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: "Manifeste d'une femme trans" (Manifesto of a trans woman) is the French language edition of "Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism" by Julia Serano.
In this collection of essays, Julia Serano, trans woman and activist, analyzes the different mechanisms of cissexual privilege, as well as the sexism, misogyny and transphobia that permeate representations of trans women in the media, the arts and academia.
Her analysis offers new perspectives for interpreting the issues experienced by trans women in continuity with the theories, disagreements and solidarities developed within the feminist movement, and provide keys to building feminism by, for and with all women, whatever their stories and backgrounds.
2020,
French,
Julia Serano,
USA,
Original title: "¡Muxe! Du treng ikkje å vere kvinne for å vere dame" (¡Muxe! You don't have to be a woman to be a lady) by Stephen J. Walton.
The book presents the gender system in the Isthmo de Tehuantepec. This system is a variant of the multi-genus systems that existed all over America before the European conquest. The reasons why it has survived there lie in the deep economic and political structures and not least in the habitus and the strong social position of the women.
Sex, gender, and sexuality are dynamic fields in modern society, and the system is also changing rapidly in the isthmus.
2020,
Norwegian,
Stephen J. Walton,
"Zřídlo" is the Czech 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."
2020,
Akwaeke Emezi,
Czech,
Nigeria,
"Slemme piker" (Bad Girls) is the Norwegian language edition of "Las malas" (The Bad Girls) published in Argentina in 2019 by Camila Sosa Villada.
From the Argentine author Camila Sosa Villada, a book of love and affection: when we finish the last page, we want the whole world to read it too! When she arrived in the city of Córdoba to study at the university, Argentine author Camila Sosa Villada decided to go to Parque Sarmiento during the night. She was scared to death, thinking that the brutal verdict she had heard from her father could come to fruition at any moment: "One day they will knock on this door to warn me that they found you dead, thrown into a ditch." For him, this was the only possible destination for a boy who dressed as a woman.
2020,
Argentina,
Camila Sosa Villada,
Norwegian,
Original title: "Hazel: Travesti Kardeşimin Kısa-Uzun Yaşam Öyküsü" (Hazel: The Short-Long Life Story of My Transvestite Brother) by Ayten Görgün Smith.
A son. A brother. She is also a trans person. Serdar came into the world as a man. Her gender dysphoria started at the age of two and she started wearing women's clothes at the age of 16. After a while, she told her family, "My name is now Hazel." - she said.
The author is Hazel's older sister. She describes the experiences of her family, her brother, and herself in a simple and sincere language. You read how life makes all the members of a family accept the concept of "transgender". It is a short-long life story of my transgender brother, which has been published in a book as a duty to fulfill a will, a social responsibility, a social awareness work of an older sister, as her brother died of blood cancer at the age of 35.
2020,
Ayten Görgün Smith,
Turkish,
Full title: "Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories" by Alex Bakker, Rainer Herrn, Michael Thomas Taylor, and Annette F. Timm.
From the turn of the twentieth century to the 1950s, a group of transgender people on both sides of the Atlantic created communities that profoundly shaped the history and study of gender identity. By exchanging letters and pictures among themselves they established private networks of affirmation and trust, and by submitting their stories and photographs to medical journals and popular magazines they sought to educate both doctors and the public.
Others of My Kind draws on archives in Europe and North America to tell the story of this remarkable transatlantic transgender community. This book uncovers threads of connection between Germany, the United States, and the Netherlands to discover the people who influenced the work of authorities like Magnus Hirschfeld, Harry Benjamin, and Alfred Kinsey not only with their clinical presentations but also with their personal relationships. It explores the ethical and analytical challenges that come with the study of what was once private, secret, or unacceptable to say.
2020,
Alex Bakker,
Annette F. Timm,
English,
Michael Thomas Taylor,
Rainer Herrn,
Original title: "Dove non siamo stati" (Where we haven't been) by Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto.
The transition, which in the verses of "Minimal Pain" is sexual, becomes here an indispensable existential datum to be able to move forward. A poem of ghosts and farewells, of abandoned houses, of realities kept only in the memory of those who remain, in the games left by children in the courtyards of childhood.
A sense of conclusion pervades her tight verses, the definitive one that always precedes change. An end that must be investigated in the most painful moments, before giving way to the new reality that knocks on the doors. A universal and authentic poetic result, in which personal experience is transfigured to welcome the experience of each one, questioning a void in which, on closer inspection, we have always been. With a preface by Roberta Dapunt and a critical note by Alberto Bertoni.
2020,
Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto,
Italian,
"Štěstí ve dvaceti" is the Czech language edition of "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."
2020,
Czech,
Pavie Valsa,
Full title: "It's About Time: Poems of an Uncertain Woman" by Lesley Storm.
""I’m a woman. I support them. I’m bisexual. I support them. I’m a feminist. I support them. I endure regular abuse for being trans. I support them. I am called a “poof” by the unenlightened. I support them. My name is Lesley, and I'm a woman ― that is to say that I am human, just like you, and you like me. A meditation on the passing of time, a declaration that life, love and poetry are defined by time, are all about time and timing. Here are love poems, life poems, elegies, aubades, odes, existential solitude poems, prose poems, joyous poems of fleeting human pleasures, poems compassionate, sanguine and witty, poems delicate with vulnerability, urgent poems on survival over time."
2020,
English,
Lesley Storm,
Scotland,
UK,
Original title: "Oaxaca Trans: Historias de vida" (Oaxaca Trans. Life stories) by Daniel Nizcub Vásquez Cerero and Nallely Guadalupe Tello Méndez.
The book includes the stories of Unice Dayami Méndez Ruiz, Ana Karen López Quintana, Jonathan Lavariega, José Leonardo Flores Ballinas, Jossiel Aran Bernardino Esteban, and Sarah Möbius.
Ana Karen, one of the participants, says that her story is also one of love, in which her male brothers and fathers see a sister or daughter they always wanted to have. For Ana Karen López Quintana, living her transsexuality has meant that, since childhood, pain, discrimination, violence, and crying have been her day to day. "It is a process that many people have gone through," says, evoking those yesterdays from a distance. Now she tries to see them as that which instead of killing her has made her strong. Never, she says, did she lower her guard in her struggle to want to be Ana Karen and not that person who is violated and discriminated against. That's what her story is about, one of the six that make up the book.
2020,
Daniel Nizcub Vásquez Cerero,
Mexico,
Nallely Guadalupe Tello Méndez,
Spanish,
Full title: "TRANScestors Navigating LGBTQ+ Aging, Illness and End of Life Decisions: Generations of Hope" by Jude Patton and Margot Wilson.
"This volume (and the ones that follow) have been in the works for some time. What finally emerges after many months of assiduous advertising, recruiting, editing, and organizing is a volume of intimate, nuanced, and heartfelt stories that reflect the wide diversity in the ways in which trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit people have come to recognize, signify, embody, and celebrate their difference as their authentic selves. Moreover, with an increasing emphasis on the experiences of trans youth, elders constitute a routinely overlooked, disregarded, and/or silenced segment of the community."
2020,
Dallas Denny,
English,
Jude Patton,
Margot Wilson,
Rosalyne Blumenstein,
Full title: "The Freedom to Be: Stories from Transgender Youth, Adults, and Their Families" by Diana J. Ensign.
"Award-winning author, Diana J. Ensign, practices the art of listening to people who teach us how to love and care for one another on this human journey. Here, transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming teens, adults, and family members voice an urgent call for freedom: The freedom to pursue dreams, to work in meaningful jobs, to be free of hatred and violence, to love one another, and to be who they are.
This book underscores the essential human need for safety, connection, acceptance, and for policies that ensure every family is valued. With these candid and insightful narratives, we learn practical ways that parents, teachers, healthcare providers, neighbors, friends, and allies can create supportive communities for transgender individuals.
2020,
Diana J. Ensign,
English,
"Mi adolescencia trans" (My trans adolescence) is the Spanish language edition of "P. La mia adolescenza trans" (2019) by Fumettibrutti.
Josephine Yole Signorelli tells in this comic her own story as a trans teenager in the first decade of this century, struggling with the transformation of her body in the context of school, family, social life, drugs, prostitution of minors online and, finally, love. A long-awaited visceral autobiography destined to cause debate and leave a mark on the history of comics and trans bibliography.
This comic tells a very powerful and important story, and that Yole's story can make the average reader reflect on a lot of false beliefs that they may have about the trans reality.
2020,
Fumettibrutti,
Josephine Yole Signorelli,
Spanish,
Full title: "Identity: A Story of Transitioning" by Corey Maison.
"Corey Maison was born a girl, trapped in a boy’s body. Growing up, Corey was more interested in dolls than trucks; in dresses than jeans. Everything about Corey was female... except her physicality.
Known as gender dysphoria, this condition is devastating if not acknowledged.
But society is slow to be sympathetic to the idea that a person’s gender is not entirely based on physiology, but instead is fluid, and a combination of emotional and psychological self-awareness along with, or sometimes more importantly, physical characteristics.
2020,
Corey Maison,
English,
"Mi hermana: Cómo la transición de una hermana nos cambió a ambas" is the Spanish language edition of "My Sister: How One Sibling's Transition Changed Us Both", co-written by two sisters: Selenis and Marizol Leyva.
Selenis Leyva is an award-winning American actress known for her roles as Gloria Mendoza in the Netflix hit series "Orange Is the New Black" and as Gabi Cañero in the Disney Plus original Diary of a Female President. In the book, Selenis describes how Marizol's transition changed their relationship.
Marizol Leyva is a transgender model, cook, and activist from the Bronx. She has been featured in a cooking segment for Telemundo's Adictivo TV and in many publications. Together with Selenis, she was awarded the Anti-Violence Project's 2016 Courage Award and the Stonewall Community Foundation's 2016 Vision Award for inspiring visibility, advocacy, and outspoken support for the transgender community.
2020,
Marizol Leyva,
Selenis Leyva,
Spanish,
Full title: "Better Late Than Never: Transitioning Late in Life: A Transgender Autobiography" by Kristy McClellan.
"I never pictured myself actually coming out and transitioning, until the day I could see no other option. I always knew that something wasn’t right, that some part of my inside didn’t match my outside. What I didn’t know then is that I’m transgender, a realization that took a lifetime to fully unpack and understand. And to embrace.
Growing up in Michigan I started off sheltered with no idea of what lay over the horizon, but serving in the navy opened my eyes to what possibilities might be within my grasp. I encountered many forks in the road, sometimes I made the right choice, sometimes my decisions were terribly wrong. But in the end, they led me here, to finally embracing who and what I am, and discovering the joy that can only come from living as your authentic self."
2020,
English,
Kristy McClellan,
USA,
Original title: "Preden moj mož izgine" (Before my husband disappears) is the Slovenian 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.
2020,
Selja Ahava,
Slovenian,
Full title: "What Would Love Do?: Parenting a child through the first year of gender transition" by Lyndsay Brown.
"Lyndsay Brown’s journey as the parent of a transgender child started on 25 October 2017 at about eight-fifteen p.m. It was abrupt and shocking, with no prior contemplations or parental imaginings to pave the way. It was the birth of a daughter she had absolutely not anticipated even for a single moment in her life until then."
"Olivia was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, or the dissonance between the gender assigned at birth and her self-perceived gender identity. The image observed in a mirror did not match Olivia’s perceived concept of self. A powerful yearning to lead an authentic life requires courage because being transgender is an intensely difficult process. But trans children also demand realisation of the “right to be seen as equal, ordinary, normal and commonplace”. They are simply living life as ordinary teenagers progressing through puberty."
2020,
Australia,
English,
Lyndsay Brown,
Original title: "Crossdresser, ein Leben im Verborgenen? Nein! Es geht auch anders!: Biografie eines Mannes der seine frauliche Seite in sich entdeckt" (Crossdressers, a hidden life? No! There is another way!: Biography of a man who discovers his feminine side in himself)
'I call myself in my biography, Nancy Morgan. A movingly exciting overview, the separation from my affair, with the pet name Bärchen. In order to better cope with the experience, I decided to write down my story, up to the present time at the end of 2019.
Initially, this private recording was intended for me personally. May it remind me in the future of incidental periods of life in which I lived and experienced my preferences. The time when I became a crossdresser, the woman in the man manifested itself more clearly.
2020,
Antonio Mario Zecca,
German,
Original title: "Predi da izchezne mŭzhŭt mi" (Преди да изчезне мъжът ми - Before my husband disappears) is the Bulgarian language edition of "Ennen kuin mieheni katoaa" (Before my husband disappears) 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.
2020,
Bulgarian,
Selja Ahava,
