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.
Full title: "Transgressed: Intimate Partner Violence in Transgender Lives" by Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz.
"Transgender people face some of the highest rates of violence in the US and around the world, particularly within romantic relationships. In Transgressed, Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz offers a ground-breaking examination of intimate partner violence in the lives of transgender people.
Drawing on interviews and written accounts from transgender survivors of intimate partner violence, he sheds much-needed light on the dynamics of abuse that entrap trans partners in violent relationships. Transgressed shows how rigidly gendered discussions of violence have served to marginalize and silence stories of abuse. Ultimately, these stories of survival follow their unique journeys as they navigate - and break free - from the cycle of abuse, providing us with a better understanding of their experiences."
2019,
English,
Xavier L. Guadalupe-Diaz,
"Nella camera oscura" (In The Dark Room) is the Italian language edition of Susan Faludi and Patricia Piolon's bestseller "In the Darkroom".
Let me quote the 2016 article from The New York Times: ""In the Darkroom" is Faludi's rich, arresting and ultimately generous investigation of her father, who died in 2015. It is partly an inquiry into the meaning of gender, a subject Faludi, the famous feminist, sees very differently from Stefánie, who hewed to traditional notions of masculinity and femininity both as an overbearing patriarch and as a coquettish old woman."
"But in trying to understand her inscrutable father — Jewish Holocaust survivor and Leni Riefenstahl fanatic, man and woman, a sly fantasist whose tallest tales turn out to be true — Faludi transcends feminist debate. The book, which traces the decimation of her father's prosperous, assimilated Jewish clan during World War II, his improbable survival and then reinvention in Denmark, Brazil, and America, and his gender metamorphosis at 76, becomes a complex act of forgiveness."
2019,
Italian,
Stefánie Faludi,
Susan Faludi,
Full title: "Twenties and Happy: A complete guide to happiness in a little pocketbook" by Pavie Valsa.
"Twenties and Happy is a beautiful pocketbook designed to uplift and empower you so you can love and accept yourself just as you are. Every page carries a powerful message that will reconnect you back to your joy and unconditional love for self.
Author Pavie Valsa knows rejection and loneliness all too well. Having come out twice in one lifetime, once as gay and a second time as a trans woman, Pavie’s desire to show you how to love yourself at a soul level shines through every page as she lovingly guides you through simple steps to unlock the happiness and power that has lived inside all along."
2019,
English,
Pavie Valsa,
Original title: "Før min mand forsvinder" (Before my husband disappears) is the Danish language edition of "Ennen kuin mieheni katoaa" by Selja Ahava, a Finnish author.
I found this fantastic review: "You may be a woman, but does it need to be seen?"
This is how the Finnish writer Selja Ahava has written in her autofiction novel, where she has written down her thoughts and feelings during the period when her husband suddenly exclaims one day after 10 years of marriage that he has always wanted to be a woman.
Selja Ahava has written her thoughts exactly as they have appeared in her head, and we follow the process from when her husband says it at the kitchen table, until they have to sign the divorce papers, and she has to get used to calling her husband, who has had breast surgery, wears makeup and handbags, changed her social security number and now goes by the name Lili.
2019,
Danish,
Selja Ahava,
Original title: "Las malas" (The Bad Girls) by Camila Sosa Villada.
"When she arrived in Córdoba to study at the university, Camila Sosa Villada went one night, scared to death, to spy on the transvestites in Parque Sarmiento and found her first place of belonging in the world.
The Bad Ones is a rite of passage, a fairy tale and a horror story, a group portrait, an explosive manifesto, a guided tour of the author's imagination and a chronicle different from all of the rest. The two trans facets that most repel and terrify the well-thought-out society converge in the DNA of this book: transvestite fury and the celebration of being a transvestite. Marguerite Duras, Wislawa Szymborska, and Carson McCullers coexist in her literary voice."
2019,
Argentina,
Camila Sosa Villada,
Spanish,
"Mam na imię Jazz" is the Polish language edition of "My name is Jazz" by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings (2015). A nice book for children with the story of Jazz Jennings.
"From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl's brain in a boy's body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn't feel like herself in boy's clothing.
This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Jazz's story is based on her real-life experience and she tells it in a simple, clear way that will be appreciated by picture book readers, their parents, and teachers."
2019,
Jazz Jennings,
Jessica Herthel,
Polish,
Full title: "Trans Exploits: Trans of Color Cultures and Technologies in Movement" by Jian Neo Chen.
"In Trans Exploits Jian Neo Chen explores the cultural practices created by trans and gender-nonconforming artists and activists of color. They argue for a radical rethinking of the policies and technologies of racial gendering and assimilative social programming that have divided LGBT communities and communities of color along the lines of gender, sexuality, class, immigration status, and ability.
Focusing on performance, film/video, literature, digital media, and other forms of cultural expression and activism that track the displaced emergences of trans people of color, Chen highlights the complex and varied responses by trans communities to their social dispossession. Through these responses, trans of color cultural workers such as performance artist Yozmit, writer Janet Mock, and organizer Jennicet Gutiérrez challenge dominating perceptions and institutions that kill, confine, police, and discipline trans people."
2019,
English,
Jian Neo Chen,
"Água Doce" is the Portuguese language edition of "Freshwater" by Akwaeke Emezi.
I liked Gina Maya's review a lot, so let me quote her: "Transgender narrative this may be, but it's far removed from Western, U.S.-based definitions in spite of its primary location in the U.S. The story follows the young life of Ada, a Nigerian child who travels to America to study, but her whole life involves psychical interaction with the indigenous spirits who vie for control of her. Is Ada Ogbanje too?
By the end, she appears to embrace this self-conception as an offspring of the Universal Creator Ala, visualized as cosmic python – the source of the spring from which all freshwater comes from its mouth. Yet Ada for almost the novel's entirety is also the human, engaged in an uneasy relationship with otherworldly spirits who inhabit her mind, visualized in turn as a room of marble, perhaps not unlike the Kaaba of Mecca. The most powerful, possessive, and controlling of the spirits is Asughara, occasionally presented as Ada's pernicious alpha. At times, Asughara blocks out Ada from consciousness, either to protect or punish Ada."
2019,
Akwaeke Emezi,
Nigeria,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Les prémices du papillon" (The beginnings of the Butterfly) by Armonia Zyra (Armonia Lemaître).
The butterfly has this ability to be born of itself. In her previous collection, Armonia Zyra offered poems written during her transition to the woman she had always felt inhibited. With this collection, she reveals behind the scenes when she was still living in a body that was not hers.
We find with pleasure her sharp pen, her militant spirit, her perception of the world with its injustices, her sufferings, the way she looks at the forgotten, the bruised by life, the excluded. In a constantly renewed melody, her poetic language envelops us and we can only be touched by the reading of these texts. These beginnings of the butterfly open wide the doors of Armonia Zyra's original universe.
2019,
Armonia Lemaître,
Armonia Zyra,
French,
Full title: "Tainted Beauty: The Memoir of an Authentic Creation" by Yvy DeLuca.
"Yvy grew up believing in who she was, but what she didn't know was how to live her truth. Trapped in a body that presented as male, Yvy had no choice but to take on life's obstacles whilst attempting to desperately find the answer to living her truth.
And so her journey begins. Yvy embarked towards uncharted territory, knowing that she would inevitably reach her truth and live as an authentic creation."
2019,
English,
UK,
Yvy DeLuca,
Original title: "La doble transición" (The double transition) by Raul Solis Galvan.
The book addresses the need to present, with a humane and close look, the lives of transsexual women who with daily heroics have conquered freedoms and rights that today are the collective heritage of our country.
Petróleo, Salvaora, Silvia, Miryam, Soraya, Mar (Mar Cambrollé Jurado), María José or Manolita are women who mocked the dictatorship in their face, who subverted all the religious and moral treaties of Spain in black and white, who found their bones in prison for being free. But they were also able to circumvent the limitations of the regime and find breathing space. These are their stories, and together they make up the opening of a country's doors to its sexual freedom.
2019,
Mar Cambrollé Jurado,
Raul Solis Galvan,
Spanish,
Original title: "Van Dirk naar Diede: eindelijk thuis!: Het transgenderverhaal van Diede" (From Dirk to Diede: finally home!: The transgender story of Diede).
Diede describes how she already felt as a child that something was not right. Candid and vulnerable, she tells how she discovered her true identity and tried to live by it.
But it is also about how difficult it is to come out into the open as a transgender person. It is a story of doubting and searching, fear and daring, but also of finding and being happy. And about being 'Finally home!'.
2019,
Diede Meyvis,
Dutch,
Full title: "Transition: Opinionated Transsexual's Views of the Gender Journey Shared with Transgender Youth" (ISBN 108897676X).
"Unapologetically opinionated, deeply personal, slightly poetic and ultimately unorthodox and, at times, gender critical word of advice about one's gender journey from a male-to-female transsexual to the modern transgender youth.
This book started off as a transition guide for the new generation of 'transgender people' written by a transsexual of an older generation involved in 'trans rights' and 'trans support' activities and ended up as a gender-critical analysis of the irreconcilable differences between the attitudes and the agenda of the transsexuals of the past and transgender movement of today, which made its author not only criticized by the trans activists but also the radical feminists.
The author is known to those involved in the trans movement as well as feminist circles but wishes to maintain relative anonymity to avoid more unnecessary attacks from its critics."
"Apă dulce" is the Romanian language edition of "Freshwater" by Akwaeke Emezi.
I liked Gina Maya's review a lot, so let me quote her: "Transgender narrative this may be, but it's far removed from Western, U.S.-based definitions in spite of its primary location in the U.S. The story follows the young life of Ada, a Nigerian child who travels to America to study, but her whole life involves psychical interaction with the indigenous spirits who vie for control of her. Is Ada Ogbanje too?
By the end, she appears to embrace this self-conception as an offspring of the Universal Creator Ala, visualized as cosmic python – the source of the spring from which all freshwater comes from its mouth. Yet Ada for almost the novel's entirety is also the human, engaged in an uneasy relationship with otherworldly spirits who inhabit her mind, visualized in turn as a room of marble, perhaps not unlike the Kaaba of Mecca. The most powerful, possessive, and controlling of the spirits is Asughara, occasionally presented as Ada's pernicious alpha. At times, Asughara blocks out Ada from consciousness, either to protect or punish Ada."
2019,
Akwaeke Emezi,
Nigeria,
Romanian,
Original title: "Det er herfra jeg vil begynde at tale, disse ord kan finde vej" (It is from here that I will start talking, these words can find their way) by Gry Stokkendahl Dalgas.
Gry Stokkendahl Dalga's debut moves between several types of text in this small work, which contains great emotions. The work is at once a poem and a diary, it is personal and political, and it contains hope and anxiety, expectations and fears. First of all, it is a story about a young trans woman's thoughts and feelings during a period of her life when she is waiting for her first interview at the sexology clinic. She is in a waiting position on her way to becoming herself. She is a woman trapped in a man's skeleton, as she herself writes it.
Gry Stokkendahl Dalgas is a Danish author, poet, and writing teacher. She was born in 1990 in Silkeborg and graduated from the Talent School's Writing Program in 2019. She is known for her works that explore themes of transgender identity, anger, hope, and finding peace with one's body. She has published three books: "Det er herfra jeg vil begynde at tale, disse ord kan finde vej" (2019), "Kudan; eller Kalven" (2020), and "At performe transkønnet vrede" (2020). She has won several literary awards, including the Munch-Christensen Debutant Prize and the Poetry Prize. She currently lives and teaches in Aarhus.
2019,
Danish,
Gry Stokkendahl Dalgas,
"Acquadolce" is the Italian language edition of "Freshwater" by Akwaeke Emezi.
I liked Gina Maya's review a lot, so let me quote her: "Transgender narrative this may be, but it's far removed from Western, U.S.-based definitions in spite of its primary location in the U.S. The story follows the young life of Ada, a Nigerian child who travels to America to study, but her whole life involves psychical interaction with the indigenous spirits who vie for control of her. Is Ada Ogbanje too?
By the end, she appears to embrace this self-conception as an offspring of the Universal Creator Ala, visualized as cosmic python – the source of the spring from which all freshwater comes from its mouth. Yet Ada for almost the novel's entirety is also the human, engaged in an uneasy relationship with otherworldly spirits who inhabit her mind, visualized in turn as a room of marble, perhaps not unlike the Kaaba of Mecca. The most powerful, possessive, and controlling of the spirits is Asughara, occasionally presented as Ada's pernicious alpha. At times, Asughara blocks out Ada from consciousness, either to protect or punish Ada."
2019,
Akwaeke Emezi,
Italian,
Nigeria,
Full title: "The Woman Within" by Roy E. Richmond.
The book was written by Roy E. Richmond, Hedy Jo Star's nephew, who created the whole commemoration portal dedicated to her life and art. Hedy Jo Star was an American showgirl, costumier, business woman. "She was born Carl Rollins Hammonds on Feb. 10th, 1920 in Prague Oklahoma. Her mother was Bertha Hammonds; she lived at 1522 Westwood St. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Her father and her mother are deceased.
Hedy had two brothers and four sisters. Hedy was the eldest. Her brother’s reaction to her sex change was, “It should have been done years ago.”
"Carl Hammonds lived as a woman since the age of 18. Some of the newspaper articles written by Hedy Jo contained the following information: As a man, Carl Rollins Hammond’s measurements were chest 38”, waist 29”, and hips 34 1/2”. After ten years of hormones and surgery, Hedys’ measurements were bust 42”, waist 26” and hips 38”. Also, her busts were so firm Hedy seldom wore a bra. She found it too confining."
2019,
Hedy Jo Star,
Roy E. Richmond,
Original title: "Geheilte Seele: Befreites Ich" (Healed Soul - Liberated Self)
Dr. Valerie Schnitzer describes her odyssey, which began as a boy and ended as a woman. She shows how she grew up in a tradition-conscious community of the 60s, in a parental home that trims the world to a manageable extent, and looks suspiciously at everything that does not correspond to the current order. No outsiders fit into such a worldview, they are excluded and stigmatized.
Thus, the suffering of the boy, who falls out of the frame because he does not fit into the role play intended for him, is pre-programmed. All these years she was supported by music, for which she had a very special talent and which was also encouraged by her parents. At the same time, the book makes it possible to experience the opening of society in recent times.
2019,
German,
Valerie Schnitzer,
Full title: "Do You Know Who I Once Was?: A story of an unlikely journey to become one's true self!" by Cami Richardson.
Cami Richardson is an American businesswoman, former firefighter, Chief Financial Officer of American Skiing Company, and LGBTQ community advocate. She is the author of the autobiography "Do You Know Who I Once Was?
In 2022, I talked to Cami, and this is what she told me about the book: "My memoir encompasses some really interesting stories about my career and then my transitioning. I felt I could write a book that people would enjoy, laugh, cry, but mostly be inspired to do more in their life. I have no regrets about my life, what I did and what I didn't do. A memoir made sense to me."
2019,
Cami Richardson,
English,
Interview,
Original title: "Butterfly: Von der Raupe bis zum Schmetterling - Ein Tagebuch" (Butterfly: From the Caterpillar to the Butterfly - A Diary)
Transsexuality - A topic that has still not reached most people's minds. We are mistaken for transvestites who lose themselves in the world of the opposite sex for the fun of it.
The topic of transsexuality has been increasingly dealt with in the media in recent years, but hate headlines count for more than objective reporting. In this book, I talk about my life, my CV in detail, life in the role as a woman with all the positive and negative sides.
I do not mince my words, this diary is my personal work, which I like to share with the world, without any claim to universality. All people, themes, and stories are from my life. This is an autobiographical book, with a claim to experienced reality without fiction or arcs of suspense.
2019,
German,
Jana L. Grunte,
