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.
Full title: "Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America" by Esther Newton.
"For two years Ester Newton did field research in the world of drag queens - homosexual men who make a living impersonating women. Newton spent time in the noisy bars, the chaotic dressing rooms, and the cheap apartments and hotels that make up the lives of drag queens, interviewing informants whose trust she had earned and compiling a lively, first-hand ethnographic account of the culture of female impersonators.
Mother Camp explores the distinctions that drag queens make among themselves as performers, the various kinds of night clubs and acts they depend on for a living, and the social organization of their work. A major part of the book deals with the symbolic geography of male and female styles, as enacted in the homosexual concept of "drag" (sex role transformation) and "camp," an important humor system cultivated by the drag queens themselves."
1972,
English,
Esther Newton,
Original title: "I travestiti" (The transvestites) by Lisetta Carmi, (Rome, Essedi, 1972).
This is a photographic book with about 150 black and white shots on a phenomenon that – at the beginning of the 70s – did not fail to cause a sensation, gender identity. The volume was originally equipped with a paper dust jacket (now very rare) to hide from view a cover that for the time was considered particularly scandalous.
The photos were shot in Genoa from 1965 to the early 1970s. It is an intimate and deeply sensitive meditation on sexual identity. Lisetta Carmi was the first professional artist to photograph the transgender community.
1972,
Italian,
Lisetta Carmi,
Full title: "Behold I am a Woman Now" by Dianna Boileau.
"Behold, I Am a Woman Now" by Dianna Boileau moved me deeply, evoking tears as I read. I had thought that my own transition posed immense challenges, but Boileau’s experience, set against the backdrop of the 1960s and 70s, was far more harrowing.
In the preface, we are introduced to a compelling narrative: "Now Dianna tells her story. The story of a boy growing up to discover he was a girl in every way but in physical form. The story of a boy forced by society to live a secret life of shame and degradation in the night world of the sexual outcast. A story that is bizarre, startling, shocking—but one that is deeply human and courageous, a moving plea for tolerance and understanding of individual sexual preferences, no matter how unconventional they may be."
In a 2016 article in The Spectator, Dianna was described as “the woman who was trans before her time.” In 1970, she made headlines as one of the first Canadians to undergo gender-affirming surgery. She also published one of Canada’s earliest trans memoirs, only to retreat from the public eye, marry, and embrace a life away from the spotlight of being a trans pioneer.
As The Spectator aptly noted, this was the life Boileau had always yearned for: "one in which she could simply be another woman."
Dianna Boileau (born c. 1929 or 1930 – 2014) was a Canadian transgender woman, one of the first in the country to undergo gender-affirming surgery. She began living as a woman in her late teens. Born in Manitoba, Boileau spent her adolescence in Fort Frances, Ontario. At the age of 17, she began publicly presenting as female. Boileau later lived in Calgary and Edmonton, where she worked as a model and stenographer before relocating to Toronto, where she continued her career as a stenographer and legal secretary.
In 1962, while living in Toronto, she was involved in a fatal car accident, an event that garnered sensational media attention focused on her gender. This intense scrutiny led her to a suicide attempt.
In the aftermath, Boileau began hormone therapy and explored options for gender-affirming surgery. In 1969, she and a close friend underwent orchiectomies (the removal of the testicles) in New York. The following year, in 1970, Boileau underwent a full gender-affirming procedure at Toronto General Hospital, having her male genitalia removed and female genitalia surgically constructed. In 1972, she published her memoir, Behold, I Am a Woman, and then withdrew from public life, living the rest of her years in relative privacy. Boileau’s legacy is now being honored with an Ontario Heritage Trust plaque in Fort Frances, Ontario, ensuring her story remains a vital part of Canadian history.
1972,
Canada,
Dianna Boileau,
English,
