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: "Understanding Cross-dressing" by Virginia Prince.
According to IFGE, "This book has been published to serve two different purposes for two different groups of people. Not surprisingly the two groups are (1) those who are cross dressers, and (2) those who are not. The needs of these two groups are different; those who cross dress already know what it is like and the satisfactions they obtain from that behavior pattern, but in many cases they don't have much understanding of why they do it.
Moreover, great numbers of cross dressers think that they are the only ones in the world who indulge in such activities. Their needs therefore center around understanding themselves and becoming aware that there are vast numbers of other individuals who do exactly the same thing.
The non-cross dressers have a need to understand a behavior pattern exhibited by others. Wives, parents, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, judges, teachers and just friends of someone who has been found to be a cross dresser need to know more about this pattern. They need information in order to deal with their own feelings - if the cross dresser involved is someone in whom they have a personal interest, such as a child or a husband - or to know how to be of help to the individual if the relationship is impersonal."
1976,
English,
USA,
Virginia Prince,
Full title: "Transvestites and Transsexuals: Mixed Views" by Deborah Heller Feinbloom.
"The author, a sociology graduate student, gained her entry into the curious world of transvestites in 1968 on the strength of her friendship with a teaching colleague, Phil, recently dismissed after being discovered in flagrante cross-dressed as Helen. For eight months, Feinbloom did fieldwork at the weekly gatherings of a strictly heterosexual organization established for the relief of anxiety over ""dressing""-- meetings which sometimes included wives and girl friends trying to adjust to behavior their men consider ""normal"" if compulsive.
Later she established a Gender Identity Service in the Boston area and widened her horizons to include transsexuals who were no longer satisfied by merely appearing in public in female attire, but were determined to ""pass,"" even marry, as full members of the sex they biologically ain't. Feinbloom is pleading for tolerance for this stigmatized minority who contend they are neither ""deviant"" nor ""perverted""-- who are in fact in all other ways unusually conservative in opinions and lifestyles."
1976,
Deborah Heller Feinbloom,
English,
Original title: "Murasaki no rirekisho" 紫の履歴書 (Purple Resume) by Akihiro Miwa 美輪 明宏. The book is an autobiography of Akihiro Miwa and was republished in 1992 and 2007.
Born in Nagasaki City in
1935, she made her debut as a professional singer at the age of seventeen. In 1957, "Mekemeke" was a big hit, and she took the world by storm with her natural good looks and unique fashion.
In 1966, she attracted attention again with her self-composed "Yoitomake no Uta", and the following year she starred in Shuji Terayama's "Hunchback Man of Aomori Prefecture" and "Fur Mary". In 1968, she starred in "Black Spider". In 1993, she reprised her role in Black Spider. In 1997, she won the Yomiuri Theater Award for Excellence for her reprise of The Two-Headed Eagle. She is active in a wide range of fields such as theater, concerts, movies, TV, radio, lectures, and writing.
1976,
Akihiro Miwa,
Japanese,
"Kunō: aru seitenkansha no kokuhaku = Conundrum" (Agony: Confession of a Transsexual = Conundrum) is the Japanese language edition of "Conundrum" by Jan Morris.
I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."
And here is an excerpt from a fantastic review from Transascity: "Conundrum is an autobiography, a tale about the life and transsexual journey of Jan Morris, noted British journalist and author. Born Humphrey Morris, Jan led an idyllic if somewhat lonely childhood, feeling since age 3 or 4 that she was born into the wrong body."
1976,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Japanese,
Original title: "Gli Uni & Gli Altri: Travestiti e Travestimenti nell’Arte, nel cinema, nel teatro, nella musica, nel cabaret e nella vita quotidiana" (One & The Other. Travesti in art, in cinema, in theater, in music, in cabaret, and in everyday life) by Gillo Dorfles, Giovanni Buttagava, Gianni Romoli, Peppo Delconte, Carlo Romano.
In society "they" do not recognize
"the Others". The mask has always attenuated the contrasts and exalted the
shadow ambiguity. This collection of essays aims
to seize a particular moment of the mask, stand it out in its actuality when one becomes the other, the man a woman, the
woman a man, the man/woman the androgyne, the flower, the "difference"
on the morphological dictatorship of habits of sense and form.
1976,
Carlo Romano,
Gianni Romoli,
Gillo Dorfles,
Giovanni Buttagava,
Italian,
Peppo Delconte,
Original title: "Io, la "Romanina": perchè sono diventato dolonna" (Me, the "Romanina": why I became a woman) by Romina Cecconi.
The book is a document written by Romina Cecconi, born in 1941, one of the pioneers of the Italian transgender community. The story is presented with remarkable intelligence and verve. It is the experience of a transgender woman. One is struck by the willpower, by the humanity always intact, by the sense of humor of this person who was persecuted by others and, like many, had no choice but to live from prostitution.
Remarkable is the description of the "deep province", that culturally backward Italietta that Cecconi knows when she is sent to exile by the police for her "scandalous" behavior. This is also a rare testimony, because it is first-hand, of the sending of a transgender person into confinement, a common practice during fascism, but still in force for many decades after its fall. The author mentioned at the end of the autobiography her intention to get married. Well, she really did it, with a Greek boy named Mantakas, arousing, at the time, a lot of publicity in the media.
1976,
Italian,
Romina Cecconi,
Full title: "As a Woman" by Barry Kay.
"As a Woman" is a collection of 17 photos taken between 1974-1975 by Barry Kay that were featured in his photographic essay book, As a Woman (1976). These photographs are one of the multiple collections from the Transas City website. The book features photographs of crossdressers and transsexuals living in Sydney, Australia, detailing the everyday lives of those depicted.
From Barry Kay’s preface to the book: "During many return visits to Australia over the past fifteen years, I have seen the steady emergence of male transvestisism in Sydney and also the establishment of its large transsexual community. My interest in the phenomenon has grown as each time I became more conscious of the wide disparity that lies between this sub-culture and the society from which it springs. As a result, I began the series of portraits that are now contained in this book."
1976,
Australia,
Barry Kay,
English,
