit into society’s pre-drawn boxes. Through the lens of Cathy’s sixty-year journey, the reader is invited into a deeply personal and profoundly human story about living as a transgender woman in a world that has not always been kind or understanding. Her story is both an intimate confession and a quiet revolution, one that asks readers to abandon prejudice and embrace empathy.
At its heart, this book is about time, how much of it can be spent trying to live up to others’ expectations, and how precious it becomes once a person decides to live for themselves. Cathy’s journey toward womanhood is not a straight line but a long, looping path filled with uncertainty, discovery, and a stubborn kind of hope. From her earliest awareness of a dissonance between body and mind to her later years navigating a medical and social landscape that often seemed indifferent, Cathy tells her story with an honesty that is both raw and graceful. Her reflections give shape to an experience many transgender people know too well: that being Trans is not a choice, nor a condition to be “cured,” but an integral part of one’s being that deserves understanding rather than judgment.
2024,
Cathy Heart,
English,
Original title: "Amore e Rinascita di una Donna Transgender" (Love and rebirth of a transgender woman) by Nina Gaia.
“Amore e Rinascita di una Donna Transgender” by Nina Gaia is not just a story about transition or love. It is a declaration of authenticity, an emotional excavation that dares to touch the fragile and luminous corners of being human. Through her debut work, Nina opens the door to her inner world, offering readers an intimate portrait of pain, rebirth, and the search for a love that transcends gender, boundaries, and fear. Born in Milan, Nina Gaia decided to write this book after experiencing a painful personal loss that became the turning point of her life. Out of sorrow came a voice that refuses to remain silent, a narrative that transforms wounds into wisdom. She writes not only as a transgender woman but as a person reclaiming the right to be whole again, even when everything seems shattered. The title itself, “Love and Rebirth,” captures the dual movement of her story: the descent into heartbreak and the ascent toward rediscovery of self.
Nina describes how love, in its most intense and karmic form, can devastate but also awaken. Her reflections on separation and longing are not sentimental; they are lucid, almost philosophical. She explains that when a relationship ends, it can open a path to greater consciousness, as though the loss itself were an initiation. What she calls “karmic loves” are the relationships that strip us bare, exposing our shadows and fears. These experiences, though painful, are sacred lessons that guide us toward a deeper understanding of who we are and what we truly seek. Her writing invites readers to see heartbreak not as an ending but as a sacred passage.
2024,
Italian,
Nina Gaia,
Full title: "Closest Thing to Heaven: A Memoir" by Michael DaQueen.
In Closest Thing to Heaven: A Memoir, Michael DaQueen opens the curtain on the messy, magnificent, and utterly magnetic first three years of her life in New York City. This is not a polished fairy tale of instant stardom but a confessional scrapbook of heartbreaks, drag shows, and late-night subway rides, written with the rhythm of a queen who’s equal parts performer and poet. DaQueen, a self-proclaimed hopeless romantic and proud West Coast transplant, invites readers to walk beside her through the glitter-streaked chaos of becoming an artist in a city that both seduces and devours. It’s a book that doesn’t just tell a story, it dances, lip-syncs, and sometimes limps through one.
From her earliest memories of sitting beside her mother as Sex and the City played on television, little Michael dreamed of Manhattan’s magic. The skyline was her fairy godmother; the flashing lights of Broadway were her birthright. Yet before she ever set foot on those fabled streets, she was cutting her teeth in the suburbs of Los Angeles, hosting drag shows in neighborhood bars where regulars cheered from barstools and queens borrowed wigs from one another. The pandemic shut that world down, but it also cracked open the possibility of something new. When her local bar announced it wasn’t reopening, she felt a tug, part grief, part destiny. She packed up her life, said goodbye to California, and landed in New York in the spring of 2021, with a suitcase full of sequins and a heart still healing from a breakup.
2024,
Drag queen,
English,
Michael DaQueen,
"Mau Género" (Wrong Gender) is the Portuguese language version of "Mauvais genre" (Wrong Gender) by Chloé Cruchaudet.
Chloé Cruchaudet’s Mau Genre (Mauvais genre in French, Wrong Gender in English) is one of those graphic novels that stays with the reader long after the last page has been turned. Inspired by true events, it tells the remarkable story of Paul and Louise Grappe, an ordinary Parisian couple whose lives are transformed by the brutality of war, the fluidity of gender, and the search for freedom in a society bound by rigid norms. Cruchaudet’s work moves beyond historical retelling and ventures into an exploration of identity, trauma, and the unstable boundaries between love and destruction.
At its core, Mau Genre begins as a love story. Paul and Louise meet, fall in love, and marry just before the outbreak of the First World War. Their happiness, however, is short-lived. Paul is called to the front, and what he experiences in the trenches shatters any illusion of heroism or glory. Cruchaudet captures these early war scenes with a chilling economy of color and form. Black and sickly green dominate, evoking both the decay of human life and the collapse of reason. Paul’s trauma manifests in hallucinations and despair; when a comrade’s head is blown apart before his eyes, he loses all sense of self. To escape the unbearable cycle of violence, he mutilates himself, hoping for discharge. Yet the army is merciless, and Paul soon faces the prospect of being sent back. Terrified, he deserts and makes his way to Paris, where Louise hides him in their tiny room.
2023,
Chloé Cruchaudet,
Portuguese,
