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.
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: "Und dennoch Ja zum Leben: Die Jugend eines Intersexuellen in den Jahren 1915–1933" (And Yet Yes to Life: The Youth of an Intersexual in the Years 1915–1933) by Erich Amborn.
"This text captivates the reader in an impressive way. The sober and restrained depiction of the consequences of such an otherness alone is hardly conceivable for the "normal person" and touches the reader intensively and lastingly.
This segregation from human society is an existential omen that is difficult to bear and to overcome. In this text, one is confronted with a fate that illuminates the human condition from an unknown and hidden side.
For those who want to listen, this is an instructive and continuing example of what life can mean. Understanding, insights, and tolerance undoubtedly make reading a win.
The human being, whose decisive years of development are described in this text, was born without a clear gender determination. In accordance with his physical and psychic disposition, nature has placed him between the definable poles of man and woman, just as if this nature wanted to say: "Here you have your strangeness of your body and your psyche, see how you can cope with it and how you can come to a life worthy of man. In any case, you are an outsider of 'normal' society.""
1981,
Erich Amborn,
German,
Intersex,
Original title: "Zwischen Klinik und Hörsaal: Ein Frauenarzt sieht sich in seiner Zeit" (Between clinic and lecture hall: A gynecologist sees himself in his time) by Helmut Kraatz.
Autobiography of a gynecologist who writes about the medical treatment of transsexual and intersex people in the GDR era. The emeritus professor leafs through old records, letters, and pictures. That's when he comes across a photograph of a little boy sent to him by grateful parents. The doctor's intervention had helped them to be able to hold their long-awaited child in their arms.
There are many testimonies of successful work and happy patients, but also memories of difficult hours of desperate struggle for a human life. Helmut Kraatz reports on how difficult it was for his parents to let their son study, and what obstacles he had to overcome before the musically gifted high school student became an internationally recognized and highly honored gynecologist.
1981,
German,
Helmut Kraatz,
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).
"In "Born a man, how I became a woman", you will discover one of the most surprising stories of Quebec show business, Sans fausse honte, with a frankness that many will find shocking, the young prodigy of the song, Jacques Bélanger, who created the phenomenal success of "Maman, la plus belle du monde", tells how, he became a real woman.
Through a moving story, he recounts his difficult youth, the beginnings of his career, his homosexual adventures, his experiences with drugs, and, finally, the great drama of his life: that of feeling like a woman, fully a woman, but being born in a man's body. This "accident of nature", he will eventually correct, by dint of courage and perseverance, against all odds, by a series of surgical operations of which he spares us no detail. Once the metamorphosis was accomplished, Jacques Bélanger, now Brigitte Martel, realized his greatest dream by marrying the man of her life."
1981,
Brigitte Martel,
French,
