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: "Schlaflos in Essen: Die zweite Pubertät" (Sleepless in Essen: The Second Puberty)
Author Pamela Halling was born a man. She spent almost 40 years trying to live up to a role whose dissonance with her own feelings seemed to grow almost daily. Only when she threatened to break down due to suffering did she get professional help - and advice that would change her whole life: "Finally stand by what you are!"
'I was allowed to see the light of day on April 17, 1972 in Vechta (NDS). I am the youngest daughter of a middle-class family. I was allowed to spend my childhood and youth well protected in the small Catholic town of Bühren near Emstek.
2014,
German,
Pamela Halling,
Original title: "Transgender's diary: Дневники Трансгендера" by Polina Zverev.
A tender and poetic book about the love of a Russian artist living in France. Problems with self-perception haunt him in tolerant France. The novel is autobiographical, with illustrations provided by the author herself.
Polina Zverev is a French-Russian artist who specializes in figurative, abstract, and surrealistic painting. Prose for the author is an additional means of self-expression in the visual arts.
2014,
Polina Zverev,
Russian,
Original title: "La Transexual de Tobago" (The Transsexual of Tobago)
"The Transsexual of Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. This is a young child on the way to understanding and discovery through dishonest abuse, anguish, pain, and trauma.
Learn about their sexual identity and preference. A struggle for survival against much of the discrimination by trying to keep faith in God and maintaining hope that life will be better. Turning into a woman who transforms into a role model and mother of many at the same time, facing her own demons.
This book is an attempt to give visibility to the community constantly mistreated by their peers. It is the experience of one, if not many. It refers to the need for understanding, not just tolerance. It is a plea for equality, but not just compassion."
2014,
Dominique Jackson,
Spanish,
"A memoir in her most personal voice, Teri Louise Kelly tells us what it is like to be born in the wrong body.
"Let's forget the flounce and frills and sugar and spice; this isn't Cinderella and there aren't any glass slippers or pumpkins that change into carriages, but there is the simple madness of everyday existence as adequate compensation.
And while there may not be many tears, there are tantrums and insane asylums, and self-deprecating binges. None of which has anything to do with the most bizarre decision a person could make - changing one's sex - but all of which are central to this tale of outlandish head games with oneself and one's imaginary self, a three-foot-tall high priestess of mass deception.
After all, if you're going to write a book about changing sex, then why not bend it completely out of shape and give it some balls?"
A surreal, courageous, and compelling account of one person's realization, transition, and reemergence, you will not soon forget Bent."
2014,
Australia,
English,
Teri Louise Kelly,
Original title: "Mine Digte" (My Poems).
In her poems, Cecillia Mundts gives powerful and poignant testimony to living as a transgender woman. Changing gender identity is, by its very nature, a huge personal upheaval, but on top of that comes the reaction of the outside world.
It is often prejudiced and relentless, and Cecillia also had to learn that it is not always only harsh words. When she took to the streets one day in 2013, she was knocked down with a hammer and her life changed once again.
The poems are aimed not only at poetry lovers, but also people who want to get an insight into the problem of what gender identity really is. At a time when we are experiencing a significant increase in hate crimes, the book can also be used as a discussion paper in primary and secondary schools, and other educational similar places.
2014,
Cecillia Mundt,
Danish,
"Press for Change (founded in 1992) was a hugely successful campaign for the civil rights of transgender people in the UK — achieving in the first 12 years a string of legislative successes that included protection against discrimination in employment, the right to NHS treatment and ultimately the process for full legal recognition of transsexual people in their acquired gender in 2004.
These are the memoirs of Christine Burns MBE, one of the leading figures in that campaign until 2007. In this second volume Christine describes how Press for Change moved up a gear and challenged Britain’s Labour Government, starting in 1998. She describes how employment protections and the right for trans people to be treated on the NHS were won — culminating in the successful passage of the Gender Recognition Act."
2014,
Christine Burns,
English,
Full title: "Trading Places: When Our Son Became a Daughter - A Mother's Story of a Family's Transition"
"This memoir recounts one mother's struggle to come to terms with her grown-up transsexual daughter. When she learned that her adult son planned to become a daughter, she felt like her child was heading for disaster and she desperately tried to stop the transition.
As time progressed, her efforts to stop it led her to learn more and more about transsexualism instead. She also became increasingly aware that her child was happier and more confident as a woman, had more friends than ever before, and in some inexplicable way, actually seemed more "normal."
However, Baker's own transition was not so easy. She describes a poetic transfer of dissonance: "I watched my son disappear; it felt like he had died and an entirely different person emerged to replace him. As my child became whole, I became more dissonant. It was as though we were trading places.""
2014,
English,
Jane Baker,
Full title: "The Daughter We Didn't Know We Had: The Tears, Fears, and Joys of a Mother of a Transgender Child"
"When your beautiful son comes to you and says he has had feelings of suicide, your heart skips a beat. You do whatever it takes to get him help. When your beautiful son comes to you and says he wants to become a woman, your world is suddenly turned upside down.
A million thoughts invade your mind. Fear becomes your constant companion, and tears swell up inside you every time you think of what could be waiting ahead. You can't help feeling pride in your child for showing the kind of courage that would be needed for their long road ahead. You watch as your family struggles to come together and stay together in what will be the most trying of times."
2014,
English,
Marilyn Phillips,
Original title: "Julia: Mein Leben zwischen den Geschlechtern" (Julia: My life between the sexes) by Julia Prillwitz & Nina Job
She was born a boy. But when she was just ten years old, instead of the first whiskers, she grew breasts. She was mocked by her classmates and abused by her teachers. For all of them, Julia was an oddity, neither boy nor girl. But Julia decided not to decide. She didn't want to have her surgery completely turned into a woman, she didn't want to become a man.
She is Julia - not a man, not a woman - with her own, very special sexuality.
And that, in turn, allows her to understand the emotional and sexual relationships between the sexes much better than "normal" people can. Julia is a person who is characterized by a zest for life that has developed from the adversities of life and that nothing and nobody can harm. This book is the story of a very special person and a passionate plea for open dealings with sexuality, sexual preferences, and the actual or perceived differences between the sexes.
2014,
German,
Julia Prillwitz,
"My name is Snow, and I am a trans woman. That’s something I only figured out a few years ago, and let me tell you, it was a very strange and confusing process. Before all of this, I’d never met a trans person. I didn’t know a thing about them, really.
In fact, I was labouring under some horribly inaccurate presumptions.
As I started to learn more about trans people, about the community to which I would come to belong to, the community I would come to cherish, one particular thought stuck out to me. How the fuck does anybody learn about any of this shit?
Like, come on. It’s not complicated, just different. And it doesn’t need to be different. It just is, because wow mainstream media really doesn’t like us, does it?
Anyway, when I started to transition, I decided to document the process. I wrote about all the different things that happened, all the steps I had to go through, the things I was thinking at the time. I posted about all of it on my blog, because I wanted it to be a resource. For other possibly trans people, for people who wanted to understand a little more about trans people, or just for anyone interested."
2014,
English,
Snow McNally,
"Jonathan is just seven years old when his mother has a nervous breakdown and is hospitalized. He stands in the kitchen of a friend's house, where he will stay until his mother recovers, and examines his mind for anything he believes that can't be true. Jonathan feels like he should be a girl, but girls don't have penises. It's time to learn how to be a boy.
This insightful and entertaining memoir is both laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreaking. It follows Jonathan's story from early childhood into young adulthood, his struggles with his Catholic faith and internalized transphobia, and ultimately whether or not he will make a decision that will destroy his relationship with the only girl he ever loved."
In 2014, I interviewed Natalie and this is what she told me about why she wrote this book: "To make money [laughing] at first. I've been blogging for a long time and people for the most part like my writing I thought I should take some of the energy I put into blogging and write a book. As I got into the project I realized it was important because I was writing the trans* memoir I wish existed before I transitioned.
2014,
English,
Natalie Gates,
Full title: "Stuck in the Middle with You: A Memoir of Parenting in Three Genders"
"A father for six years, a mother for ten, and for a time in between, neither, or both, Jennifer Finney Boylan has seen parenthood from both sides of the gender divide. When her two children were young, Boylan came out as transgender, and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother, her family faced unique challenges and questions.
In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jenny asks what it means to be a father, or a mother, and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents. Through both her own story and incredibly insightful interviews with others, including Richard Russo, Edward Albee, Ann Beattie, Augusten Burroughs, Susan Minot, Trey Ellis, Timothy Kreider, and more, Jenny examines relationships between fathers, mothers, and children; people's memories of the children they were and the parents they became; and the many different ways a family can be."
2014,
English,
Jennifer Finney Boylan,
Full title: "Stand-up for Yourself: And Become the Hero or Shero You Were Born To Be"
"An inspiring, no-holds-barred account of one woman's quest to find her true self. Shelley Bridgman is an award-winning stand-up comic, actor, scriptwriter, professional speaker, and a leading psychotherapist - but it wasn't always this way.
First, she survived the hedonistic sixties with the inevitable round of clubbing, fashion, and drugs; then she made the most of the seventies, travelling to over sixty countries whilst running a travel business - but it was the eighties that tested her to her limits.
Battling depression, bankruptcy, addiction, and suicide attempts, Shelley found the strength to confront her need to change gender and achieve harmony with herself. A unique story told with delightfully dry humour about identity, self-discovery, acceptance, and courage. It is also a testament to a profoundly touching love story that has lasted over forty years."
2014,
English,
Shelley Bridgman,
Original title: "In via del Campo nascono i fiori" (Flowers are born in via del Campo) by Rossella Bianchi.
Many say that selling your body is the most humiliating thing, but when you have known the drama of not being accepted by your family, by society, the frustration of being refused a job to which you would be entitled, persecution and hunger, prostitution is a way out. If not mandatory, at least the most painless.
When you are no longer hungry and you can buy what you like, you realize that you don't give a damn about those who do not give you a job, those who do not accept you, those who mock you, because you invented work and you certainly recover a little dignity.
2014,
Italian,
Rossella Bianchi,
Full title: "My Life is No Accident: A memoir by Tenika Watson"
"Who is Tenika Watson? Many people have wondered, many people have assumed, and few have truly known the story of her life beyond the tabloid coverage of the car crash that paralyzed the late Teddy Pendergrass.
My Life Is No Accident is a memoir spanning five decades. It is a story of innocence, family, coming of age, love, struggle, and overcoming adversity."
"In 1982, R&B star Teddy Pendergrass was severely injured in an auto accident, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. In the car with him that night was a woman, Tenika Watson, who for several years now has kept a low profile. Her own career as a model and entertainer was knocked off track when news outlets found out that Watson had been born male."
"A black man having a relationship with a transgender woman, even today in a world of more acceptance, is still considered taboo and fodder for supreme ridicule, but adding that the man is a successful hardcore-masculine-ladies-man-superstar-soul-singer in 1982 was beyond comprehension and an instant career-ender.
Women were CRAZY for Teddy Pendergrass and the scandal all but left their sexual quests for him catatonic. They realized THEY really DIDN’T know Teddy Pendergrass… by now!
And perhaps they never, never, never REALLY knew him. At the height of his career, Teddy Pendergrass saw all hell break loose in one night.
Seeing a transgendered prostitute named Tenika Watson at a club in 1982, the singer spoke to her and was ready to leave and so was she. They got in the car and the rest is R&B history."
2014,
English,
Tenika Watson,
Original title: "Vom Kind zum Schmetterling: Journey of a Butterfly" (From Child to Butterfly: Journey of a Butterfly)
A life story. Born a man in the wrong body, Michelle experiences the exciting journey to becoming a woman. This is her first biographical book, followed by "Black Butterfly: Vom Kind zum Schmetterling Teil II" (Black Butterfly: From Child to Butterfly Part II), published in 2014.
2014,
German,
Michelle Förster,
Full title: "From Sharecropper's Son to Who's Who in American Women"
"Transsexual Pioneer At two o'clock in the morning of January 31, 1969, I walked across the Mexican border alone into Tijuana. My purpose sex-change surgery. This book is an account of the events of my life leading up to that trip and afterwards.
Before I became aware of Christine Jorgensen, I didn't know there was another person in the world like me. I was in my mid-teens when I first heard of sex-change surgery. I spent years searching for information and a doctor who could and would perform the operation.
I was 29 years old when I had the surgery. With no ID, birth certificate or record of any kind to document my existence, I faced many obstacles in my new life. I worked for the State of Georgia thirty years, retiring in 2000."
2014,
English,
Phoebe Smith,
Full title: "From The Edge: The story of a transition, of a road travelled and of the people who made that journey what it was"
"It started out as an impossible dream, a wish for a miracle. One little boy's hope that he would wake up as a girl. It was a dream that followed him through his teen years and into adulthood. It didn't leave him and it followed him to the edge of a Spanish cliff on a rainy November night.
This is the story of a transition from boy to girl in a modern world coming to grips with the transgender condition.
Using genuine diary entries, this book follows a journey through transition. It's a story about experiences, about coming to terms with life, and about the people who made a difference in that life.
It's about finding a place to belong and about fitting in. It's about acceptance and about the changes we make to find happiness.
This is Emma's first novel and is an honest account of her route through a transition in modern-day England."
2014,
Emma Jewkes,
English,
Full title: "My Transition Checklist: Updated 2014"
"As the laws across the country change, more and more people are coming out as transgender or transsexual. Finding a starting place to facilitate transitioning at work can be a challenge. I offer an outline of what we did to facilitate my transition. Use what works and come up with a different plan for what doesn't. If nothing else, it is a starting point for discussions."
In 2017, I talked to Shauna about which aspects of her experience can be useful for other transwomen: "Understanding that it's not just you, but everyone in your family that is transitioning. Some will accept. Some will reject.
Regardless, we all need to be who we are. Change can be painful, but we get to the other side and we are happier than we have ever been in our previous life. We find more self-confidence. Plus, we find a new family that welcomes us with open arms.
2014,
English,
Shauna Marie O'Toole,
Original title: "Ontem Homem, Hoje Mulher" (Yesterday Man, Today Woman)
João Décio Ferreira, a doctor, one of the leading specialists in gender change surgeries, was immediately interested in the case of the boy with a girl figure. Patricia was still Nuno, but whoever saw her saw a woman. Blonde, expressive-looking, and a smiling girl, trapped in the wrong body. Only, when she managed to free herself from the body that imprisoned her, the singer went through a long ordeal.
First, as a child, she struggled with identity issues. She played with dolls and that was the nickname she had at school. She cried in the silence of the room.
At one point, increasingly aware that something was going on, Patricia would put together coins that she then exchanged for girly clothes and make-up. It was at the fair, and in the stores of the 300, that she was tied up in women's accessories.
2014,
Patricia Ribeiro,
Portugal,
Portuguese,
