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: "Je suis Sofia" (I am Sofia) by Céline Gandner.
Je suis Sofia, I am Sofia, resonates like a powerful affirmation, a declaration of identity that refuses to be silenced. In her heartfelt and deeply personal narrative, Céline Gandner invites readers to witness the gender transition of Sofia, the eldest child in a traditionally Catholic family living in Rome. Told with intimacy and emotional honesty, the story unfolds from within the family’s inner circle, capturing the raw complexity and profound courage involved in Sofia’s journey.
The narrative’s strength lies in its closeness to its characters. Céline Gandner, the author and screenwriter, draws readers inside the intimate family dynamics, allowing us to experience the transition not as distant observers, but as empathetic participants. The story begins in 1996, when Céline, then a young au pair, cared for two little Italian boys: Edoardo, aged five, and Amedeo, just eighteen months old. At that time, Céline was unaware of the monumental journey ahead.
Fast forward twenty-one years. Céline returns to Rome to reconnect with the family she once cared for. The children, the bambini, have grown, yet Céline is unaware of the secret that has reshaped their lives.
Original title: "Pronto seré de oro y carmín" (Soon I will be gold and carmine) by Vanina Bruc.
In Pronto seré de oro y carmín (Soon I Will Be Gold and Carmine), Vanina Bruc has crafted a radiant literary mosaic of queer, trans, drag, and otherwise dissident lives, characters whose very existence resists normalization. With tender prose and hallucinatory precision, Bruc immerses readers in an expansive and unruly cosmos populated by the alienated and the extraordinary: housewives disenchanted with domesticity, theatre lovers in provincial towns, cosmic pharaohs, spectral drag queens, and witches rising into their own power.
This is a book that doesn’t whisper its resistance, it sings it in gold and carmine, with a voice as brave as it is lyrical.
Published by the audacious Spanish publisher Dos Bigotes, Pronto seré de oro y carmín defies easy categorization. It reads like a collection of short stories, but the pieces are stitched together by a shared spirit of defiance and illumination. Each narrative is a portal into an interior world colored by fear, desire, confusion, and yearning. This is not simply a book about gender or sexuality, it is a book about refusal, about disobedience, and about the beauty that grows in the cracks of conformity.
The magic of Pronto seré de oro y carmín lies in its unapologetic embrace of fluidity, of identity, of genre, of narrative logic.
2021,
Spain,
Spanish,
Vanina Bruc,
Original title: "La fille d’elle-même" (The Daughter of Herself) by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay. The book was published in 2021 and republished in 2023.
"Winner 2022, Prix des Libraires Rights for TV adaptation purchased by Zone 3 A runaway bestseller in Québec, where it has captured the hearts of readers and pushed trans-identity into the mainstream conversation, Dandelion Daughter is an intimate, courageous portrait of what it’s like to grow up having been assigned the wrong sex at birth.
Set against the windswept countryside of the remote Charlevoix region some five hours north of Montreal, Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay’s autobiographical novel immortalizes her early years as an alienated boy trapped in a world of small-town values and her parents’ dissolving marriage, through complex adolescent years of self-discovery and first loves, to the harrowing episodes that fuel the growing realization that she must transition and give birth to her new self if she is to continue living at all. One of the first novels of its kind to appear in Québec, this inspiring story has already connected with a wide readership, and has been adopted by many schools to help expand worldviews and curriculums."
2021,
2023,
Canada,
French,
Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay,
Gabrielle Tremblay,
Full title: "Poetic Memoir Chapbook Challenge" by Barbara Marie Minney.
Barbara Marie Minney’s Poetic Memoir Chapbook Challenge is a remarkable testament to the power of poetry as a vehicle for personal truth, identity, and resilience. As the second poetry collection by this award-winning Appalachian poet, writer, and activist, this chapbook continues to build on the rich foundation established in her debut If There’s No Heaven, which itself won the 2020 Poetry Is Life Book Award and was recognized as an Akron Beacon Journal Best Northeast Ohio Book.
Barbara Marie Minney is a native of West Virginia and a proud seventh-generation Appalachian. She brings to her work a unique perspective shaped by her heritage, her lived experience as a transgender woman, and her lifelong dedication to both craft and advocacy.
This intersectional identity imbues her poetry with a rare authenticity and courage, creating works that resonate deeply with readers across diverse communities.
The Poetic Memoir Chapbook Challenge is aptly named, as it challenges both the author and her readers to engage with poetry not just as a literary form, but as a means of memoir, capturing the intimate, complex, and sometimes painful experiences that define a life. The collection feels like a heartfelt conversation, revealing Barbara’s ongoing journey with identity, love, loss, and the search for belonging.
2021,
Barbara Marie Minney,
English,
Interview,
Original title: "Crianças Trans: Infâncias possíveis" (Trans Children: Possible Childhoods) by Sofia Favero.
"Trans kids, do you exist? The question is, in my view, rhetorical. Sofia pursues her childhood with unparalleled refinement and wit in this publication. Language, as always, is placed in a captious way when we refer to what was not posited, at first, as "natural" from the cisgender gaze.
The author undertakes a fantastic work, using a self-history that is intertwined with contemporary virtual culture and scientific literature, to tell us about something central to studies on childhood, or to be more direct, about how the social devices of affirmation of certain identities work, to the detriment of others, hierarchical as "normal", "good", "beautiful"."
2021,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Sofia Favero,
Full title: "Reflections in the Mirror: True Life Story of a Transgender Woman" by Delissa Dawn.
"Delissa Dawn was born 1971 in Tulsa, Ok as a boy. From the early age of three, she experienced the beginning of a lifetime of traumatic experiences and trials that would nearly destroy her. Knowing she was different from a very young age, she began to explore her curiosity and would become the center of discrimination within her own family.
Delissa spent years trying to prove to her family that she was a man which in turn, only created a world of self-hate, depression, alcoholism, and suicidal thoughts and attempts.
Delissa would live a life for 47 years as a male while suffering inside and deceiving those around her by not living as her authentic self.
Wile in the military, she experienced sexual assault while serving on Iraq Freedom orders in the Middle-East to be punished for holding others accountable and serving with integrity.
This story is full of traumatic experiences, hurt, pain, and hate which would eventually turn to hope, love, happiness, and authenticity."
2021,
Delissa Dawn,
English,
Original title: "Autobiografias trans: Escritas em movimento" (Trans Autobiographies: Writing on the Move) by Leocádia Chaves and Carolina Edições.
"In this book, Leocádia Chaves presents in an unprecedented way the cartography of the autobiographical writing of transgender people in Brazil between 1982 and 2019, recognizing it as the result of organization and resistance in the contemporary literary field.
The approach of the texts opens up as a space for listening, whether for radical narrators, as they lay bare the transphobic mechanisms of oppression in our society, or for the insurgency of producers of narratives of self-identification and self-valorization, essential for the formation of a community of sharing, of affections."
2021,
Carolina Edições,
Leocádia Chaves,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Três décadas e meia" (Three and a half decades) by Daniela de Carvalho.
"Thirty years is too long to wait for love. That's plenty of time to mature. But is it enough time to live everything you want? Everything you are entitled to? Is it enough time when your own time isn't worth a lifetime? Through phrases, chronicles, and poetry, the author presents an intimate and almost confessional account, which is at the same time the story of one and thousands of women.
They, when in front of the mirror, reflect an inverted truth, opposite to what conservative eyes want to see. The harshness of the words does not come close to reaching the crudeness of reality. Even so, it carries the subtlety that exists in the obvious, opening space for an indispensable reflection. Trans women exist, they are objects of prejudice. Trans women resist, they need respect, dignity, affection and, above all, they need to stop dying as if life itself were not a right."
2021,
Brazil,
Daniela de Carvalho,
Portuguese,
Full title: "Transgender in India: Achievers and Survivors" by IAS Dr C K Gariyali and Priyadarshini Rajkumar.
"The book, "Transgender — Achievers and Survivors" is authors’ tribute to the transgender community who have suffered immense indignities and discrimination in India starting from the decline of Mughal Empire when the British Raj imposed the 16th century anti-buggery law upon them.
They were criminalized and prevented from following their traditional profession, wearing female attire or performing in public and reduced to penury and ignominy. This situation continued in free India till 2014, when the Supreme Court passed its momentous judgement.
2021,
English,
IAS Dr C K Gariyali,
India,
Priyadarshini Rajkumar,
Original title: "A reinvenção do corpo: Sexualidade e gênero na experiência transexual" (The Reinvention of the Body: Sexuality and Gender in the Transsexual Experience) by Berenice Bento.
"This book is anchored in the life stories of people who have changed their bodies, surgically or not, to become real, so as not to be 'freaks', a common expression among transsexuals. The reinvention of the body: sexuality and gender in the transsexual experience will suggest that explanations for the emergence of the transsexual experience should be sought in the historical and social articulations that produce the sex-bodies and that have in heterosexuality the matrix that confers intelligibility to the Genres."
"Berenice Bento holds a degree in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Goiás (1994). She holds a master's degree in Sociology from the University of Brasília (1998) and a PhD from the same university (2003). Her research focuses on topics such as gender, sexuality and human rights. It was considered "an unavoidable reference for recent gender studies in the field of social sciences". She taught at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (2009-2017), where she coordinated the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Sexual Diversity, Genders and Human Rights (2010-2013).
2021,
Berenice Bento,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Trans: Histórias reais que ajudam a entender a vida das pessoas transexuais desde a infância" (Trans: Real stories that help understand the lives of transgender people from childhood) by Renata Ceribelli and Bruno Della Latta.
"In Trans - Real stories that help to understand the lives of transgender people since childhood, journalists Renata Ceribelli and Bruno Della Latta revisit the interviewees of the report and also gather unpublished accounts of those who are often silenced and discriminated against daily."
"This book requires an open and free mind to be able to enter the universe of extremely special individuals. [...] Welcome to the universe of these people who have always existed among us, but who previously remained invisible." - Renata Ceribelli
2021,
Brazil,
Bruno Della Latta,
Portuguese,
Renata Ceribelli,
Original title: "Pedagogia da Desobediência: Travestilizando a Educação" (Pedagogy of Disobedience: Transvestilizing Education) by Tiffany Odara.
"The book Pedagogy of Disobedience: Travestilizing Education by researcher, pedagogue and Iyálorixá Thiffany Odara tells about the production of transvestite knowledge in the city of Salvador. Weaving together the histories of the trans movement with the theoretical dialogues of black feminism, Thiffany proposes to travestylize education as a way of building spaces of knowledge that are for all people. A transgressive pedagogy that speaks of claims and access, especially of trans people, to the condition of humanity. A publication that opens the way for other pedagogies and incites the disobedience of the CIStema. Thais Faria Castro (Editor)"
2021,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Thiffany Odara,
Original title: "A construção de mim mesma: Uma história de transição de gênero" (The Making of Myself: A Story of Gender Transition) by Letícia Lanz.
"For decades, Letícia Lanz presented herself to the world in the role of Geraldo Eustáquio. Understanding yourself differently from most was a long and painful process. In this moving and honest account, Letícia recounts what it was like to come out as a transgender woman at the age of fifty.
Letícia Lanz is a psychoanalyst, speaker, activist and was a candidate for mayor of Curitiba in 2020. She is married with three children and five grandchildren. In this impactful book, she tells the story of her transition. The struggle to free herself from the bonds of gender began when she was still a child and culminated in a heart attack fifty years later. After a life marked by the permanent conflict between being herself or the person society demanded she to be, in the ICU bed, she understood that transitioning was the only thing to do if she wanted to stay alive.
2021,
Brazil,
Letícia Lanz,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Valide" (Valid) by Chris Bergeron.
"Although it is described as an autobiographical science fiction novel, the context it offers is not that far removed from our current world. We project ourselves 30 years into the future, in a world governed by the artificial intelligence Total David. Human beings are then confined and are only allowed a few hours of going out a day. "This feeling of living in a bubble that is in the novel, and that came before the pandemic, is for many trans women what they experience on a daily basis. Valide is a sci-fi and sci-fi novel, but it's also an allegory of today. What I tried to describe was this isolation, this feeling that maybe society isn't built for me.""
"This novel is also an opportunity to show a very dark future for the LGBT community and especially trans people. Indeed, in the story, in order to adapt to this new regime dominated by artificial intelligence, the heroine Christelle is forced to become Christian again. And to erase all traces of his past. This echoes a reality experienced on a daily basis by transgender people, which is the fear of not being accepted by our society. That of losing their job if they decide to transition. That of no longer existing within society."
2021,
Canada,
Chris Bergeron,
French,
Original title: "TranSER: Experiencias de vida de mujeres en tránsitos de género en Colombia" (TranSER: Life Experiences of Women in Gender Transitions in Colombia) by Paula Andrea Hoyos-Hernández and Laura Juliana Valderrama Orbegozo.
TranSER: life experiences of women in gender transitions in Colombia, allows us to delve into the experiences of 139 women from Cali, Calarcá, Armenia, Jamundí, Bogotá, Bucaramanga and Cartagena, throughout their lives and their different processes of gender transitions. It gives an account of the different human dimensions that contribute to the experience of sexuality and human life, such as the family, the couple, the occupation, integral health, the socio-cultural, the care and the right to health.
2021,
Colombia,
Laura Juliana Valderrama Orbegozo,
Paula Andrea Hoyos-Hernández,
Spanish,
"Inkognito" is the Finnish language edition of "Inkognitó" by Tibor Noé Kiss, first published in 2010.
Tibor/Noémi has visited the women's section of a shoe store for the first time. Another customer groaned and called her names, the salesperson complimented the choice of boots and smiled. Tibor/Noémi tried to smile too. That was four weeks ago. Today she would go out into town in boots. But now she sits alone in an armchair with her body, and each hates the other.
Incognito is an impressive depiction of how a football-loving youth finds a stranger in herself and her body. It is a coming-of-age story, a coming-of-the-closet story, and a skilled, frantic novel in its minimalist conciseness about creating one's identity in the cross-pressures of one's own feelings and the surprise and disapproval of the surrounding society.
2021,
Finnish,
Tibor Noé Kiss,
Original title: "El futuro es sin género: Historias trans de Colombia, Chile y Argentina" (The Future is Genderless: Trans Stories from Colombia, Chile, and Argentina) by Sandra Sanchez Lopez.
The book tells the stories of trans people from three places in Latin America: Colombia, Argentina, and Chile. In addition to reports, interviews, and chronicles, this book presents reflections on an inclusive journalistic profession, in which we make the political commitment of communication more transparent and leave behind fears and prejudices in the face of the encounters between journalism and activism.
Focused on trans lives and voices, this set of contributions suggests that the public conversation is enriched when we stop dodging the dilemmas that we still have to solve as a society, while strong citizens, with determination, carry forward their struggles.
2021,
Argentina,
Chile,
Colombia,
Sandra Sanchez Lopez,
Spanish,
Original title: "Újjászületők: nemváltoztató élettörténetek" (Born again: Gender reassignment life stories) by Ferenc Vidra Szabó and Gábor Hero.
The book follows the stages of gender reassignment and contains a couple of life stories based on interviews conducted by Ferenc Vidra Szabó. The essence of these subjective stories, the psychological, medical and social summation of the topic processed in the chapter is outlined in the short introductions written by Gábor Hero, who leads the chapters. At the end of the volume, we can also read a compilation about the legal framework of gender reassignment.
The first chapter, Wayfinders, introduces three teenagers who have recently discovered the reason for their differences since they were little. An important lesson is that this discovery – and the search for the causes of previously experienced otherness or exclusion – is linked to sexual maturation. However, signs of different gender identity can appear as early as two years of age.
2021,
Ferenc Vidra Szabó,
Gábor Hero,
Hungarian,
Original title: "O Casulo Dandara" (The Dandara Cocoon) by Vitória Holanda.
Writing about Dandara and her life may not convince some people who think that being transgender is a disease, that it is a lack of shame or simply because they believe that boys wear blue and girls wear pink.
However, it is a way of showing that being transgender in her life was not a child's choice influenced at school or in the media. In other words, she was born Dandara.
2021,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Vitória Holanda,
Original title: "Russkie travesti v istorii, kulʹture i povsednevnosti" - Русские травести в истории, культуре и повседневности - (Russian travesties in history, culture and everyday life) by Olga Khoroshilova Ольга Хорошилова.
An illustrated history of Russian travesty culture in its various aspects: from frivolous court carnivals to female military formations of the First World War and difficult stories of people whose biological sex did not coincide with the psychological one.
From the male actor who played the role of Joan of Arc for the first time in history and the Russian uncle Max to Anna Lister's trip to Russia and the unusual wardrobe of Elizabeth Petrovna.
The author of "Fashion and Geniuses" Olga Khoroshilova gives examples from all spheres of culture — art, fashion, literature, theater, cinema and photography — showing how diverse, powerful and alive the Russian travesty culture was, which had its own history, traditions and talented stars, and how for three centuries (from the 18th to the first half of the 20th century) transvestism existed in all spheres of life. The book contains many illustrations, including rare and previously unpublished ones.
2021,
Ol'ga Khoroshilova,
Russian,
