Livia Prüll’s book Trans im Glück – Geschlechtsangleichung als Chance: Autobiographie, Medizingeschichte, Medizinethik is both a deeply personal narrative and a scholarly exploration of medicine, ethics, and identity. The title itself, which translates as Trans in Luck – Gender Reassignment as an Opportunity, reflects the author’s optimistic and empowering approach to trans identity. Rather than treating transness as a medical problem or psychological condition, Prüll sees it as a chance for growth, self-knowledge, and fulfillment.
The book blends autobiography with the history and ethics of medicine, offering readers a rare and honest insight into what it means to live and think as both a scientist and a trans woman.
Prüll, a historian of medicine and science, uses her own life as a framework to explore broader questions about identity, authenticity, and human diversity. She describes trans identity as the lack of congruence between one’s physical body and inner sense of self, but she refuses to see this as a deficit. Instead, she frames it as a complex and meaningful part of human variation. In keeping with the so-called “practical turn” in the history of science, Prüll argues that personal experience can and should inform scholarly inquiry. For her, understanding and empathy are inseparable from knowledge. By connecting her personal transformation to her professional expertise, she shows that the two are not opposites but complementary dimensions of a thoughtful and engaged life.
The book unfolds as both a personal journey and a work of reflection.
Prüll writes in accessible language, making her ideas available not only to academics but also to readers who may be struggling with questions of gender identity themselves. She takes the reader from the first moments of realizing her own trans identity to the wider philosophical question of what it means to live a trans life with purpose. She offers advice and encouragement to other trans people and their families, while also providing guidance for doctors and psychotherapists who work with trans clients. Her experience as a medical historian allows her to situate trans issues within a broader historical and ethical framework, showing how ideas about gender and medicine have evolved and how they continue to shape people’s lives today.
Prüll’s narrative is as much about reconciliation as it is about transformation. She presents herself as a person of many crossings and combinations: her mother came from Bremen, her father from Munich, she was raised Protestant yet spent a decade with Catholic scouts, and she studied both medicine and the humanities. This hybrid identity, she writes, was always part of her nature, and her gender transition became another layer in that lifelong exploration of complexity. For her, living as a trans woman did not erase her past as a man but integrated both aspects into a fuller, more authentic self. The liberation of her “inner woman,” as she describes it, did not destroy the man she once was; it completed her.
The author also extends her discussion to the role of medicine, arguing that the relationship between trans people and the medical profession must change. Historically, medicine has pathologized trans identities, subjecting individuals to rigid standards of diagnosis and treatment. Prüll challenges this tradition by emphasizing the ethical duty of doctors to listen, learn, and support rather than control or define. Her own medical background gives her argument particular weight, as she speaks both from professional authority and lived experience. She calls for a shift from viewing gender transition as a medical correction to understanding it as a collaborative process of personal development.
In addition to its autobiographical sections, the book functions as an educational resource. Prüll’s discussion of the history of medical and ethical approaches to gender identity offers new insights for scholars and practitioners alike. She shows how attitudes toward trans people have mirrored wider social and cultural assumptions about gender, body, and morality. By contextualizing these issues historically, she helps the reader understand why old prejudices persist and how they can be dismantled. Her writing invites both experts and lay readers to rethink what it means to be human in a world that often values conformity over authenticity.
At the same time, Prüll remains a teacher at heart. She continues to work at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, where she leads the Institute for History, Theory, and Ethics of Medicine. Her academic work has long focused on how ethical reflection and historical awareness can improve medical practice. In this book, she extends that mission to the field of trans health, advocating for a more inclusive and humane understanding of diversity. She has been outspoken in her criticism of the German Transsexual Law, which she considers a violation of dignity and self-determination. Her activism reflects her belief that science and ethics must serve the cause of freedom, not control.
Trans im Glück* is thus more than an autobiography; it is a statement of principle. It bridges the gap between personal story and academic inquiry, between emotion and reason. It invites readers to see trans identity as a path toward meaning rather than confusion, and as an example of how deeply the personal and the intellectual can be intertwined. Through her candid narrative and her rigorous scholarship, Livia Prüll gives us a book that is both intimate and universal. She shows that to live authentically, to embrace one’s own complexity, and to contribute to the understanding of others are not separate goals but parts of the same lifelong journey.
Available via Amazon
and livia-pruell.de
Photo via livia-pruell.de
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