A random collection of over 2078 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: "O sabor do cio" (The taste of heat) by Ruddy Pinho.
"O sabor do cio" is the second poetry book by Ruddy (Ruddy Pinho). In that period the author did not yet recognize herself as a woman, nor did she bring this issue explicitly to her writing, which will only occur after the publication of her autobiography, Liberdade ainda que profana (1998).
Ruddy Pinho, also known as “A Maravilhosa”, was a celebrated transgender hairdresser from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She was known for her work with famous clients, including Susana Vieira and Marilia Pêra. Ruddy Pinho made a significant contribution to the hairdressing industry, including creating the “lioness cut” that marked the career of singer Simone Bittencourt and was widely copied in the 1980s.
1981,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Ruddy Pinho,
Original title: "Donna come donna: Storie di amori e lotte dei transessuali italiani" (Woman as Woman: Stories of Love and Struggle of Italian Transsexuals) by Pina Bonanno and Paola Astuni.
At night we transsexuals are accepted and not during the day, by the same people, because among our clients are civil servants, priests, policemen, and judges. All those who don't want to give us a legal status as women, depriving us of the possibility of finding a job other than being a call girl.
1981,
Italian,
Paola Astuni,
Pina Bonanno,
Original title: "Né homme, comment je suis devenu femme" (Born man, how I became woman) by Brigitte Martel.
Brigitte Martel’s autobiography Né homme, comment je suis devenu femme, published in 1981, occupies a remarkable place in Québec’s cultural and queer history. It is more than the life story of a single woman. It is a chronicle of survival, resilience, self creation and the heavy weight of living authentically in a society that was still struggling to imagine that authenticity. Long before the era of social media, representation campaigns and visible transgender role models, Brigitte Martel stepped into the public eye with a mixture of vulnerability and defiance that still resonates today.
Readers often come to her book knowing a few widely repeated facts. Born Jacques Bélanger on 31 October 1949, she became famous at age eleven with the sentimental hit Maman, tu es la plus belle du monde. A generation of Québécois grew up hearing that song. Nothing in that early fame hinted at the storm that would follow. Yet Brigitte writes in her autobiography that she always felt slightly misaligned with the role that society expected her to play. As a child star she learned to smile on cue, charm crowds and behave like the image crafted around her. The book shows how those years were as much a performance of gender as they were a performance of music. The persona of Jacques Bélanger was already a costume she struggled to wear.
1981,
Brigitte Martel,
Canada,
French,
