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: "Elas me contaram: Histórias de Travestis e Transexuais" (They told me: Stories of Transvestites and Transsexuals) by Melquiades Galindo.
"A photographer and writer, and his saga to get to know the stories of transvestites and transsexual women with the intention of gathering material to make a novel that tells their lives. What he didn't imagine is that he would be faced with dramatic situations to the point of making his mission almost impossible."
2018,
Melquiades Galindo,
Portuguese,
Full title: "Holy Wild" by Gwen Benaway.
"In her third collection of poetry, Holy Wild, Gwen Benaway explores the complexities of being an Indigenous trans woman in expansive lyric poems. She holds up the Indigenous trans body as a site of struggle, liberation, and beauty. A confessional poet, Benaway narrates her sexual and romantic intimacies with partners as well as her work to navigate the daily burden of transphobia and violence.
She examines the intersections of Indigenous and trans experience through autobiographical poems and continues to speak to the legacy of abuse, violence, and colonial erasure that defines Canada. Her sparse lines, interwoven with English and Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe), illustrate the wonder and power of Indigenous trans womanhood in motion. Holy Wild is not an easy book, as Benaway refuses to give any simple answers, but it is a profoundly vibrant and beautiful work filled with a transcendent grace."
Gwen Benaway is a Canadian poet, writer, and advocate for the rights of transgender and Indigenous people. She was born in Wingham, Ontario, Canada, and is of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. Benaway is known for her work that explores themes of identity, love, and trauma, often drawing from her personal experiences as a trans woman and Indigenous person. She has published several collections of poetry, including "Ceremonies for the Dead," which won the 2016 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers.
Her poetry often reflects on the intersections of her identity and the challenges faced by Indigenous and transgender communities. In addition to her work as a writer, Gwen Benaway is an advocate for the rights of Indigenous and LGBTQ+ individuals. She has been involved in community organizing and activism, addressing issues such as violence against Indigenous women and the rights of trans people.
2018,
Canada,
English,
Gwen Benaway,
Full title: "Queer Sex: A Trans and Non-Binary Guide to Intimacy, Pleasure and Relationships" by Juno Roche.
"In this frank, funny and poignant book, transgender activist Juno Roche discusses sex, desire and dating with leading figures from the trans and non-binary community. Calling out prejudices and inspiring readers to explore their own concepts of intimacy and sexuality, the first-hand accounts celebrate the wonder and potential of trans bodies and push at the boundaries of how society views gender, sexuality and relationships. Empowering and necessary, this collection shows all trans people deserve to feel brave, beautiful and sexy."
Juno Roche is a British author, journalist, and transgender activist known for her work in raising awareness about transgender issues. She has written extensively on topics related to gender identity, sexual health, and transgender rights. Roche is also recognized for her advocacy work and speaking engagements, where she shares her personal experiences as a transgender woman.
2018,
English,
Interview,
Juno Roche,
Original title: "Pão de Açúcar" (Sugarloaf Mountain) by Afonso Reis Cabral.
"In February 2006, the Porto Fire Brigade rescued a body with marks of aggression and naked from the waist down from the well of an abandoned building. The victim, who was ill and had taken refuge in the basement, had been beaten over several days by a group of teenagers, some of whom were as young as twelve.
Rafa had found the place on one of his usual forays into the "dirty areas", and that kind of tent immediately piqued his interest.
Then, torn between attraction and repulsion, he wondered if he should keep the secret to himself or share it with his friends. But what value is there in a treasure that cannot be shown?
A dizzying novel about a true case that shook the country, a fascinating incursion into the lives of a victim and his aggressors, Pão de Açúcar is a masterful combination of fact and fiction, with real and imaginary characters meticulously drawn, which confirms the talent and literary maturity of Afonso Reis Cabral."
2018,
Afonso Reis Cabral,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Meu nome é Helena" (My name is Helena) by Larissa Rosso.
Larissa Rosso presents the story of Helena Soares Meireles, who was born Heleno. "It took Helena Soares Meireles months to encourage herself to be reunited with her father after the operation that changed her body forever. At the age of 36, the transsexual had undergone a sex affirmation surgery, indicated for cases of dysphoria or gender incongruence, adapting her genitalia to the gender with which she actually identified – from a young age, Heleno, her baptismal name, felt like a woman."
"The procedure conducted at the Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre (HCPA) transformed, after more than two years of psychological preparation and monitoring by a multidisciplinary team, the penis and scrotum into a vagina.
2018,
Brazil,
Helena Soares Meireles,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Les secrets de l'origami" (The Secrets of Origami) by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay.
"Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay's second book hardly addresses trans identity, but unabashedly explores the dysfunctional relationships and disillusionment of a woman who claims to be in love with everyone. "I'm a passionate person who doesn't do things by halves, like the movie I starred in. I often get ideas about a relationship that's just been born, like a pre-origami blank page, before realizing it's not working.""
"Heartbroken by disappointment, she uses words to examine her scars, forced to admit that many of her injuries were caused by people's inability to endure intimacy for more than one night. "I often wonder if it's my fault, if it's because I'm trans or too intense, not enough this or that. I quickly become intimate with people. I allow myself to be vulnerable with someone I barely know. This is how I can live my truth. But sometimes, it scares some people...""
2018,
Canada,
French,
Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay,
Gabrielle Tremblay,
Original title: "Les hijras: Portrait socioreligieux d'une communauté transgenre sud-asiatique" (Hijras: Socio-religious portrait of a South Asian transgender community) by Mathieu Boisvert.
Hijras, often referred to as "transgender" by Westerners, are a distinct community whose identity underpinnings transcend sexual orientation alone. This "third gender" is presented with great finesse in this book, which examines, among other things, family structures, perceptions of aging, human rights issues, and rituals of all kinds – from birth to death to community integration, marriage, or castration.
Based on field studies and interviews, the book describes a complex and astonishing world of people who live on the margins of society while struggling for the legitimacy of a status that would allow them to be fully part of it. Three stories in particular bear witness to the daily practices of the hijras and their philosophy and thus provide this study with valuable insight of direct experience.
2018,
French,
India,
Mathieu Boisvert,
Full title: "The Sky Turned Green & The Grass Turned Blue: Diane's Story: My Personal Journey as the Significant Other to an M2F Transsexual" by Diana Kelly.
"When Diane’s lover and friend, Jack, comes out seven years into their relationship expressing his well-kept secret desire to transition from male to female, Diane’s world turns upside down. With little information to help answer the question ‘do I stay or do I go’, she searches for direction on her own.
Navigating the murky waters of the unknown that accompany the challenges of Jack’s changing persona, guided by love, loyalty, and a willingness to sacrifice, Diane shares her observations and reactions. In this true story, she explores the underground world of BDSM, bondage/submission and sadomasochism, as well as, provides an intimate view into gay and lesbian lifestyles in her attempt to gauge what impact Jack’s changes might have to their relationship and to her own authentic self."
2018,
Diana Kelly,
English,
Original title: "Je suis transexuelle: j'en fais pas une maladie!" (I'm transsexual: I don't make it a disease!) by Philippine Dhanis.
I have to get used to the light gradually so as not to be blinded by my new condition. I will have to gradually learn to master each of the feminine codes, so as not to be a caricature. This gentle yet powerful transformation takes the time necessary for me to totally and definitively incarnate as a woman, smoothly and delicately.
I will certainly need strength when tackling the surgical steps that I am considering, but here too, time and hormones will have done their work. I will be ready, well prepared, but I can't help but think that here too, I will be impatient and that I will need a lot of courage to reason with myself!
2018,
French,
Philippine Dhanis,
Full title: "The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective" by Joy Ladin.
"Reading some of the best-known Torah stories through the lens of transgender experience, Joy Ladin explores fundamental questions about how religious texts, traditions, and the understanding of God can be enriched by transgender perspectives, and how the Torah and trans lives can illuminate one another.
Drawing on her own experience and lifelong reading practice, Ladin shows how the Torah, a collection of ancient texts that assume human beings are either male or female, speaks both to practical transgender concerns, such as marginalization, and to the challenges of living without a body or social role that renders one intelligible to others―challenges that can help us understand a God who defies all human categories. These creative, evocative readings transform our understanding of the Torah’s portrayals of God, humanity, and relationships between them."
2018,
English,
Joy Ladin,
Original title: "'Maiṃ hijaṛā... maiṃ Lakshmī' meṃ kinnara-vimarśa" मैं हिजड़ा...मैं लक्समी में किन्नर-विमर्श (Me Hijra, Me Laxmi) by Milana Biśnoi.
Study of Maiṃ Hijaṛā...maiṃ Lakshmī!, an autobiography of Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, born 1979, a transgender rights activist and Hindi film actress from Mumbai, India.
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi, often known as Laxmi, is a renowned transgender rights activist, Bollywood actress, Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer, and motivational speaker based in Mumbai, India. She is also the Acharya Mahamandaleshwar of Kinnar Akhada1.
Born on December 13, 1978, in Thane, Maharashtra1, Laxmi has been a prominent figure in advocating for the rights of the Hijra community in India.
2018,
Hindi,
Laxmi Narayan Tripathi,
Milana Biśnoi,
Full title: "Revealing Selves: Transgender Portraits from Argentina" by Kike Arnal.
"A beautifully photographed exploration of what it means to be transgender in Argentina—part of a series of photobooks on LGBTQ communities around the world Argentina was the first nation in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage. It also passed legislation making it one of the most advanced countries worldwide in terms of transgender rights—the culmination of a long battle fought by LGBTQ support groups.
In the beautifully packaged and affordably priced Revealing Selves, award-winning photographer Kike Arnal collaborates with individuals in Argentinian transgender communities, living side by side with them and documenting their day-to-day lives in a series of strikingly intimate color and black-and-white images."
2018,
Argentina,
English,
Kike Arnal,
Full title: "The Life and Death of Latisha King: A Critical Phenomenology of Transphobia" by Gayle Salamon.
"The Life and Death of Latisha King examines a single incident, the shooting of 15-year-old Latisha King by 14-year-old Brian McInerney in their junior high school classroom in Oxnard, California in 2008. The press coverage of the shooting, as well as the criminal trial that followed, referred to Latisha, assigned male at birth, as Larry.
Unpacking the consequences of representing the victim as Larry, a gay boy, instead of Latisha, a trans girl, Gayle Salamon draws on the resources of feminist phenomenology to analyze what happened in the school and at the trial that followed. In building on the phenomenological concepts of anonymity and comportment, Salamon considers how gender functions in the social world and the dangers of being denied anonymity as both a particularizing and dehumanizing act.
2018,
English,
Gayle Salamon,
Latisha King,
Full title: "Timeless Dance: A Story of Change and Loss" by Karen Shiffman Lateiner.
"TIMELESS DANCE: A Story of Change and Loss, is just that - a compelling memoir about life, death, gender change, acceptance, advocacy, and coping within the family, the community, and the world. It is a well told story of generational challenges and reflections on life altering events; a skillfully woven mix of narrative, prose, poetry, and letters. A page turner by many accounts, Timeless Dance illuminates issues not often contemplated, especially those related to transgender and gender non-conforming individuals."
"Understanding the transition of her child from male to female during the mid-1990's, and then grappling with her new daughter's tragic death two years later, motivated her to share what she experienced and learned about transgender issues, as well as life in general. Her compelling book, Timeless Dance: A Story of Change and Loss, stands as a memoir, biography, and primer for understanding gender diversity. Telling her story and speaking at a variety of educational, social, religious, and corporate venues provides an opportunity to open important conversations about LGBTQ+ issues, past and present."
2018,
English,
Karen Shiffman Lateiner,
USA,
Full title: "Brazilian 'Travesti' Migrations" by Julieta Vartabedian.
"This book sheds new light on the interconnections between identity, gender and geographical displacement. At its centre are Brazilian travesti migrants, assigned as male at birth but later seeking to convey the aesthetic attributes of women by repeatedly performing a minutely-studied type of femininity. Despite the fact that they have been migrating between Brazil and Europe for more than forty years, very little is know about them, especially in the English-speaking world.
This work therefore fills a significant lacuna in our understandings of sexualities, bodies and trans issues, whilst rejecting hegemonic terms such as 'transsexual' and 'transgender' in favour of the specificity of the travesti. What it presents is an ethnographical study of their bodily and geographic-spatial migrations, analysing how they become travestis through the gendered modification of their bodies, their involvement in sex work, and the transnational migrations to Europe that many of them make. Examining their lives in both Brazil and Europe, it also analyses how their migrations influence the construction of their subjectivities. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in Brazil and Barcelona, this exciting book will appeal to all those interested in gender, sexuality and transgender issues."
2018,
Brazil,
English,
Julieta Vartabedian,
Original title: "Un jour peut-être: Journal d´un champion olympique devenu femme" (One day maybe: Diary of an Olympic champion turned woman) by Sandra Forgues.
In 1996, Wilfrid Forgues was crowned Olympic Canoe Champion in Atlanta, together with his teammate Franck Adisson. 22 years later, Wilfrid has become Sandra, and it is under this new identity that she appears to the general public, especially in the media that are interested in the first French athlete Olympic champion to reveal her desire to change gender.
It took her a long time to admit that she wanted to become a woman, to accept it... and do it. A lot of time, a lot of questions, which remained unanswered for a long time. It is the story of this questioning, the diary over several months, this awareness and decision that led her to implement this change of identity, that constitutes this book, from the "favorable" opinion of a psychiatrist, to the communication with the media that announces the final decision.
2018,
French,
Sandra Forgues,
Full title: "Skirting Gender: Life and Lessons of a Crossdresser" by Vera Wylde.
"What is a crossdresser? What is genderfluid? How does one come to the conclusion that they are either of these? These questions and more are laid out as Vera Wylde details her life of gender non-conformity and the lessons she's learned along the way.
Full of personal stories and practical advice, this book is a guide for those questioning for themselves, wishing to understand a loved one, or simply state their own curiosity."
"Vera Wylde was born in Northern California and grew up in Northeast Vermont with her mother. After leaving college she moved to Boston and then later New York where she began to perform in drag and burlesque shows as some of her earliest public displays of gender fluidity.
Even after returning to Vermont, she has never stopped performing for the last 13 years.
In 2011 she began uploading videos to YouTube in an effort to offer support and guidance to any other cross dressing or gender fluid people who were not as far along their path as she was.
This would ultimately culminate in the self-publishing of her first book, Skirting Gender, in 2018.
She continues to live in Vermont with her family and is pursuing works of fiction as well as video production."
2018,
Crossdressing,
Drag queen,
English,
Vera Wylde,
Original title: "Call Me Anne: ข้ามเพศพันล้าน" (Call Me Anne: Transgender Billions) by Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip.
The book is a biography of Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip (Thai: จักรพงษ์ จักราจุฑาธิบดิ์), also known as Khun Anne or Anne Jakrajutatip, sometimes informally stylized as Anne JKN. She is a Thai businesswoman, television host and Chief Executive Officer of JKN Global Group.
According to Wikipedia, being a media entrepreneur and digital content distributor in Thailand, she is the owner of the Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss Teen USA beauty pageant organizations. Jakrajutatip became the first trans woman who fully owns these organizations in their history. According to Forbes, she is the third richest transgender person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$210 million in 2020.
2018,
Jakkaphong Jakrajutatip,
Thai,
Thailand,
Full title: "Transgender Story" by Jordan Hammonds.
"I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. My name is Jordan Hammonds, born on December 14. I graduated from Covenant House Southwest on 13 June 2017. I started as gay at the age of 13. After being molested I didn’t know what to do with myself. Day after day I tried to talk to people about it but people did not want to hear me out.
I started dressing up at the age of 14. I’ve been a cross-dresser for 21 years now and I am happy with who I am but every day I think about my family. My family wants no part of me and that kind of makes me upset. They don’t have anything to do with me. I am out here on my own. I’ve been on my own since the age of 13. I had my first house after the age of 16 and I’ve been on my own for a very long time and I know how it is."
2018,
English,
Jordan Hammonds,
USA,
Full title: "The Red Light Runner" by Bobbi Lancaster.
"Dr. Bob Lancaster was a family physician with a buried secret: he felt more natural and comfortable as a woman. As a child he concealed his feelings for fear of being bullied; during adulthood, he was afraid of losing his reputation and practice. When he did confess to a priest at fourteen, he was told his desires were sinful. Even as he became a husband and father, he engaged in cross-dressing and dreamed of being female.
After years of yearning and despair, Dr. Bob gave up and planned suicide. He recovered after his attempt failed, but his depression continued. When he suffered a stroke and confronted his own mortality for the first time, he finally underwent gender confirmation surgery shortly before his sixtieth birthday."
2018,
Bobbi Lancaster,
Canada,
English,
