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: "Female impersonation" by Carole-Anne Tyler.
A feminist and psychoanalytic investigation of the contemporary fascination with impersonation. The questions raised by female impersonations in a wide range of contemporary media are considered.
2002,
Carole-Anne Tyler,
English,
Full title: "The Mak Nyahs: Malaysian Male To Female Transsexual" by Teh Yik Koon.
"This book explores the issue of transsexuals in Malaysia. Through numerous studies, interviews with relevant parties and accounts from the mak nyahs themselves, the book gives a profound insight into the world of transsexuals—the history and definition of mak nyahs, what it means to be a mak nyah in Malaysia, transsexuals in other countries, and the views of relevant parties regarding transsexuals in Malaysia, among others.
For those who seek a deeper understanding of the mak nyahs, this book provides intriguing and enlightening facts and accounts, which help to broaden one’s perspective of this community who form part of the diversity of the human landscape."
2002,
English,
Malaysia,
Teh Yik Koon,
Full title: "How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States" by Joanne Meyerowitz.
"How Sex Changed is a fascinating social, cultural, and medical history of transsexuality in the United States. Joanne Meyerowitz tells a powerful human story about people who had a deep and unshakable desire to transform their bodily sex. In the last century when many challenged the social categories and hierarchies of race, class, and gender, transsexuals questioned biological sex itself, the category that seemed most fundamental and fixed of all.
From early twentieth-century sex experiments in Europe, to the saga of Christine Jorgensen, whose sex-change surgery made headlines in 1952, to today’s growing transgender movement, Meyerowitz gives us the first serious history of transsexuality. She focuses on the stories of transsexual men and women themselves, as well as a large supporting cast of doctors, scientists, journalists, lawyers, judges, feminists, and gay liberationists, as they debated the big questions of medical ethics, nature versus nurture, self and society, and the scope of human rights."
2002,
Christine Jorgensen,
English,
Joanne Meyerowitz,
USA,
Full title: "Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere" by Jan Morris.
"Jan Morris (then James) first visited Trieste as a soldier at the end of the Second World War. Since then, the city has come to represent her own life, with all its hopes, disillusionments, loves and memories. Here, her thoughts on a host of subjects - ships, cities, cats, sex, nationalism, Jewishness, civility and kindness - are inspired by the presence of Trieste, and recorded in or between the lines of this book.
Evoking the whole of its modern history, from its explosive growth to wealth and fame under the Habsburgs, through the years of Fascist rule to the miserable years of the Cold War, when rivalries among the great powers prevented its creation as a free city under United Nations auspices, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is neither a history nor a travel book; like the place, it is one of a kind."
2002,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
UK,
Full title: "Normal: Transsexual CEOs, Crossdressing Cops, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude" by Amy Bloom.
"Bloom takes us on a provocative, intimate journey into the lives of “people who reveal, or announce, that their gender is variegated rather than monochromatic” - female-to-male transsexuals, heterosexual crossdressers, and the intersexed. We meet Lyle Monelle and his mother, Jessie, who recognized early on that her little girl was in fact a boy and used her life savings to help Lyle make the transgender transition. On a Carnival cruise with a group of crossdressers and their spouses, we meet Peggy Rudd and her husband, “Melanie,” who devote themselves to the cause of “ordinary heterosexual men with an additional feminine dimension.”
2002,
Amy Bloom,
English,
Full title: "Diaries of a Transfemale: Book 2".
This is the second part of "Diaries of a Transfemale". The first part was published in the same year because Lynne's e-publisher deemed the original book (almost 800 pages) to be too big for an e-book. So Lynne agreed to split it into two books.
"The author was born Lawrence James Braithwaite on the 1st of July 1934 in the village of Near Sawrey about halfway between Hawkshead and the Ferry across Windermere in the Lake District.
What more could one want than to be born into such idyllic surroundings.
She attended Hawkshead school and left at the age of 15 years to join the RAF as a "Boy Entrant" and signed the dotted line on 27th September 1949.
Demob day was the 1st of July 1989 followed by divorce on the 4th of July 1989."
2002,
England,
English,
Lynne Janine Braithwaite,
UK,
Full title: "Mark 947: A Life Shaped by God, Gender and Force of Will".
"Mark 947 chronicles one woman's progress from spirit to flesh, a literal transubstantiation by force of will. Born a boy to loving but religious parents in the rural heartland of Tennessee, Calpernia Addams found her way on an unlighted path from forbidden dreams to fulfillment as a scholar, showgirl and eventually, as a woman. Sultry stage siren by night, intellectual chameleon by day, she worked her way to the top of Nashville's underground entertainment scene without ever succumbing to drugs, alcohol or bitterness, and through it all never lost her heart."
"When love walked into her new life in the form of a handsome young Army private, it seemed everything had at last come together. Then at the pinnacle of her career, as she was crowned Tennessee Entertainer of the Year in front of hundreds of adoring fans, her love was murdered in his sleep sixty miles away by bigoted fellow soldiers, sparking a national controversy that resonates still."
2002,
Calpernia Addams,
English,
USA,
Original title: "Mein Leben im Anderssein - mein Ich" (A Life of Being Different - My Self)
'Despite the alleged liberalism in society today, the subject of transsexuality is still a taboo subject. Where her first book is still reminiscent of an autobiography, Raphaela Ahnert goes one step further here. From a cozy coffee party with friends to the most moving moments in her life, she describes the reasons for her being different and her ability to deal with it.
She writes in a sensitive, psychologically motivated language and knows how to present apparent details and big events in a perfect combination without losing sight of the essential. In this – her second – book, the author finds stirring words to appeal against moral narrow-mindedness for a pursuit of social tolerance and acceptance. Raphaela Ahnert allows insights into the emotional world of a struggling woman, at the same time lets her readers take part in summarizing thoughts of a sensitive person in the autumn of her life and also gives outsiders a glimpse into her own, not unproblematic world.'
2002,
German,
Raphaela Ahnert,
Full title: "The Seven Days of My Creation: Tales of Magic, Sex and Gender" by Jani Farrell-Roberts, also known as Janine Roberts.
"In my early years, I was called father although I had not fathered. I then left this rocky prominence to descend to a rich fertile land in which I became a priestess and parent, investigative journalist, and filmmaker. On my journey, I learnt about my nature, changed gender roles, brought up children, survived male violence, wrote articles and books with the Aborigines among whom I lived and worked as well as producing films shown on Australian, American and British television and testified to the US Congress on Blood Diamonds.
During that time I did not speak publicly of my own unusual path for I wished to protect my children from being teased. But the children grew up, and into my life came a critical illness. I had no time to lose. I returned to what was most sacred to me.
2002,
English,
Jani Farrell-Roberts,
Janine Roberts,
Original title: "17: Autobiographie - Pseudo hermaphrodite neurologique" (17: Autobiography - Neurological Pseudo-Hermaphrodite)
I could not find any review of this book. Have you ever read this book? Please let me know.
2002,
French,
Marie-Claude Paquette,
Original title: "Holnaptól nő leszek" (I'll be a woman from tomorrow)
'I was born with a male look, but I lived with a female soul. I got married and had a wife and two kids. I tried to raise my daughter and son as a father, but I still approached them as a woman.
Bea's diary from Gyula, a town in Békés County, Hungary, is a poignant account of the year and a half it took her to realize who she really was. She was determined to undergo operations to change her gender, get rid of her masculinity, and become physically female.
The author leads us step by step on this strange path, and we can find out how her decision was received by her wife, family, and colleagues. There was plenty of torment, as she was the first in Hungary to change her gender. She started writing the diary as a man, but finished as Bea.'
2002,
Bea Kútvölgyi,
Hungarian,
"Wanting in Arabic is a refusal of convenient silences, convenient stories. Concerned with not covering the tracks of her own metamorphosis, the author dwells in the contradictions of transsexual poetics, in this attendant disfigurations of lyric, ghazal, l'ecriture feininine, and, in particular, her own sexed voice. Without a memory of her father's language, the questions her poems ask are those for a home known through photographs, for a language lost with childhood.
Braiding theoretical concerns with the ambivalences of sexed and raced identity, with profound romanticism, Wanting in Arabic attempts to traverse the fantasies of foundational loss and aggressive nostalgia in order to further a poetics of a conscious partiality of being, of generous struggle and comic rather than tragic misrecognition."
2002,
2013,
English,
Trish Salah,
According to the review by D. B. Perrin, "In the early part of the book, Ms. Conover takes great care to show how pitifully lacking is the truly scientific approach to the study of the phenomenon she refers to as "transgender experience and expression."
Later in the book, she does the same with the religious institutions of our day. Using an easily understood analogy she draws the reader's attention to the fact that the scientific community fumbles "through the haystack searching for the needle" when transgender experience and expression is so broad and all-encompassing that it actually is the haystack. There is no needle and it is the haystack that should be the focus of their attention.
She goes on to dissect current theological thinking with the same careful precision. She carefully constructs a view of transgender experience and expression with which the transgender reader can identify wholly.
As I read I experienced moments of extreme anger and frustration, and periods of great joy. I could not help thinking how far we, as a society, have come, and how far we have yet to go. Pat's book is good news to all of us, not just those of us who are transgender."
2002,
English,
Pat Conover,
Original title: "Tra le rose e le viole: la storia e le storie di transessuali e travestiti " (Among roses and violets: the story and stories of transsexuals and transvestites) by Porpora Marcasciano.The book was published in 2002, and the new edition was reprinted in 2020.
Porpora Marcasciano is a historical figure of Italian transfeminism and an authentic free voice of the LGBTI community. She is a honorary President of MIT, an italian transgender rights organization, after having been its president from 2010 to 2017. Her activist commitment has always gone hand in hand with her cultural contribution to the transgender cause, the tangible proof being her books: "Tra le rose e le viole. La storia e le storie di transsexuals e travestites" (2002), "AntoloGaia. Sesso, genere e cultura degli anni '70" (2007), "Favolose Narranti. Storie di transessuali" (2008), "AntoloGaia. Vivere sognando e non sognare di vivere: i miei anni Settanta", and "L’aurora delle trans cattive. Storie, sguardi e vissuti della mia generazione transgender" (2018), and "Transformare l'organizzazione dei luoghi di detenzione. Persone transgender e gender nonconforming tra diritti e identità" (2018).
2002,
2020,
Italian,
Porpora Marcasciano,
Full title: "Transgender Underground: London & the Third Sex" by Claudia Andrei
"Look beyond the media myth into the real lives, opinions and sexual orientation of transgendered people in this unprecedented glimpse of the bizarre sex underground of London. Transvestites, transexuals, drag queens and androgynes: exotic, nocturnal creatures living their lives in the bars, night-clubs and midnight shadows of London--or such is the myth.
Most of us may have an idea of what 'transgendered' means, but do we really know what it's all about? For years, the media has offered incorrect, superficial images of cross-dressers and transitional personas.
Based on several years of research, interviews and photography sessions, mixed-media artist Claudia Andrei has produced a fascinating document and insight into the 'third sex'. Introduction by Jeremy Reed."
2002,
Claudia Andrei,
English,
London,
UK,
Original title: "Watashi o nuga sete" - 『私を脱がせて』(Take Me Off) by Maki Carrousel (カルーセル 麻紀, Karūseru Maki).
This is the first biography of Maki Carrousel, a Japanese actress, singer, and legend of the Japanese transgender community. She was born Maki Hirahara in 1942, in Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan. She is said to have been the first person to undergo gender reassignment surgery in Japan and a pioneer in changing the family register from male to female.
After dropping out of school, she ran away from home at the age of 15 and started working at gay bars first in Sapporo, and later in Tokyo and Osaka. Ever since she was a teenager, she wanted to be a woman, but gender reassignment surgery was still prohibited in Japan at the time. So when she was 19 years old, she underwent surgical castration i.e. bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles) at a hospital in Osaka.
2002,
Coccinelle,
Georges Burou,
Japanese,
Maki Carrousel,
Full title: "Who Was Dr. Charlotte Bach?"
"In 1971 a curious character appeared on the London academic scene. Charlotte Bach was a former lecturer at the University of Budapest and expounded a new theory of sex and evolution. Here, Francis Wheen unravels the bizarre life story of this elusive Hungarian with a genius for deception."
According to Wikipedia, Charlotte Bach was born Karoly Hajdu (1920–1981), and she was a Hungarian-British impostor who later in life became a transgender woman and fringe evolutionary theorist.
She was known for her stylish wigs and extravagant clothes. She developed an alternative theory of evolution that acquired a cult following among prominent writers and scientists in the London of the 1970s, who remained ignorant of her transgender status until after her death.
2002,
Charlotte Bach,
English,
Francis Wheen,
Full title: "He's My Daughter: A Mother's Journey to Acceptance" by Lynda Langley.
"A shocking phone call from their distraught daughter-in-law was how Lynda and Richard Langley learned that their son had started his transition from a man to a woman. The mad rush to their son's hospital bedside, anguish and fear for his physical health, shock from the nature of his injury, and the dread of the challenges to be faced in the coming months and years.
Lynda's account of how she adjusted to the reality that her eldest son had decided to physically become a woman is the story of a family. Tears and laughter, support and withdrawal, accompany Toni - now the eldest daughter - as she maps out her new life."
2002,
English,
Lynda Langley,
Original title: "45 Jahre im falschen Körper leben" (Living in the wrong body for 45 years)
'This book shows the often arduous path of a person who eventually realizes that she was born into the wrong body. Although she is tormented by self-doubt and encounters hostility and incomprehension from her own family and the environment, the author persistently pursues her goal: being diagnosed as a transgender woman and the man-to-woman transition.
She would like to encourage all interested parties to deal with the topic and, if necessary, to go this way, as it is worthwhile to comprehend it even with the greatest difficulty.'
2002,
German,
Germany,
Michelle Engelke,
Full title: "Diaries of a Transfemale: Book 1"
"This is a follow on from "From Brigands to "V" Bombers and tells the story in diary format of the transition to "Lynne" (12th May 1989-31st December 2001). I have, like my father, always kept diaries. It has allowed me to, over the years, take a rational look backward and see where my life has taken me.
The reader can take a look into the first 60 years of my life as told in "From Brigands to V Bombers" in which I told of my youth in the Lake District (N W England) followed by the best part of 40 years in the Royal Air Force.
With the momentous change in my lifestyle (that in my inner self I knew to be inevitable), the writing of my diaries became essential to enable me to try and make some sense of what, at this time in my life was happening to me.
2002,
English,
Lynne Janine Braithwaite,
