A random collection of over 1910 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.
1994,
Bettina Rheims,
English,
Kim Harlow,
""I'll tell you... I'm not a woman", confesses Kim Harlow in this collaborative autobiography, a project with photographer Bettina Rheims. Kim was a model of Bettina Rheims in her book Modern Lovers and the central figure in Les Espionnes, and she was born a man. She died as a woman in Paris in 1992 from AIDS. This book is with Kim, but also by Kim. She had started writing about her life and why and how she decided to become a woman."
"Harlow was unable to finish her story. Her last lines are about a friend of hers who fell to AIDS. And it was that illness that cut short this work, her work. She entrusted those close to her to finish, fully aware that her days were numbered. We put together her notes, tape-recorded and written down. Not a word was crossed out in her chapters, written in a single, incisive outpouring."
I found a short article about Kim Harlow on dazeddigital.com: "The first time I saw Kim was in The Other Side, Nan Goldin’s seminal work on gender, topless backstage at the famous Carrousel de Paris or at home in front of a painting of herself. That still has to be one of my favorite pictures of Nan.
I was quite young when I saw the book and other than a few Andy Warhol films I knew nothing of art. I guess Warhol and Nan are both entry points to the world of art for many people. The pictures showed me a world I never even thought about and here was this girl living in Paris working at Le Carrousel, it seemed anything was possible.
Kim was so real, not a caricature. She also had ties to the art world of Paris which is where Mark W. Suits met her."
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