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.
"The true story of a transsexual's life-long struggle with sexual identity as revealed in psychotherapy. A spellbinding true drama, which compellingly pursues the age-old enigma of sexual identity. A probing case study of the ultimate sex-role change of a male who believed he was a congenital, biological mistake and should be a female.
This sensitive account of the violation of one of history's greatest sexual taboos is the story of a man whose physical sex and sexual identity were at odds. Only after sex change surgery could his real self, "Tina", emerge, his inner female half who had been with Timmy all his life.
The matchless devastating study of how a woman lived for forty-four years as a man... being an abandoned abused child, always different from his peers, his suicidal impulses, and self-mutilation. Four times a husband, three times a father, and a decorated G.I. Only after the surgical assassination of Timmy could he achieve peace of mind with the emergence of Tina who paradoxically was his greatest source of solace and greatest source of torment.
2006,
English,
Natalee Greenfield,
Original title: "Kijk mama, ik dans: 's lands bekendste transseksueel vertelt" (Look mom, I dance: The country's best-known transsexual tells).
"Vanessa van Durme has made choices in her life. Hard choices, painful choices. Choices that caused her parents a lot of grief.
Now she is a celebrated actress who feels her sixtieth birthday approaching. She has fond memories of her work for public and commercial broadcasting, of the comedy see the wrote, and of the wonderful role she played in All India by Alain Platel and Arne Sierens.
Her autobiography regularly brings tears to the eyes of the reader. Sometimes out of sympathy, more often out of laughter."
According to Wikipedia, Vanessa Van Durme (born in 1948) is a Belgian actress and screenwriter. She studied at the Conservatory of Ghent in the drama section and made her stage debut – as a young actor – at Nederlands Toneel Gent (NTG).
2006,
Belgium,
Dutch,
Georges Burou,
Vanessa Van Durme,
Full title: "Grayson Perry: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl" by Grayson Perry and Wendy Jones.
"The point of this funny yet unsettling autobiography by a provocative artist who emerged in his twenties as a potter and a transvestite, is that we don’t have to fit in. It’s a lifeline for young boys who feel different."
"Wendy Jones is the author of The Sex Lives of English Women: Intimate Questions, Unexpected Answers, and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl, the Biography of Grayson Perry as well as two novels: The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals, and The World is a Wedding. She also writes for television.
She has a PhD from Goldsmiths in Creative Writing and the books of Studs Terkel, and was the first person to be awarded the MA in Life Writing at the University of East Anglia. She lives in London.
Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, the New Yorker, The London Review of Books, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Daily Mail, Vogue, and Elle, among others, and her books have been published in eleven languages."
2006,
English,
Grayson Perry,
Wendy Jones,
Original title: "Le dur combat d'une femme" (The hard fight of a woman) by Madeleine Charest.
I came across this book and author in the list of biographies of Canadian transgender women, presented by Zagria on her fantastic blog. I searched the Internet thoroughly but unfortunately, I was not able to find any info about this publication. If you have ever read the book, please let me know.
2006,
Canada,
French,
Madeleine Charest,
Amanda Lear (born 1939) is a French singer, television celebrity, actress, and model, known for her professional career as a fashion model in the mid-1960s and being a muse of Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí.
According to Wikipedia, Amanda's transgender background was confirmed by Salvador Dalí himself, and other well-known artists that used to know Lear earlier in her life. For example, April Ashley, a transgender icon and model, claimed that in the 1950s and early 1960s, Lear, whose birth name she stated was "Alain Tap", had worked with her in the Parisian transgender revues Madame Arthur and Le Carrousel. In her book April Ashley's Odyssey, Ashley recalls Lear performing drag acts under the stage name "Peki d'Oslo".
2006,
Amanda Lear,
English,
Galerie Claudius,
Georges Burou,
Original title: "Seelentanz: Ich folge meinem Weg" (Soul dance: I follow my path) by Nadia Brönimann & Alfred Wüger.
'Does the soul have a gender?' asks Nadia Brönimann in the subtitle of her debut work 'Die weisse Feder'. Now she presents a second book entitled 'Soul Dance – I Follow My Way' – and answers the question from the first book: 'No, the soul is sexless.' She, the 'converted', knows from her own bitter experience what she is talking about. But perhaps her soul has two sides: a glamorous, glittering, happy, life-affirming one – and a dark, fearful, abysmally sad and lonely one.
Nadia Brönimann became probably the most famous transsexual in Switzerland through her first book, in which the author and journalist Daniel J. Schüz describes her life in detail up to the dozen painful and sometimes failed sex change operations. Countless media appearances and a harrowing TV documentary moved the country.
2006,
Alfred Wüger,
German,
Nadia Brönimann,
Switzerland,
Full title: "No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life" by Renée Richards.
"In 1975, at the age of forty, Richard Raskind, a renowned eye surgeon and highly ranked amateur tennis player, "died," and Renee Richards was "born," in what was to become the most public and highly scrutinized sex reassignment to date. It was not until Renee Richards was discovered playing in an amateur tennis tournament that the world took notice. Extensive media coverage and criticism thrust Renee reluctantly into the spotlight, sparking an intense public debate over her private life.
Now, at seventy-two, Richards looks back and speaks frankly about all aspects of her complicated and often notorious life in this eye-opening, thought-provoking memoir. Richards' honest and compelling narrative explores the dichotomy between the successful life she lived as Dr. Richard Raskind, who seemed to have everything (devoted friends, a beautiful wife and son, a stellar record of academic and professional achievement, and outstanding athletic ability), and a secret life of struggle with a drive that could not be suppressed, even by years of psychotherapy and the force of a considerable will."
2006,
English,
John Edward Ames,
Renée Richards,
"I am a transgender. I have lived a life of 72 years as a woman in the body of a man. Norma's Voice is the story of that life. This memoir begins before I existed. It covers both the profound agony and the wild comedy of living in a perpetual state of gender fluidity.
The memoir specifically dwells on my early childhood, my marriage of 24 years to a wonderful woman, her death, the "death" of my male identity, and the final birth of my womanhood. The memoir spends some time ruminating on existential matters, in a manner that illuminates the curious way a transgender person relates to self; to family; to men, women and all humanity; to God; and to the cosmos. A theme runs throughout: The intense need for Norma to scream, and her inability to do so, because she had no voice. Hence the title. The memoir ends with Norma finding her voice at last, and in so doing, finds that she no longer is driven to scream."
2006,
English,
Norma Posy,
"Volevo diventare una ballerina" (I wanted to become a ballerina) is the Italian language edition of "Tiǎozhàn shàngdì de cuò: Jīnxīng de wǔmèng rénshēng" - 挑戰上帝的錯：金星的舞夢人生 (Challenging God's Mistakes: Venus' Dancing Life), published by Jin Xing in 2004.
Jin Xing (Chinese: 金星; pinyin: Jīn Xīng) was born in 1967 in Shenyang, China, to an ethnic Korean family. She is a Chinese ballerina, modern dancer, choreographer, actress, founder, and artistic director of the contemporary dance company Shanghai.
In addition, she is a transgender celebrity and icon of the Chinese transgender community. This unusual memoir describes how China's foremost male ballet dancer (and colonel in the People's Army) underwent one of China's first sex-change operations and became the Shanghai Ballet's prima ballerina.
2006,
China,
Italian,
Jin Xing,
"Shanghai Tango" is the English language edition of "Tiǎozhàn shàngdì de cuò: Jīnxīng de wǔmèng rénshēng" - 挑戰上帝的錯：金星的舞夢人生 (Challenging God's Mistakes: Venus' Dancing Life), published by Jin Xing in 2004.
Jin Xing (Chinese: 金星; pinyin: Jīn Xīng) was born in 1967 in Shenyang, China, to an ethnic Korean family. She is a Chinese ballerina, modern dancer, choreographer, actress, founder, and artistic director of the contemporary dance company Shanghai.
In addition, she is a transgender celebrity and icon of the Chinese transgender community. This unusual memoir describes how China's foremost male ballet dancer (and colonel in the People's Army) underwent one of China's first sex-change operations and became the Shanghai Ballet's prima ballerina.
2006,
2008,
China,
English,
Jin Xing,
Original title: "Kelly" by Kelly van der Veer and Andries de Jong.
Kelly van der Veer is a Dutch television personality and singer. She is regarded as one of the most prominent transsexual persons in the Netherlands who rose to fame after competing in Big Brother - The Battle, a Dutch version of the Big Brother format.
"Born in the wrong body, Kelly van der Veer was born as Ferry. As a toddler he already indicates that he does not feel well in his body: 'Mom, can't the doctor cut it off? He prefers to play with barbies and loves pink dresses, predilections that not everyone understands. Many harassments are the result. Thanks to the support of his family, he survives. After many years, examinations, and hormone treatments comes the redemptive operation: she has become a woman. A new search for the ultimate femininity begins. It is clear that it took a lot of courage for that one decision, to say goodbye to life as a man and move on as a woman."
2006,
Andries de Jong,
Dutch,
Kelly van der Veer,
