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: "Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar" by Cynthia Carr.
"Warhol superstar and transgender icon Candy Darling was glamour personified, but she was without a real place in the world.
Growing up on Long Island, lonely and quiet and queer, she was enchanted by Hollywood starlets like Kim Novak. She found her turn in New York's early Off-Off-Broadway theater scene, in Warhol's films Flesh and Women in Revolt, and at the famed nightclub Max's Kansas City.
She inspired songs by Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones. She became friends with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, borrowed a dress from Lauren Hutton, posed for Richard Avedon, and performed alongside Tennessee Williams in his own play.
Yet Candy lived on the edge, relying on the kindness of strangers, friends, and her quietly devoted mother, sleeping on couches and in cheap hotel rooms, keeping a part of herself hidden. She wanted to be a star, but mostly she wanted to be loved. Her last diary entry was: "I shall try to be grateful for life . . . Cannot imagine who would want me."
2024,
Candy Darling,
Cynthia Carr,
English,
Full title: "The Times Lives Less Ordinary: Obituaries Of The Eccentric, Unique And Undefinable" by The Times and Nigel Farndale.
"Discover the lives of some of the most fascinating and unconventional characters of recent times, with 85 obituaries carefully curated from The Times archive. Be they dons, pop stars, vicars, MPs, rugby players or aristocrats, each has marched to the beat of their own drum and led a life far from ordinary.
The Times obituaries have given readers throughout the world an instant picture of a life for more than 150 years. Meet the mavericks, rogues and eccentrics from recent history, including April Ashley, model, socialite and transgender rights campaigner whose reassignment surgery was part of a rollercoaster life of lovers and high drama."
2024,
April Ashley,
English,
Nigel Farndale,
The Times,
Full title: "Transsexual Apostate: My Journey Back to Reality" by Debbie Hayton.
"In 2016, Debbie Hayton underwent gender reassignment surgery. Fast forward to today, and Hayton's refusal to validate the standard gender identity orthodoxy has led to excommunication by the trans activist community. What happened?
In a compelling first-hand account of what it means to be a transwoman - and where she feels the impulse comes from - Hayton explains why much of gender identity ideology is, in her view, false and damaging.
Once a prominent member of the TUC LGBT+ committee, she charts how her views developed and put her at odds with the majority of trans activists. Instead, she issues a compassionate call to move beyond ideological conflicts, and acknowledge the legitimate concerns that many have with an agenda that asserts that transwomen are women.
Hayton's honest, humane and moving book shows that by accepting reality, transwomen can live their best lives based on the truth of who they are- rather than the fantasy of who they are not."
2024,
Debbie Hayton,
English,
Original title: "Ich bin, wie Gott mich schuf: Eine Transfrau erzählt ihre Geschichte" (I Am How God Created Me: A Trans Woman Tells Her Story) by Sabine Estner and Claudia Heuermann.
"Sabine Estner lived in the body of a man and in the community of the church for 55 years, 14 of which as a monk. She felt like a girl from an early age. Her father tried to beat it out of her. Without faith, she says, she wouldn't have survived. What is it like when someone believes deeply in God and Jesus Christ, but the institution that represents them tries to erase that identity? How do you manage to withstand the massive pressure from outside and still not lose your own faith? By finding the strength to overcome church dogmas and find the God who loves you as you are.
In “My Faith Saved Me,” Sabine talks about her difficult journey as a trans person in the bosom of the church and in a society that was not (yet) willing to think beyond the male/female model."
2024,
Claudia Heuermann,
German,
Sabine Estner,
Full title: "Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir" by Zoë Bossiere.
"A stunningly written literary memoir about gender-fluidity, class, masculinity, and the American Southwest that captures the author’s experience growing up in a trailer park outside of Tucson, Arizona.
We meet Zoë as an 11-year-old moving through a world of giant beetles, thundering javelinas, and gnarled palo verde trees. Although Zoë lacks the vocabulary to express it, they experience life as a trans boy, spending summers running in a pack of other sunburnt hoodlums and school years fending off classmates’ intrusive questions about the body underneath their baggy clothes."
2024,
English,
USA,
Zoë Bossiere,
Full title: "I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition" by Lucy Sante.
"An iconic writer's lapidary memoir of a life spent pursuing a dream of artistic truth while evading the truth of her own gender identity, until, finally, she turned to face who she really was For a long time, Lucy Sante felt unsure of her place.
Born in Belgium, the only child of conservative working-class Catholic parents who transplanted their little family to the United States, she felt at home only when she moved to New York City in the early 1970s and found her people among a band of fellow bohemians. Some would die young, to drugs and AIDS, and some would become jarringly famous. Sante flirted with both fates, on her way to building an estimable career as a writer. But she still felt like her life a performance. She was presenting a façade, even to herself."
2024,
English,
Interview,
Lucy Sante,
Full title: "The Punk-Rock Queen of the Jews: A Memoir" by Rossi.
"This is Rossi’s wild, queer coming-of-age story. Rossi was taught only to aspire to marry a nice Jewish boy and to be a good kosher Jewish girl. At sixteen she flowers into a rebellious punk-rock rule-breaker who runs away to seek adventure. Her freedom is cut short when her parents kidnap her and dump her with a Chasidic rabbi―a “cult buster” known for “reforming” wayward Jewish girls―in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Rossi spends the next couple of years in a repressive, misogynistic culture straight out of the nineteenth century, forced to trade in her pink hair and Sex Pistols T-shirt for maxi skirts and long-sleeved blouses and endure not only bone-crunching boredom but also outright abuse and violence.
The Punk-Rock Queen of the Jews is filled with wonderfully rich characters, hilarious dialogue, and keen portraits of the secretive hothouse Orthodox world and the struggling New York City of the 1980s: dirty, on the edge, but fully vital and embracing."
2024,
English,
Rossi,
USA,
Full title: "Gender/Fucking: The Pleasures and Politics of Living in a Gendered Body" by Florence Ashley.
"Featuring critical essays, erotica, and stitched-up memories, Gender/Fucking explores sexual arousal as a site of knowledge about the self and world.
Taking the idea of intellectual masturbation a bit too literally, Florence Ashley draws on their experiences as a transfeminine activist, academic, and slut to interrogate what it means to live in a gendered body in our difficult yet occasionally loving world.
With personal essays about the fetishization of trans bodies, recovering from surgery, and losing hope, Florence’s collection celebrates the queer messiness of sex and identity.
Through the embrace of its raw and lyrical prose, Gender/Fucking invites the reader into the intimate world of academic smut to ask what it means to be horny on main in a sex-negative world—and what power it might hold."
2024,
English,
Florence Ashley,
