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: "Tristes plaisirs" (Sad Pleasures) by Maud Marin.
First published in 1989 and reissued multiple times, Tristes plaisirs (Sad Pleasures) remains a haunting, poetic, and deeply autobiographical account of Maud Marin’s years as a call girl in France. It is not just a memoir, it is a stark sociological document, a bruised love letter to the women who survive the sex trade, and a portrait of gendered suffering rendered with both tenderness and rage.
In her own words, Marin writes of the women who "mix the foam of pleasure with the tears of torment," a lyrical turn of phrase that captures the book’s central paradox: the intimacy of bodies shared not for desire, but for survival. Some women walk “like cattle, slow and serious, between a sidewalk and a squalid hotel.” Others drift between the glowing lights of the Champs-Élysées and the shadows of rue Saint-Denis, from hidden brothels to open-air working spots in the Bois de Boulogne. It’s a universe of contradictions, laced with cosmetics and fear, laughter and loss.
1989,
French,
Maud Marin,
Full title: "Pleasures of a Tangled Life" by Jan Morris. The book was published in 1989, and it has had many re-editions since then.
"In 1974, when world-renowned travel writer Jan Morris published her immensely popular autobiography "Conundrum" - which describes her gender change - critics wondered what kind of sensibility would result from this extraordinary shift.
"Pleasure of a Tangled Life" provides the answer.
On one level, this book may be read as a fanciful celebration of quotidian pleasures and an invitation to share her private delights. But there is more: a singular memoir unveiling Morris's complex personality, her idiosyncrasies, passions, and obsessions - written in her powerful and original style, possessed of verve and wit and an eye for the telling detail."
1989,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Original title: "Apokalipsa płci" (Gender Apocalypse) by Kazimierz Imieliński and Stanisław Dulko.
The main parts of the book are authentic stories of transsexual people - born in Poland and growing up in the wrong bodies. Memoirs are divided thematically, accompanied by diaries and poems.
The whole book is embellished with comments from sexologists. This is one of the first publications on transsexualism in Poland.
1989,
Kazimierz Imieliński,
Polish,
Stanisław Dulko,
