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: "Becoming Wiebke II: A still mostly male person’s diary dealing with trans issues and progression into being more female" by Wiebke ter Lichten.
"This is the second part of my diary and I recommend starting with the first part if you haven't done so already. As of December 31st, 2020 I am a 54-year-old father of a now 15-year-old son, a single parent for the last thirteen years. Since we live together there is still only little time for me to be Wiebke, my female persona, at home.
I still need to be cautious. You will read about my progression since the end of my first published diary part. From the fact alone, that it took me 19 months to write that first part and under four months to write a second part with a comparable size you can deduce that the speed in which Wiebke develops has increased manifold."
2021,
English,
Wiebke ter Lichten,
Original title: "Transformation" (Transformation) by Heidi Sinnet.
"The book Transformation is a photo book that depicts life as a trans person. A friend whom I had known for many years came over one day and asked me if I wanted to photograph him as a woman. I was a bit surprised, as I didn't know that side of him, but of course I agreed to the photo assignment. It dawned on me how little I knew about being transgender.
At the same time, I found it fascinating to see the transformation that had taken place, from man to woman. My ignorance and curiosity made me want to investigate the subject further, and focus on it - because perhaps many others had the same ignorance and curiosity as me? I have photographed the participants in the book, interviewed them and written their personal stories. They have enlightened and inspired me, and I hope that with this book, I can enlighten and inspire you. As Sara Skaarup writes in the foreword: May the beautiful pictures and personal accounts open many eyes and hearts. Male, female, a bit of each, both or alternately, maybe it's not that decisive. There is so much room for all of us."
2021,
Danish,
Heidi Sinnet,
Full title: "TransQuality: How Trans Experience Affirms the World (The Trans Chronicles - Part 2)" by Bethany Beeler.
"It’s the way of Quality that something not your own must give way to something that is. Yet, mine was 50 years in coming, and telling you my convoluted path to TransQuality to help you embrace your Quality is the goal of this book.”
“Do I regret spending puberty poisoned by testosterone and most of my adulthood trying to be something I wasn’t? Hell, yes. None of that was merely in my head. My encounter with the world was as an endless pinball doomed to banging and crashing awake all the bells and lights I couldn’t see or hear except by the wreckage in my wake.
2021,
Bethany Beeler,
English,
Original title: "Yunas Reise zum Ich: My Sex Change Experience | Autobiografischer Manga mit Transgender-Thematik" (Yuna's Journey to Self: My Sex Change Experience | Autobiographical manga with a transgender theme) by Yuna Hirasawa.
"Author Yuna Hirasawa takes a trip to Thailand to fulfill her wish! It is due to the fact that in Thailand she has her body adjusted to that of a woman, so that her outer self finally corresponds to her inner self. With the single volume »Yuna's Journey to Me«, she wants to take away the fears of her trans readers and arouse understanding among her cis readers."
2021,
German,
Yuna Hirasawa,
Full title: "How to do drag: Tracy Tramp, my story - The London drag scene and clubland in the early 2000s" by Tracy Tramp.
"Immerse yourself in the dress-up, t-girl and drag scene in London, 1999-2000. Clubs, parties, characters and celebrities of the time. Adventures galore. The route to drag: tips and hints for queens and t-girls. All true life stories."
"TRACY TRAMP was born in London in 1967. In July 1969 the U.S.A. Eagle Rover landed on the surface of the moon. Millions around the world watched the whole thing on TV, in the latest technicolour. The Rover lifted off the surface to re-join the mother-ship, ship fifty miles above. ‘Man's first step’ left the first pile of litter on the surface of another world that had been undisturbed for a billion years.
TT’s northwest London Jewish bubble of life hinged around family, bar-mitzvahs and (luckily) getting into J.F.S school – at the old Camden Road site.
2021,
Crossdressing,
Drag queen,
English,
Tracy Tramp,
Full title: "Samoan Queer Lives" by Yuki Kihara and Dan Taulapapa McMullin.
"Samoan Queer Lives delves into the unique lives of Samoan people who are ‘fa`afafine’ – broadly understood in the Western interpretation as persons who are of transgender, intersexed and third sex, or gay, lesbian and bisexual origin. This book, the first of its kind, is edited and written by fa`afafine. Here fa`afafine share their stories in their own words.
It covers twenty autobiographical stories, includes personal accounts that cross lines of gender and culture, and span generations, professions and geography. Each chapter in the book is accompanied by a portrait. The stories are by turns angry, humorous, intimate and raw. Introduction by Dan Taulapapa McMullin and Foreword by Yuki Kihara."
2021,
Dan Taulapapa McMullin,
English,
Samoa,
Yuki Kihara,
Full title: "The Future is Feminine: Capitalism and the Masculine Disorder" by Ciara Cremin.
"Carnage in the classroom, misogynists in high office, sociopaths in uniform, masculinity is a killer. From styles of dress to the stunted capacity for expressing a diversity of emotions, becoming a man involves killing off and repudiating anything that in our society is held as feminine. When a person is unable to show compassion and tenderness, or when exposed for their frailties, feels angry and humiliated, they have problems. Problems that none of us are immune to. Masculinity, Cremin provocatively declares, is a generic disorder of a sick society that afflicts even the best of us. Neither a condition of being human nor even of male, it is a disorder, as she illustrates, of a capitalist society that depends and even thrives upon its very symptoms."
2021,
Ciara Cremin,
Crossdressing,
English,
Full title: "Transgender Diary: Journey of a Butterfly" by Bailey Jenkins.
"This book chronicles the transition of an individual that transitioned from male to female. It includes all of the struggles of coming out, going through the transition process, and even includes mental health struggles along the way.
The journey is filled with frustration and tears, but also happiness, and laughter and eventually self-acceptance. It's an easy read that can be made in one sitting, but can just as easily be read in several."
2021,
Bailey Jenkins,
English,
Original title: "Die eigene Seele befreit" (Your own soul freed) by Gabrielle Bellerose.
"Little Gabrielle grows up in a small provincial town in the Swiss town of Aargau. Everyone calls her Jochen and treats her like a boy, just as it was determined when she was born. But the girl's soul suffers. She tries to fit in. She wants to fit in and fit the typical image of a boy.
Later, as an adult, she is professionally successful, happily married with children - and a masculine teddy bear. The seemingly perfect picture-book life. But her soul screams. Your emotions are turned upside down. The inner turmoil becomes unbearable. Driven by the deep longing to finally end the masquerade, she finally begins the long, stony path to her true self. With this book, the author wants to encourage on the one hand, but also convey information on how supposedly hopeless situations can be mastered. It is intended to provide information on the topic and show what is going on deep inside affected persons."
2021,
Gabrielle Bellerose,
German,
Full title: "My Rebellion: How Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Together with Vladimir Putin, Hired Wells Fargo Bank to Terrorize Our LGBTQ+ Community & How This Transgender Woman Fought Them" by Jodi Jeloudov.
"My Rebellion - A Page Turner for The Oppressed, The Misunderstood and The Exploited! This book is dedicated to all of those people who are different and who are especially dared to be different and were mocked for it. Whether you are black, transgender, or any proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, My Rebellion will definitely be a page-turner for you."
"Hi, my name is Jodi Jeloudov, and I am a proud transgender woman and a disabled US military veteran who opposed for 30 years and still opposes discrimination and injustice of any kind. In my book, My Rebellion, I highlight how Wells Fargo, Trump, and Putin collude to ensure that people who don't look like them, think like them, or have the same skin color as them are treated as less than human."
2021,
English,
Jodi Jeloudov,
Full title: "He Fell From Venus: The Harsh Past of a Transgender Woman" by Taylor Harding-Jenkins.
"My name is Taylor. But it’s been my name only for the past three years.
Before, I used to be a random guy. I was still writing stories to kill the time, I was still attracted to women, you know, it was a normal life. I just had a big problem: a massive depression. It was pretty much the little stone in my shoe that prevented me from walking correctly.
The problem with this depression was that it was caused by a reason I could never tell anyone. Because it was too big. Because it was just a truth that I couldn’t say, words that I could never pronounce. A melancholia that I couldn't fight, because, its cause was very simple:
“Mum, I want to become a woman”."
2021,
English,
Taylor Harding-Jenkins,
Original title: "Me llamo Eva: Mi lucha por ser mujer" (My name is Eva: My struggle to be a woman) by Eva Vildosola Leo.
Eva was born in the wrong body and didn't know why until she was eleven and first heard the term "gender dysphoria." From a very young age, she endured the incomprehension and intransigence of a society that drowns us with its impositions.
After publicly denouncing an attack last year in Barcelona, the life of the well-known influencer turned upside down.
Her face began to appear in all the newspapers and televisions and thousands of people showed their support on social networks.
In this book, she shares for the first time her life story and how she decided to become the woman she always wanted to be. This is a real testimony, which gives us the possibility of knowing through their eyes what it is like to grow up surrounded by prejudices.
2021,
Eva Vildosola Leo,
Spain,
Spanish,
Full title: "A Trans Feminist's Past" by Forest Jay Handford.
"Forest Handford was brought up male, but never felt comfortable with that gender. As early as preschool, it was clear that she had interests and habits that were considered feminine. While Forest has supportive parents, they didn’t have the knowledge to alert them that she was transgender, a word that wasn’t even widely known until long after Forest was an adult.
What little information Forest found about being trans was misleading and harmful. It took cosplaying her favorite Dr. Who character, Clara Oswald, in 2018 for her to find acceptance in feminine clothes. Forest soon discovered that she met the definition of transgender. For a short time, Forest considered herself genderfluid because she didn’t believe transition was possible due to misinformation she had been taught to believe. A non-binary friend of Forest’s mentioned that their therapist had recommended that they try hormone replacement therapy (HRT)."
2021,
English,
Forest Jay Handford,
Full title: "I Am Deanna" by Deanna Homar.
"Deanna Homar is a transgender woman who struggles with the reality of coming out. And also struggles with her mental illness known as schizophrenia. In the book she talks about her family life being denied who she is, and it also talks about her experiences with her gender identity and sexual orientation.
"I Am Deanna" also talks about how she came out to her family and friends, and also how she used her writing skills as a coping skill. Finally, she also talks about how her friends and family support her from day one, and how she triumphs over her personal tragedies such as losing both her grandmothers and the love and support she has received."
2021,
Deanna Homar,
English,
Original title: "Wie aus Daniel, Stefanie wurde" (How Daniel became Stefanie) by Stefanie Claudia Schmitz.
In this book, the author Stefanie Claudia Schmitz tells of her ordeal and the difficult and often rocky path she had to take as a trans woman in order to be able to live her real life.
In addition to her life story, the author also explains common terms and names some social network groups and contact points that those affected, relatives or interested parties can turn to.
2021,
German,
Stefanie Claudia Schmitz,
Full title: "Man Enough to Be a Woman" by Jayne County, published in 1995 and republished in 2021.
"Born in rural Georgia in 1947, Jayne moved to New York and became part of the 60s art scene surrounding Andy Warhol's Factory. Jayne's story follows the arc of LGBT liberation in the US - she came of age living hand-to-mouth, faced off against police at Stonewall and came out as a trans woman while she was touring Europe with her band.
She went everywhere and met everyone and lived to tell the tale.
Man Enough to Be a Woman is the funny, fierce memoir of Jayne's extraordinary journey, now including a new epilogue where she reflects on how the world has (almost) caught up with her."
1995,
2021,
English,
Jayne County,
USA,
Full title: "My Life Inside the Chrysalis" by S. Jane Hill.
"My Life Inside the Chrysalis is an autobiography about what molded me from birth to transition to the present. It is a sometimes brutal, often philosophical, story of my life and that which moulded me into the true self I am today… the strong woman that I have become."
"Susan Jane Hill was born as Steven Wayne Hill at Annandale in Sydney, Australia on the 16th of July 1968. She had a talent for writing and art from an early age, but did not follow these pursuits until much later in life. Having spent her life accumulating information through various educational sources and employment, her predominant career was within the banking and finance industry. She married in 1991 and remained so until she was divorced, in 2001. Up until the age of 50 she lived as her born sex, male, but after almost a lifetime of physical and mental abuse she had shed her fear and began living full time as a transgender woman, her true self."
2021,
Australia,
English,
S. Jane Hill,
Susan Jane Hill,
Original title: "Diario di Transgenders" (Diary of Transgenders) by Rosario Cirimondo.
The author who by nature has always been interested in social problems and in particular in the needs of minorities, actively participating personally in the countless struggles against inequality in the world, decides to publish the personal life stories of ten Transgenders, coming from different parts of the world, reporting everything as in an intimate diary of the mostly tragic events, which have marked and continue to mark the Transsexual minority, which despite appearing well received and respected in the facade of today's society, still hides many backgrounds of abuses and unimaginable abuses, perhaps for too long kept hidden and therefore this book aims to bring to light.
2021,
Italian,
Rosario Cirimondo,
Full title: "Transitioning in Faith: An Autobiography of a Transgender Christian Woman" by Mariah Renee Dowker.
"I was born a male named Tony, but I never felt like myself as a man. Now, at long last, my name is legally changed to Mariah, and people are starting to accept me as the woman I’ve always wanted to become. But the journey to get here wasn’t always easy. Mine is a story of a transgender female who has been through many trials in my life.
I’ve experienced a lot of tragedy and prejudice, but I’ve been able to overcome it all through the help of my Lord Jesus Christ and the many friends He has blessed me with. Mine is a story of grief, abuse, and hardship. But it’s also a story of faith, love, and overcoming. As you join me on my journey, may it inspire you to realize that no matter what trials you are facing in this life, you can overcome them too."
2021,
English,
Mariah Renee Dowker,
USA,
Full title: "Finding Purpose: One Transgender Woman's Journey" by Patricia Elane Trimble.
"One transgender woman's journey to find a sense of purpose and be of service to others while serving a life sentence in a men's prison in Missouri."
"Patricia is a transgender feminist, activist, and advocate for the incarcerated LGBTQ+ community. She has spent over four decades of her life in Missouri's Prison System, with her first adult incarceration at 17 and her first juvenile incarceration at age eight. Although Ms. Trimble was charged, convicted and sentenced to over a hundred years for a crime she did not commit, she is also serving a life sentence for a murder she committed in 1979."
2021,
English,
Patricia Elane Trimble,
