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: "Un papillon dans la tête" (A butterfly in the head) by Armonia Zyra (Armonia Lemaître).
"Armonia Zyra with this collection of poetry, makes us discover "from the inside" the long journey that led her to fulfillment: to become the woman that her body and her deep personality have always been convinced to be. She gives us with strength and sincerity her moods, her difficulties, her renunciations, her disappointments, but also her revolts, her victories. What shines through in these inspired and profound texts is her mistreated, but still intact will, her capacity for analysis, her love, and her generosity.
"Femininity cannot be defined, it is lived," says the author in maxim 17. Isn't it simply a reflection of the struggle that women have had to fight over the centuries to exist as such? To want to become this woman that a genetic error made born as a boy, the author gives us a beautiful lesson in courage."
2017,
Armonia Lemaître,
Armonia Zyra,
French,
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,
Original title: "Je suis une poupée gigogne" (I am a nesting doll) by Armonia Lemaître (Armonia Zyra).
"As a child, Armonia already knew she was different. Born into a body that is not her own, she is confronted with uncontrollable phobias, and nightmares, terrified by what she feels inside her: an identity she does not understand. But the straitjacket of society, as well as her education, prevent her from putting words on her malaise and she takes refuge in normal life, trying, by all means, to deny who she really is.
It is only at the age of fifty that her life turns upside down. Armonia begins her transition. She then tells us about the vicissitudes of her journey: the difficulties she faces, sometimes hilarious, often tragic anecdotes, the people who helped her or thwarted her evolution, and finally, the final accomplishment when she becomes a woman in her own right."
2017,
Armonia Lemaître,
Armonia Zyra,
French,
Original title: "Je suis une poupée gigogne" (I am a nesting doll) by Armonia Lemaître (also known as Armonia Zyra).
The book is divided into two parts. "When I was born in 1962 in a body that didn't fit my intimate gender, but that I wouldn't really realize until much later. I then lived a difficult childhood and adolescence, not because of my very loving parents, too much perhaps, but because I could not find my place.
Being a victim of deep discomforts and terrible nightmares, I felt inadequate, totally out of step with the role imposed by my entourage, society, and morality. For a long time, I thought I was crazy. Yet, despite all these difficulties, I lived as a married man, and two children were born out of this marriage."
2022,
Armonia Lemaître,
Armonia Zyra,
French,
