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: "Bijin-ryoku. Kirei ni ikiru 69 no hōsoku" 『美人力。 キレイに生きる69の法則』(Beauty Power: 69 Laws of Living Beautifully) by Onryu Kisaragi 如月音流.
This is the first book authored by Onryu Kisaragi, a charismatic Japanese businesswoman, ASCII artist, TV personality, and vocalist of the visual kei rock band Lily-C[lie]me. She is the President and CEO of New Gauge Co., Ltd. responsible for the development of a popular mobile phone site called "girlswalker.com", as well as she focuses on developing various content businesses such as beauty and fashion.
After starting a small business, she quickly achieved sales of 1 million yen, and her prowess attracted the attention of the Japanese public, making her one of the most prominent transgender activists in Japan. In addition to her success in the IT industry, she made a regular appearance on Japan TV's "Onee ★MANS" show, inspiring other transgender women in Japanese society.
2007,
Japanese,
Onryu Kisaragi,
Original title: "Nem Tao Bela, Nem Tao Louca" (Not So Beautiful, Not So Crazy) by Ruddy Pinho.
"In this book you will find in more than 300 pages a mature woman, mother, friend, lover, warrior and religious. A Ruddy she didn't even know herself. Showing that in Brazil, despite all the social and political problems, it is possible to win, to be different, to be respected and to grow old. Of course, the glamorous ever-present in his life was not left aside in his passages with the personalities of the artistic world. New York and Paris are constant backdrops of hilarious narratives. Some records of these memories then in the more than 80 photos enclosed throughout the book."
2007,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Ruddy Pinho,
Full title: "Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category" by David Valentine.
"Imagining Transgender is an ethnography of the emergence and institutionalization of transgender as a category of collective identity and political activism. Embraced by activists in the early 1990s to advocate for gender-variant people, the category quickly gained momentum in public health, social service, scholarly, and legislative contexts.
Working as a safer-sex activist in Manhattan during the late 1990s, David Valentine conducted ethnographic research among mostly male-to-female transgender-identified people at drag balls, support groups, cross-dresser organizations, clinics, bars, and clubs. However, he found that many of those labeled “transgender” by activists did not know the term or resisted its use. Instead, they self-identified as “gay,” a category of sexual rather than gendered identity and one rejected in turn by the activists who claimed these subjects as transgender.
2007,
David Valentine,
English,
Original title: "Perpetue Rifrazioni: Poesie del corpo e dell'anima" (Perpetual Refractions: Poems of the body and the soul) by Mirella Izzo.
The poems of Mirella Izzo, founder of Crisalide AzioneTrans ONLUS, on the themes dear to her and directly concerning her biography as a transgender, lesbian, and - later - disabled woman. She elaborates on the themes - some of which - never dealt with in the form of poetry: gender transition from male to female, love and trans/lesbian sex, physical handicap, and the cybernetic body.
For those who know the author for her public commitment, the book is a way to find her most personal and private emotions. For those who don't know her, this is a way to get closer, through her poems, to the problems of transgender (or transsexual) people, to lesbian love - especially translesbian - but also concerning the disabled and the cybernetic body.
2007,
Italian,
Mirella Izzo,
Original title: "Una Storia A Pezzi" (A Story in Pieces) by Tiziana Lorenzi.
The author of the book is a trans woman who writes about her life. It is an attempt to explain a different life, without falling into the banal and the obvious, far from gossip and romance novels. She wrote not only a chronicle but a small novel of a, perhaps, small life, the somewhat psychedelic story of a long journey.
2007,
Italian,
Tiziana Lorenzi,
Full title: "Memoirs of a Samoan, Catholic, and Fa'afafine" by Vanessa.
"Vanessa was born in independent Samoa, where her parents were Catholic missionaries. Her father, an American Samoan, was a naturalized United States citizen while her mother was a citizen of independent Samoa. Through the one-parent naturalization law of the U.S. Immigration Office, Vanessa became a United States national, the immigration status of all the citizens of the American Samoa Territory of the United States.
Her memoirs are a recollection of her life as she struggled through her sexual identity, becoming the first fa'afafine to reach a deputy position in a government department (ASCC) dressed as a woman. It also depicts her involvement in the establishment of the first fa'afafine organization on the island and its beauty pageant fund-raising to help the community, specifically the old people's home at Fatu-o-Aiga and the LBJ Medical Center. She also promulgates her reactions to the writings on fa'afafines by different authors in this short autobiography."
2007,
Australia,
English,
Vanessa,
Full title: "Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity" by Julia Serano.
"A provocative manifesto, Whipping Girl tells the powerful story of Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her diverse background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist. Serano shares her experiences and observations - both pre- and post-transition - to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole."
"Serano's well-honed arguments stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. She exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive, and how this “feminine” weakness exists only to attract and appease male desire. In addition to debunking popular misconceptions about transsexuality, Serano makes the case that today's feminists and transgender activist must work to embrace and empower femininity—in all of its wondrous forms."
2007,
English,
Julia Serano,
USA,
Full title: "Lannie: My Journey From Man to Woman" by Lannie Rose.
"In the battle between the sexes, he's her own worst enemy Do you know about the great gender divide over clean underwear? I didn't either, until I changed my sex. When I stopped living as a man and began living as a woman, I learned about clean underwear and many other remarkable things, such as: My life may have been easier if I had just been gay. Sex reassignment surgery hurts! So does electrolysis. You truly can become anything your heart desires, as long as you are true to yourself. Thus begins the real-life memoir of Lannie Rose, a regular guy who, at the age of 49, decided to live as a woman.
Six months later, he underwent extensive surgery to become a woman. From his unusual childhood to her present life as a woman, Lannie Rose writes frankly about the huge social and physical conflicts she faces...as well as the challenge of using the women's locker room and finding sexy size 13 sandals. Triumphant, poignant, shocking, hilarious and extremely informative, Lannie! is above all else a woman's story of her search for herself and her faith in her own decisions. Rose's upbeat attitude and entertaining writing style make this account of a serious, sensitive subject a joy to read."
2007,
English,
Lannie Rose,
USA,
Original title: "Il volo. La mia vita: ieri uomo, oggi donna. Storia di metamorfosi e di lotta" (The flight. My life: yesterday man, today woman. History of metamorphosis and struggle) by Sandra 'Jovanka' Alvino.
Sandra is the story of a flight, of a female soul imprisoned in the wrong body, a screamed, shouted, demanding presence that takes your breath away, that does not allow for discounts, compromises, half measures… A story that overflows everywhere for too much abundance of life, for too many open wounds, for abuses and abuses suffered too many times.
We hope that by reading these pages so true and poignant, the liberating force that this flight of Sandra has is recovered, and that everyone learns to turn their eyes towards the many Sandras who inhabit and walk our streets and our neighborhoods and that they can re-emerge the need to restore dignity and name to these lives torn apart by the violence of our silences, our indifference, our presumptuous truths.
2007,
Italian,
Sandra 'Jovanka' Alvino,
Full title: "Male Bodies, Women's Souls" by LeeRay Costa & Andrew Matzner.
"The Thai term sao braphet song (a second type of woman) describes males who reject the gender of masculinity for femininity. Male Bodies, Women’s Souls: Personal Narratives of Thailand’s Transgendered Youth uses the narrative method, stories in the words of these second type of women to analyze these transgendered experiences.
This previously ignored perspective of the Thai sex/gender system gained through this theoretical and methodological approach offers students and general readers a rich, more readily accessible foundation of knowledge about gendered subjectivity and sex/gender systems.
2007,
Andrew Matzner,
English,
LeeRay Costa,
Thailand,
Original title: "Transseksmisja" (Transsexmission) by Tatiana Szkapienko.
Do you want to increase the length of your... Nose? Or maybe you are interested in gender change? The Kaliningrad clinic offers not only a new "me". Kaliningrad is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian semi-exclave between Lithuania and Poland. The clinic is a contemporary Tower of Babel, which offers medical services but it is also a multinational space for exchanging views on gender politics and male-female differences.
This book is in fact a set of stories presented by an employee-translator of a plastic surgery clinic in the Kaliningrad region, describing in detail the adventures of clinic patients (mainly Poles) who undergo cosmetic and feminization surgeries.
2007,
Polish,
Tatiana Szkapienko,
Original title: "Lubunya: Transseksüel Kimlik ve Beden" (Lubunya: Transgender Identity and Body) by Selin Berghan.
Almost everywhere in the world today, transsexuals face the hostilities that their different sexuality creates in society; they are excluded because they are seen as threatening patriarchy, and in the best case they are ignored.
This book aims to determine the situation of transsexuals in Turkey by listening to them from their own mouths and to give visibility instead of covering up the problems. As much as it's a means for transsexuals to express themselves, it also sheds light on what our society thinks about gender and sexuality in general: Where does the anger and disgust with transsexuals come from?
2007,
Selin Berghan,
Turkish,
"Jane Preston, born a Transsexual, had some wonderful times in what can only be described as a terrible life until the day of Gender Reassignment Surgery, now she's happy and proud.
The eldest of four children she left home in her teens because of the lack of understanding about her condition. Staying with a school friend, the bond of total understanding and sincerity in their relationship grew into a heart-wrenching friendship. He went to live in the USA.
Drink and drugs, time, distance, and depression, all attributed to Jane, ended the relationship.
Although Jane pursued GRS from a very early age, the prospects of a successful and fulfilling operation were never guaranteed, and feelings of hopelessness followed, leading to four suicide attempts.
A wonderful person came into her life, and they developed a personal and business partnership. With a lot of understanding and commitment from both sides their relationship lasted over twenty years until her friend from heart failure.
2007,
English,
Jane Preston,
UK,
"Gender Outlaw is the work of a woman who has been through some changes--a former heterosexual male, a one-time Scientologist, and IBM salesperson, now a lesbian woman writer and actress who makes regular rounds on the TV (so to speak) talk shows.
In her book, Bornstein covers the "mechanics" of her surgery, everything you've always wanted to know about gender (but were too confused to ask) addresses the place and politics of the transgendered and interrogates the questions of those who give the subject little thought, creating questions of her own."
2007,
Interview,
Japanese,
Kate Bornstein,
USA,
Original title: "Beznadziejna ucieczka przed Basią: Reportaże seksualne" (Hopeless escape from Basia: Sex stories) by Katarzyna Surmiak-Domańska.
Contrary to what the subtitle suggests, the book is not about having sex. It is a collection of biographies of people living in Poland and beyond its borders - transvestites, prostitutes, transsexuals, homosexuals, some of them raising children.
The characters from Surmiak-Domańska's reportages have one thing in common - rejection by the majority of the population. (...) For example, Anna, a transsexual woman who after a poorly performed operation in a state clinic, vegetates being neither a woman nor a man.
2007,
Katarzyna Surmiak-Domańska,
Polish,
Full title: "The Transgender Companion (Male To Female): The Complete Guide To Becoming The Woman You Want To Be".
"A book was written by a transsexual for transsexuals. This all-encompassing book is the only book you will need for transitioning. Have you always wanted to be a woman, but didn't know how to start? This book will show you! Do you want to know how to look, act, and sound more like a woman, but don't know how? This book will show you! Are you frustrated at not having a single reference on how to transition? This book will give you all the information you need to have a healthy, safe and fun transition to becoming the woman you want to be!"
2007,
English,
Jennifer Seeley,
Original title: "Kaete yuku yūki - `seidōitsuseishōgai' no watashi kara" - 変えてゆく勇気－「性同一性障害」の私から (The Courage to Change: From Me with Gender Identity Disorder) by Aya Kamikawa 上川あや.
According to Wikipedia, Aya Kamikawa, born in 1968, is a Japanese politician and transgender activist, and member of the Setagaya Ward Assembly in Tokyo (5th term). She is the most successful transgender politician in Japan.
She was born in Taito-ku, Tokyo, as the second son of three brothers. She liked to play with girls from childhood, and unlike her brothers, she was attracted to playing with girls and dolls. During puberty, she felt a great sense of discomfort and disgust with her masculine body. She could not confide her worries to anyone and fell into self-loathing for herself. At Hosei University Second High School, a private boys' school, she enjoyed a free school atmosphere and an environment where feminine aspects were accepted as a matter of course.
2007,
Aya Kamikawa,
Japanese,
Full title: "Jan Morris: Around the World in Eighty Years" by Jan Morris.
"In honor of the 80th birthday of British travel journalist Jan Morris, her colleagues and successors have put together this celebratory, biographical tribute, which explores both the writer and her writing.
By revisiting more than 50 years of descriptions of her travels, her epic three-volume history of the British Empire, and her startling and thoughtful memoir about her sex change, the volume contains many full, intimate insights into her character from renowned contributors, including George Band, Arturo di Stefano, David Fieldhouse, Don Geroge, David Hurn, Pico Iyer, Robert McCrum, Geoffrey Moorhouse, Patrick Nairn, Jim Perrin, Hilary Rubenstein, Colin Thubron, Erica Wagner, Alan Whicker, Simon Winchester, and Peregrine Wortsthorne."
2007,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jan Morris,
Paul Clements,
Original title: "I travestiti vanno in paradiso" (Transvestites go to heaven)
"Making scandal is her job. But Maurizia Paradiso, the most famous Italian trans, who for over twenty years has been the queen of trash nights on local TV, this time throws the mask of irony and provocation that have made her famous. And she lays herself bare seriously, exposing herself in a raw, ferocious, ruthless book.
She describes her difficult childhood with her mother and problems with a boarding school where she suffers the torture inflicted by a priest. And again the beatings and adolescent loneliness. The dramatic decision to change gender when no one in Italy had yet done operations of this kind.
2007,
Italian,
Maurizia Paradiso,
"This is the true story of a long-vanished Singapore and the dangerous carnival known as Bugis Street. James Eckardt arrived in 1970s Singapore only to fall in love with a Singaporean nymph named Milly.
Thirty years later an email arrived that would lead Eckardt to discover what had happened to the Singapore girl, who, at the time he had loved her, had not technically been female."
2007,
English,
James Eckardt,
Singapore,
