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: "Transpłciowość - androgynia. Studia o przekraczaniu płci" (Transgenderism - androgyny. Gender Transcendence Studies) by Jacek Bielas, Małgorzata Bieńkowska-Ptasznik and others.
Recently, the issue of crossing gender boundaries has been appearing more and more often in the Polish public discourse. Transgender and intersex people, or otherwise transgressing gender boundaries and conventions, are appearing more and more frequently in public spaces. The themes of transgenderism and transgression of gender conventions are also beginning to appear more and more often in academic publications.
This book – being an interdisciplinary publication that tries to show the phenomenon of transgenderism in a wide spectrum of many perspectives – combines articles from the field of sociology, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies and law, as well as articles written from the point of view of people active in the "T" environment.
2012,
Jacek Bielas,
Małgorzata Bieńkowska-Ptasznik,
Polish,
Original title: "Kærlighedshistorier" (Love stories) by Maria Helleberg.
"The book contains 11 love stories. The fourth love story "The Gender" from page 66 to page 88 deals with the couple Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe. Our perception of love is based on history. Over time, a large number of love couples have played a major role in forming the myth on which we today base our perception of love. The love stories serve as a kind of role models or templates for us today.
Maria Helleberg takes us on a fast-paced and entertaining trip back in time and along the way gives her personal interpretation of a number of love stories from Saxo's legends over the Golden Age and up to modern times. Along the way, we hear about Signe and Hagbard, Liden Kirsten and Buris, Elsebe Gyldenstjerne and Stygge Krumpen, Marie Grubbe and Søren Møller, Caroline Mathilde and Struensee, Juliane Marie Ottesen and Nicolai Abildgaard, Regine Olsen and Søren Kierkegaard, Countess Danner and Frederik the Seventh, Elvira Madigan and Sixten Sparre, Gerda Wegener and Lili Elbe, Helle Virkner and Jens Otto Krag, Tove Ditlevsen and Victor Andreasen. We have all learned from the characters in this book. Love exists and blossoms – and may fade."
2012,
Danish,
Lili Elbe,
Maria Helleberg,
Original title: "Transexualismo: Cuerpo e Identidad" (Transsexualism: Body and Identity) by Gregorio Morassutti Germán Ismael.
"This book addresses the theme of transsexualism from a comprehensive level, taking genetic, social, environmental, and psychological aspects. The objective of this study is to describe the information that deals with transsexualism, encompassing a heterogeneous view of transgenderism, transvestism, transsexualism, and hermaphroditism.
The book is organized into the following parts: practical and theoretical, your time is divided into five chapters. The first is a way of introducing the theme of sexuality and gender. The second defines theories about transsexualism. The third differentiates the transvestism, transsexualism, and hermaphroditism terms. The fourth describes different manuals with diagnostical criteria. The fifth and last provides a presentation of a clinical case with analysis."
2012,
Gregorio Morassutti Germán Ismael,
Spanish,
Original title: "Worden wie je bent: het leven van transgenders in Nederland" (Becoming who you are: the lives of transgender people in the Netherlands) by Saskia Keuzenkamp.
Some people are born male, but feel they are female. And some are born as women, but feel like men. Many of these transgender people decide at some point in their lives to have their gender changed through hormones and surgery. More attention has been paid to this group in recent years, also in government policy. But little is known about how they are doing.
At what age do they become aware of their 'transness'? How open are they about it and what reactions does that generate? What is their psychological health like?
2012,
Dutch,
Saskia Keuzenkamp,
Full title: "Shanghai lalas: female Tongzhi communities and politics in urban China" by Lucetta Yip Lo Kam.
"This is the first ethnographic study of lala (lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) communities and politics in China, focusing on the city of Shanghai. Based on several years of in-depth interviews, the volume concentrates on lalas’ everyday struggle to reconcile same-sex desire with a dominant rhetoric of family harmony and compulsory marriage, all within a culture denying women’s active and legitimate sexual agency.
Lucetta Yip Lo Kam reads discourses on homophobia in China, including the rhetoric of “Chinese tolerance” and considers the heteronormative demands imposed on tongzhi subjects. She treats “the politics of public correctness” as a newly emerging tongzhi practice developed from the culturally specific, Chinese forms of regulation that inform tongzhi survival strategies and self-identification."
2012,
China,
English,
Lucetta Yip Lo Kam,
Full title: "Transition The Story Of My Life With A Transgender" by Nell Rose. The book was published as an ebook in 2012 and a paperback in 2016.
"After being married for over 10 years you would think that nothing could shock you where your other half was concerned. But that day totally changed my life and shook me to the core! I can still feel the chill rushing through my body as I suddenly, horribly realized that my husband wasn't the man I thought he was!. Am I living in an alternate reality? Where had my loving kind husband gone? And who put this strange creature in his place? It was time to wake up."
2012,
2016,
English,
Nell Rose,
Full title: "My Next Husband Will Be Normal: A St. John Adventure" by Rae Ellen Lee.
"In My Next Husband Will Be Normal, Lee and her husband ditch their sailboat and fly to the U.S. Virgin Islands with a down payment for a mom-and-pop business on St. John. The plan: when they aren’t sewing canvas bags at their little shop, The Canvas Factory, they’ll be beach potatoes.
But there are risks to living in paradise one cannot anticipate, especially on an island where residents bask in the mantra: You can do anything you want, as long as the rest of us know about it."
"For soon after unpacking their flip-flops, the husband - a former Republican state legislator with a silver crew-cut and solid traditional values - realizes he is really a she. Convinced the world needs more humor, Lee rations the angst in favor of the picturesque and absurd.
Adding heat to the story is a cast of colorful cats, customers, and Caribbean personalities. Toss in a few sex toys, some steel pan music, a pinch of voodoo - and stir."
2012,
English,
Rae Ellen Lee,
USA,
Full title: "A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She is Today" by Kate Bornstein.
"In the early 1970s, a boy from a Conservative Jewish family joined the Church of Scientology. In 1981, that boy officially left the movement and ultimately transitioned into a woman. A few years later, she stopped calling herself a woman—and became a famous gender outlaw.
Gender theorist, performance artist, and author Kate Bornstein is set to change lives with her stunningly original memoir. Wickedly funny and disarmingly honest, this is Bornstein's most intimate book yet, encompassing her early childhood and adolescence, college at Brown, a life in the theater, three marriages and fatherhood, the Scientology hierarchy, transsexual life, LGBTQ politics, and life on the road as a sought-after speaker."
2012,
English,
Interview,
Kate Bornstein,
USA,
Original title: "Schlauchgelüste: Liebesbrief an eine verlorene Männlichkeit" (Hose Cravings: Love Letter to a Lost Manhood) by Jacob Winter (Johanna Kamermans).
Johanna Kamermans was born in Vlissingen on the North Sea in the Netherlands. At the end of the 1960s, while being a civil engineer, she became a successful striptease dancer, then worked as a journalist and lived in many places: Hamburg, Berlin, Maastricht, and Arnhem.
We are not quite men, not quite women. But always both. This autobiographical novel by Jacob Winter is about the art of living a dream – against all odds, against all conventions. Jacob Winter was on the road for many years as a striptease dancer... Above woman, below man. Not "converted". But "tucked". She lived out her sexuality to the fullest. The trans women who performed on stage in the sixties and seventies were true pioneers. One of these pioneers was Jacob Winter. Who today can proudly say: "I was a woman". The book is peppered with drastic descriptions. But always in a cultivated and ironic language. "Sex'n Roll" times! When everything was still possible. In such a sense, "HOSE DESIRES" has therefore also become a moral painting of those old "In the heat of the night" times. Yes, that's it! Often laughable. Often not so funny. But always exciting. Above all, honesty. Not a "fairy tale" then! But a clarified story. Based on facts.
2012,
German,
Interview,
Jacob Winter,
Johanna Kamermans,
Original title: "I am a woman now" by Daniëlle Serdijn and Michiel van Erp.
When gynecologist Georges Burou opens a practice in Casablanca in 1956 where men can undergo a sex change, his name quickly spreads around the world. The famous French Marie-Pierre Pruvot "Bambi", the Flemish Corinne Van Tongerloo, the flamboyant British April Ashley, the German Jean Lessenich, and the Dutch Colette Berends: they all undertook the journey to Casablanca and the illegal practice of Burou.
In the autumn of their lives, they look back. Do these pioneers feel completely female? Did their choice bring the expected satisfaction? After the sensational film by Michiel van Erp, this fantastic book is published.
2012,
April Ashley,
Bambi,
Corinne Van Tongerloo,
Daniëlle Serdijn,
Dutch,
Georges Burou,
Jean Lessenich,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Michiel van Erp,
Full title: "Trannydykewhore: An autobiography in Parts, also: anarchy, gender and theory-like stuff" by Sylvan.
"Transwomen don't talk enough, and when we do it's usually either from a position of powerlessness (usually preaching to the choir) or from a position of artificial power (tokenizingly headlining a speaking gig). I'm not knocking the amazing women who have stuck their necks out to be in the public eye, or minimizing the contributions of Kate Bornstein, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore or Julia Serano. Not to mention the women. and queers who fought at stone wall, and the many who have died fighting for the right to exist.
I want another kind of narrative, and another kind of power... the kind that can only come from stories being told in brutal honesty, not speeches at a feel-good trans awareness ceremony or desperate whispers in the back of the feminist bookstore. I want tranwomen's stories to get read and recognized by the queer, feminist and radical communities, regardless of whether they fit or don't fit the dominant narratives of trans experience."
Full title: "A Pictorial Transformation: Him to Her (Transsexual Transition Book 3)" by Racheal McGonigal.
"This is a pictorial diary of 70+ photos of Andrews's journey to Racheal/Storm. Watch for the smiles once Racheal arrived. The saying a picture is worth a thousand words is shown clearly in this pictorial diary."
In 2013, I interviewed Rachel and asked her about the book: "“Pictorial Transformation – Him to Her” is a collection of 70+ photos of my journey and shows it all. “The Transgender guide” is really just a small booklet designed for those who are first starting to ask basic questions. “Reflections” is a collection of articles I have written or have been written about me. Magazines, newspapers, Internet.
2012,
English,
New Zealand,
Racheal McGonigal,
Full title: "God Does Love Me: My Trans Journey To Finding My True Self"
"This book is a chronicle of my life and transition from male to female. I wrote it because I have learned that when one has been blessed and fortunate to experience life in a grand scale, one has to share it. Not only have I experienced life on a grand scale, but I have experienced it from both sides. Let me explain. I have been blessed to live my life in both genders.
As the title of this book suggests, this book is about my transgender journey to find my true self. Let it be known from the start, I do not, in any way, feel my life in the male gender was without value. Everything we experience in life is a teaching tool. And now that I have found my true self, I am able to see life through unique lenses. In fact, now I don’t just see life through my eyes. Now I see life with all my senses and that makes life worth so much more.
2012,
Dawn J. Flynn,
English,
"At the age of seventeen Teraina, then Terry, first discovered she was really a woman. For the next fifty years she lived in total denial until, in 2007, something stirred within her.
In 2008 her wife of thirty-three years passed away, allowing Teraina the freedom to rediscover and explore her true self. This remarkable and sometimes amusing account tells of the difficulties and joys encountered on her incredibly short journey."
2012,
English,
Teraina Hird,
Full title: "No Gender Left Behind" by Rebecca Kling.
"Looking through old photo albums, it’s clear – boy, boy, boy.
I wanted a girl’s name, girl’s clothing, to have my hair long and flowing, to wear a girl’s swimming suit, to have a Bat Mitzvah, to play on the girls’ teams after school, to change in the girls’ locker room, to wear skirts and dresses to important family occasions, to live in the girls’ section of the dorm at college…
I’m not sure how to reconcile those lists. To own up to my history outs me as trans and brings up a long stretch of time – the first twenty or so years of my life – that’s at odds with how I see myself now.
When I talk with people about Judaism, do I acknowledge my Bar Mitzvah and out myself, or do I say I had a Bat Mitzvah and rewrite part of my life? When an acquaintance talks about buying suits or ties, do I chime in with memories of my experiences, or do I stay silent? Do I ask my parents to take down pictures from the first two decades of my life? To wipe clean the time before I was 22 or 23? To cover the mirrors which reflect the parts of myself I don’t always want to remember, don’t always want to see?
I want to transform, from who I was, to who I want to be."
2012,
English,
Rebecca Kling,
USA,
Full title: "Dear Mom and Dad: You Don’t Know Me, But …"
"Much has been written both about and by people who feel they were assigned the wrong body at conception, exploring the struggles and too often the tragedies that result from that mismatch of nature. Very little has been written, however, to chronicle the lifelong struggle of people to understand and come to terms with two distinct sets of emotions, one male and one female – a single soul, at times divided, at times united, by two clearly identifiable spirits.
Dear Mom and Dad: You Don’t Know Me, But … traces the life of George through the eyes of Georgia, the female half of their soul, from early childhood in the post-war Texas oil fields through the innocence of his early school years in northeastern Oklahoma. With the onset of puberty, Georgia watches the omnipresent feeling of not being normal cast a destructive pall over nearly everything George attempts. After the collapse of his lifelong dream, George begins again with hopes, new dreams, and the love they’ve both longed for. Georgia finally emerges, but understanding her part in their soul comes slowly and is complicated by a tragedy of profound proportion."
2012,
English,
Georgia Lee McGowen,
Original title: "Haruna ai no on'nanoko seibun wa 40 no essensu de dekite iru. Kagayaki joshi ni naru himitsu no rūru" - はるな愛の女の子成分は40のエッセンスでできている。 輝き女子になるひみつのルール (Haruna Ai's girl component is made up of 40 essences. Secret rules for becoming a shining girl) by Ai Haruna (はるな 愛).
This is the seventh book of Ai Haruna, mainly related to beauty tips, sharing the secret of Ai Haruna, who is "more feminine than a woman". Born Kenji Onishi in 1972, she is a Japanese TV celebrity and actress, singer, businesswoman, beauty pageant queen, and transgender activist. Her childhood was a happy time but her family was poor. She has a younger brother.
At school, she was known for her musical talent, performing at different school and cultural events. When she was in junior high school, she was bullied because of her feminine manners, so she could hardly study and her grades were poor.
2012,
Ai Haruna,
Japanese,
Full title: "Dazzling Darkness: Gender, Sexuality, Illness and God" by Rachel Mann. The book was re-published in 2022.
"This passionate and nuanced book brings together poetry, feminist theology, and philosophy and explores them through one person s hunger for wholeness, self-knowledge and God."
Rachel Mann is an inspiring woman, the Church of England priest in charge of St. Nicholas’ Church Burnage in Manchester, and Minor Canon of Manchester Cathedral. She is a broadcaster, published poet, theologian, and music journalist specializing in metal, prog, and folk. Her memoir of being trans, lesbian, and Christian, “Dazzling Darkness” (2012) was a Church Times bestseller.
2012,
England,
English,
Rachel Mann,
Original title: "Trans’ avec les Loups" (Trans’ with Wolves)
'We have produced this beautiful book of 172 pages in 16 x 22.6 cm format and all in color as a collective work of transvestite, transgender, and trans-friendly artists and authors: poems, drawings, photography, analyses, and testimonies with the friendly participation of Nath-Sakura and Louise Dumont.
The guidelines and the diversity of the texts enlighten the reader about the richness and diversity of transvestite and transgender people and their backgrounds.
In fact, this book can be used as a support for a coming out to a loved one or a friend who does not know the subject.'
2012,
Colletif Txy,
French,
Full title: "Summer Storm (Transsexual Transition Book 2)"
"Having become the City Girl, Racheal (Storm) had a lot to learn. Racheal went to Perth, Western Australia, where the adventure took off. Meeting Summer Bardot, a then preop TS working as an Escort (not illegal in NZ and Australia), Summer introduced Racheal into the sex industry, Storm was born.
Storm was Racheal's working name. Storm learnt about being a female, men sexually, clothes, hair, shoes, style, nails, and more as Summer's pupil.
Filled with sex, fun, drugs, lust, BDSM, travel, money, laughter, men, and sex again, they travelled an up-and-down road around Australia and New Zealand. Breaking up and getting back together. Alas, Storm's heart was broken in the end by Summer. A person with the biggest heart ever but alas also the biggest, liar, thief, and con-artist. The lies were incredible and unbelievable.
Alas OCP, NPD, and pathological liar - such a shame."
2012,
English,
New Zealand,
Racheal McGonigal,
