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: "Nü ren meng: Zhongguo bian xing di yi ren" 女人梦: 中国变性第 (A Woman's dream: The first transgender person in China) by Yingru Den.
Zhang Kesha (张克莎), formerly known as Zhang Kesha, was born in Dalian in 1962 in a high-ranking family, and later settled in Changsha, Hunan Province with her parents. At the end of 1982, under Zhang Kesha's repeated insistence and struggle, her parents who loved their children finally acquiesced to her request for sex change.
In January of the following year, Zhang Kesha successfully underwent sex reassignment surgery at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Beijing Medical University.
2003,
China,
Chinese,
Yingru Den,
Zhang Kesha,
Full title: "Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex and Gender Diversity" by Tracie O'Keefe and Katrina Fox.
"Finding the Real Me is an extraordinary collection of real-life stories told by a wide-range of sex and gender diverse people. These healing tales of struggle and transformation reveal just how creative, resourceful, and adventurous the individuals in this community can be and also helps to bridge the gap between ignorance and understanding.
As each incredible story unfolds we become part of the author's journey to self-acceptance and join the celebration of their new life. Page by page, we laugh, cry, and learn to appreciate these wonderful courageous people and the road they walked to be their true selves. Finding the Real Me is a landmark book that encourages us to embrace diversity, to never fear our differences, and to remain always in awe of our amazing possibilities."
2003,
English,
Katrina Fox,
Tracie O'Keefe,
Full title: "The Gender Frontier" by Mariette Pathy Allen. The book was published both in English and German.
"Mariette Pathy Allen documents the lives of extraordinary individuals, their partners, families and friends. Through photographs and short texts, the reader is offered an intimate connection to the book’s subjects and -insight into how their own lives are affected by gender.
As Allen says: "Trans-gendered people offer the rest of us a potentially exhilarating -vision of fluidity, freed from traditional roles or definitions. They make vivid the questions: What is the essence of humanness beyond masculinity or femininity?"
Framed by the emerging transgender political movement, The Gender Frontier is one of the first book to include both female-to-males and male-to-females, as well as queer youth. One of her subjects, Robert Eads, a female-to-male who died of ovarian cancer, was also prominently featured in the award-winning film Southern Comfort."
2003,
English,
German,
Mariette Pathy Allen,
Original title: "Der Fluch: Mein Leben mit der Transsexualität. Ein Report von Jenseits der Straße." (The curse: My life with transsexuality. A report from Jenseits der Straße)
"Katrin Lindemann is very lady: the hairstyle fits, a strong red adorns the full lips, the eye shadow emphasizes the dark eyes, the yellow top contrasts with the black hair. Only the slightly deeper voice and the firm pressure of the strong hands give an idea of what the dark-haired woman has complained about throughout her life: Katrin Lindemann is transsexual, she was a man – before.
Bad Schwartau – After a long period of suffering, the 54-year-old has finally mastered the sex change that she prefers to call reassignment – from man to woman, as she has always felt. In a process lasting many years, which was very difficult and painful for her, her wish came true: the boy Reiner Lindemann, born in 1948 in Frankfurt/Oder, who was married twice and fathered two children with his wives, finally became Katrin. The individual that she always wanted to be, »that I had to be«, as Katrin asserts."
2003,
German,
Germany,
Katrin Lindemann,
"Published to coincide with Carlotta's 60th birthday, the Balmain-born boy who had Australia's first sex-change operation and became the legend of the all-male review Les Girls. She is the self-styled Queen of the Cross. A fascinating, hilarious and sometimes moving journey through Carlotta's extraordinary life."
According to Wikipedia, Carlotta, born Carol Byron in 1943, is a transgender Australian cabaret performer and television personality, known for being an original cast member of the long-running Sydney-based male revue Les Girls cabaret show.
2003,
Australia,
Carlotta,
English,
Prue MacSween,
Full title: "J'inventais ma vie" (I invented my life).
This is Bambi's first book. Bambi is the stage name of Marie-Pierre Pruvot, also known as Marie-Pier Ysser, a French author, dancer, singer, cabaret artist, and transgender woman, born Jean-Pierre Pruvot on 11 November 1935, in Les Issers, Algeria. After having been the cabaret star of the 1950s and 1960s, she resumed her French literature studies and became a professor of Modern Literature in 1974, and devoted herself to writing autofiction (notably as Marie-Pier Ysser).
Jean-Pierre spent his childhood and adolescence in Algeria, growing up in both a rural and urban world, enjoying nature and farm animals, much more than school. When he was 10 years old, his sister, whose clothes he liked to wear, died. His father dies 4 years later. Jean-Pierre Pruvot then lived in a feminine environment, reading a lot, sewing and embroidering. He feels that neither his first name nor his gender matches him.
2003,
Bambi,
France,
French,
Georges Burou,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Full title: "TransActions" by Erica Zander.
"Zander is a Swedish lesbian - a male-to-female transsexual. In this candid autobiography, she discusses a wide range of topics related to gender and the individual's quest for wholeness."
"Erica Zander is a Swedish lesbian-identified male-to-female transsexual. After thirty years as a "so she thought" transvestite, and fifteen as a former trans', she transitioned at the age of forty-eight. Erica still lives with her wife of thirty years; together they have two adult sons."
2003,
English,
Erica Zander,
Sweden,
Original title: "Le Corps étranger ou l'Aventure transsexuelle" (The Foreign Body or the Transsexual Adventure) by Myriam Dechevrens.
In 1935, in Geneva, a boy, Jean, was born into a family of workers. Very early in his life, he realizes that he is not like the others. Why isn't he a girl, like his younger sister?
He will undertake a quest for his identity that will take him thirty years. Then he will get his operation and his change of marital status.
In the book, we will find, in addition to many digressions on the phenomenon of transsexualism, a bibliography on the subject, legal references, as well as a commentary on works written by other people, men, and women, on the subject.
2003,
French,
Myriam Dechevrens,
Full title: "The West Coast Has No Feral" by Denise Heather TilIing.
Denise Heather TilIing was born in 1938. She is the author of two biography books: "To Thine Own Self Be True" (1997) and "The West Coast Has No Feral" (2003).
In "To Thine Own Self Be True" (1997), Denise Tilling describes her birth and upbringing as David. Her escape to a sea life in 1956 was actually no escape at all. How after marriages and adventures, she faced up to her real self and embraced the woman within.
2003,
Denise Heather TilIing,
Denise TilIing,
English,
New Zealand,
Original title: "Manns genug, Frau zu sein: Mein extravagantes Leben" (Man enough to be a woman: My extravagant life).
"You have to be man enough to dare to become a woman after 55 years. Vera Freyberg had the courage to do so and has been a woman since 1981.
For the first time, it dawned on the 19-year-old flak helper Werner that some things were wrong both outside in the world and inside. But for decades, the desire to be a woman remained unfulfilled. When the sex change was finally completed, the new role proved to take some getting used to.
Today, Vera Freyberg is at peace with herself: »My sex ticket in the lottery of life: It has been the main prize so far.« In her memoirs, the globetrotter and Africa lover, who obtained her pilot's license at the age of 61, looks back on her sometimes breathless life with relentless openness and a lot of humor."
2003,
German,
Vera Freyberg,
"This is a true story about a teenage runaway, her contact with suicide, gender identity issues, drug addiction, and the sex industry.
This is also the anecdote of how recovery opens the door to a healing process and alters the subjugators, one day at a time."
In 20013, I interviewed Rosalyne and asked her about what inspired her to write the memoir: "Ego, f*!* Ego! There is a song that I want to be played at my memorial when I'm gone… No Regrets, by Edith Piaff, but in French of course. So you think I have culture☺.
However, I have some regrets about writing this book. I was in my angry black woman phase. (in my role as a clinical educator I use the term “angry black woman” but also state why it is perfectly normal for a black woman to be angry because of our societal systematic behaviors). I use the term not as a pathology but as an experience, one has when the ecosystem surrounding you is just coming at you from too many directions."
2003,
English,
Rosalyne Blumenstein,
USA,
Original title: "Elle était une fois" (Once upon a time).
"Deep down, I always thought I was a work of art.", confesses Marie France. Her radiant beauty - of which Gainsbourg spoke for twenty years - and her formidable appetite for life soon made this young repatriate from Algeria a key figure in Parisian nightlife. From Montparnasse to Pigalle via Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Marie France has known everything about celebration, its pleasures as well as its pitfalls.
From Castel to La Coupole, from 7 to Palace, she seduces and fascinates. Marie France became a muse, and the accomplice of all those who shook the France of the 60s, from the "Gang of the Dome" (P. Clémenti, J.-P. Kalfon, B. Ogier, J.-J. Schuhl, J. Eustache...) through the fathers of the punk movement (Y. Adrien, A. Pacadis, P. Eudeline...) t0 the famous Gazolines.
2003,
French,
Marie France,
Full title: "My Sisters, Their Stories" by Leona Lo and Lance Lee.
"The book is the first coffee-table book about transsexuals in Singapore. Leona Lo tells all about her tortuous experiences while attending one of Singapore's premier boys' school, the difficulties transsexuals like herself face and the myth that gay men are jealous of transsexual women because they have access to heterosexual men. Leona Lo recently resigned from her position as corporate affairs manager of a statutory board to devote her time to writing and windsurfing."
"Leona, who identifies as a transsexual woman, worked as an editor in Singapore as well as corporate communications assistant manager for a private healthcare group after graduating with an undergraduate degree from the University of York, United Kingdom. In 2000, she was given the Prospects Globe Award to pursue a Master's in Qualitative Research Methods at her alma mater."
2003,
English,
Lance Lee,
Leona Lo,
Singapore,
Original title: "Journal d'un(e) transsexuel(le): du 21 mars 1939 au 1er mai 2000" (Diary of a Transsexual: from March 21, 1939 to May 1, 2000) - ISBN 9782748006490 - by Bernadette Lacoste.
It's the story of a happy lesbian trans and a beautiful love story. She gives lots of little tips for the transition. Sexuality is approached without complexes. Too bad she feels obliged, in two or three passages, to say who can or cannot be successful with the transition, the people who will not make credible women and future men under the pretext that the surgery will not be a good option for them. This ignores the real relief that even a partial transformation can bring. What is unacceptable for some may be for others.
2003,
Bernadette Lacoste,
French,
Full title: "Gina: The Woman Within" by Gina Large.
The book Relates the author's traumatic and very reluctant transgender journey of self-discovery, as it happened, from May 2001.
This book offers an insight into the suffering of gender dysphoria and the inevitable gender identity crisis.
2003,
English,
Gina Large,
Full title: "Dress Codes of Three Girlhoods: My Mother’s, Father’s, and Mine".
""I have a dad who is a woman, much like me, but with better legs." Growing up, Noelle Howey hardly spoke to her distant, bad-tempered father. "After coming home, he'd mix up a twelve-consonant vodka and orange juice and then sleep, watch TV, drink, and sleep again. Occasionally, he'd shake up the routine by eating a salad."
Instead, Noelle drew all her comfort from her wonderful, tomboyish mother. Then, when she reached 14, Noelle finally discovered her father's secret: Dick Howey liked to wear women's clothing. In fact, he wanted to be a woman. For years Dick had hidden his true nature behind a brusque, masculine persona. With his secret out, everything changed. Noelle, used to being ignored, now has to deal with a father who wants to be involved in her life. Hard enough to get used to, but even worse, because of her father's hormone treatment, they're going through adolescence together.
2003,
English,
Noelle Howey,
Original title: "J'ai des choses a vous dire: Une prostituée témoigne" (I have things to tell you: A prostitute testifies) by Claire Carthonnet.
'A prostitute since the age of seventeen, Claire Carthonnet chose to show up and speak to defend her sisters from the sidewalk. When she grabs the microphone shouting: 'I have things to tell you', at a symposium for the abolition of prostitution at UNESCO, when, courageously, she argues alone and against everyone on television or, more recently, when she demonstrates with her face uncovered during rallies against the Sarkozy bill, she is part of all the fights.
"I was carefree, I lived like a bourgeois... before the electroshock..." The shock is called Gina, "an old woman who sold herself for a pack of cigarettes and a sandwich..." It is this meeting that Claire Carthonnet tells us, the earthquake and the awareness it caused in her life, the commitment that followed. She evokes the situation of foreign prostitutes, the way society looks at call girls in general but also her daily work, the clients, and the violence. To explain why she chose to be a call girl, Claire Carthonnet also recounts some of the events of her childhood and adolescence. For the first time, she reveals a painful and unexpected secret in a moving and unique testimony.'
2003,
Claire Carthonnet,
French,
Full title: "My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser" by Helen Boyd.
"Author Helen Boyd is a happily married woman whose husband enjoys sharing her wardrobe - and she has written the first book on transgendered men to focus on their relationships. Traditionally known as cross-dressers, transvestites, or drag queens, men like Helen's husband are a diverse lot who don't always conform to stereotype.
Helen addresses every imaginable question concerning the probable and improbable reasons for behavior that still baffle not only "mental health professionals" but the practitioners themselves; the taxonomy of the transgendered and the distinct but overlapping societies of each group; coming out; bisexuality, and homophobia."
2003,
English,
Helen Boyd,
Original title: "Priscilla: Ik was een man" (Priscilla. I was a man) by Liesbeth Cooymans.
As a child, Ronny Van Sandt loves nothing more than to put on his mother's clothes. Because Ronny wants to be a girl. As an adolescent, Ronny falls in love with girls, but secretly he continues to dress as a woman: it is an irresistible urge.
The day he finally confesses his secret to his wife, their marriage goes into crisis. However, their love turns out to be greater than the shock. Jeannine even chooses a new name for her partner: Priscilla.
A taboo-breaking testimony about transgender, but also an unlikely story about true love.
2003,
Dutch,
Liesbeth Cooymans,
Full title: "The Third Sex: Kathoey: Thailand's Ladyboys". The book was published in 2003 and republished in 2011.
"The kathoey, the Thai term for ladyboys, have long been part of the cultural landscape of Thailand. Though they're a leading tourist attraction, the glamorous and attractive men who are now women are also a modern expression of an archaic tradition.
Who are the ladyboys? Richard Totman introduces us to three individuals who started life as boys, but while at school decided to become kathoey.
In The Third Sex, we follow their rites-of-passage as they become fully fledged kathoey, as their adult lives are witness to attitudes towards trans-gender in Thailand and the Western world. The Third Sex is a perceptive, accessible guide to the cultural, historical, religious, biological, and psychological aspects of being trans-gender.
The description of the kathoey is part of a wider discussion on trans-gender.
2003,
2011,
English,
Richard Totman,
Thailand,
