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: "Trans en France: Histoire des personnes trans en France et ailleurs d'autrefois à nos jours" (Trans in France: History of trans people in France and elsewhere from the past to the present day) by Jenny Latreille.
This book is intended for anyone who is interested in the history of trans people, particularly in France but not only, and in the issues (medical, legal, psychological, philosophical, sociological, artistic and others) that have always accompanied and surround people who choose, claim, undergo or refuse a sex and/or gender reassignment.
Trans people themselves will, of course, be able to find information there, in particular of a historical or epistemological nature, which they would not necessarily find elsewhere. It's always good to know where you're from. The work includes a copious bibliography and a filmography, and an index.
2018,
Bambi,
Coccinelle,
French,
Jenny Latreille,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Full title: "Frissons au Carrousel" (Chills at the Carrousel) by Marie-Pierre Pruvot.
Coccinelle was a living legend. She owed it to her beauty, her overflowing femininity, her incomparable brilliance both in the city and on the stage. Her character imposed herself by another aspect: she was "something never seen before".
The anecdote shows her in a difficult moment when she thinks she is losing face by following her own principles of wisdom... But her petulance takes over, her instinct makes her triumph. Everything happens in Marseille. This is an opportunity to evoke the famous Alcazar, a monument of the music-hall, which does not exist anymore.
2013,
Bambi,
Coccinelle,
French,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Original title: "I am a woman now" by Daniëlle Serdijn and Michiel van Erp.
When gynecologist Georges Burou opens a practice in Casablanca in 1956 where men can undergo a sex change, his name quickly spreads around the world. The famous French Marie-Pierre Pruvot "Bambi", the Flemish Corinne Van Tongerloo, the flamboyant British April Ashley, the German Jean Lessenich, and the Dutch Colette Berends: they all undertook the journey to Casablanca and the illegal practice of Burou.
In the autumn of their lives, they look back. Do these pioneers feel completely female? Did their choice bring the expected satisfaction? After the sensational film by Michiel van Erp, this fantastic book is published.
2012,
April Ashley,
Bambi,
Corinne Van Tongerloo,
Daniëlle Serdijn,
Dutch,
Georges Burou,
Jean Lessenich,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Michiel van Erp,
Full title: "Le gai cimetière" (The gay cemetery) by Marie-Pierre Pruvot. This is the fifth part of the 5-book series about Marie-Pierre Pruvot's life.
Le Gai Cimetière follows La Chanson du Bac. The story takes place while the Carrousel is permanently closed, the troupe dissolved, and the mysterious epidemic already has a name: AIDS. The trouble had already given way to anxiety, the hecatomb causes terror. It is through the ordeal of her friend Lola that Bambi travels through this period. The remaining members of the former troupe strengthen their bonds of friendship and try to fight back. Nothing prevents friends from disappearing in lamentable suffering and conditions. Yet, among so many misfortunes, the troupe never ceases to bathe in this usual humor essential to life, and until death...
2014,
Bambi,
French,
Georges Burou,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Full title: "La chanson du bac" (The baccalaureate song) by Marie-Pierre Pruvot. This is the fourth part of the 5-book series about Marie-Pierre Pruvot's life.
Bambi continues her epic and goes through the upheavals that France is experiencing. May 68 was for her not only a political shock. Awareness pushes her to set other goals for the fulfillment of her life. While the Sorbonne is upside down, Bambi feels the oppressive urge to resume her abandoned studies. She undertakes a brief tour and, without forgetting her role at the Carrousel, she devotes her free time to studying.
Back in Paris, sentimental setbacks, health problems, disappointing experiences, everything seemed to stand in the way of her efforts. How will she achieve her ends? Marie-Pierre Pruvot offers a photograph of France at the end of a reign: the threat of devaluation of the franc, the announcement of a referendum, and sounds of General de Gaulle's fall. Powerless witness to the tumult of life, her character remains compartmentalized in the frivolity of the shows.
2014,
Bambi,
French,
Georges Burou,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
"Reverse Sex" is the English language edition of "Elle est lui" (She is lui) by Mario A. Costa.
The book is a biography of Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, also known by her stage name Coccinelle. She was a French actress, cabaret entertainer, and singer. She named herself Coccinelle (Ladybird), a tribute to a red dress with black polka dots that she often wore. She was born on August 23, 1931 in Paris, France and passed away on October 9, 2006 in Marseille, France.
She entered the French world of entertainment in 1953 at Madame Arthur and then at the Carrousel in Paris. This is when she met Bambi, another cabaret performer and legendary transgender icon. Coccinelle helped Bambi with her first performances and gave her shelter at her home.
1965,
Bambi,
Coccinelle,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy,
Mario A. Costa,
Full title: "Le Carrousel" by Marie-Pierre Pruvot. This is the third part of the 5-book series about Marie-Pierre Pruvot's life.
The Carrousel is the immediate follow-up to the novel Madame Arthur. Bambi makes his debut in the prestigious cabaret. Crowned with success, she remains insensitive to this shadow of prestige. Her interest, she brings it to the obsessive Coccinelle who becomes her friend, but especially her model. Always in search of her "self", will Bambi finally have the strength and courage to find and cultivate her personality?
Her love for Serge is put to the test: the Algerian war makes their relationship clandestine. Very quickly, Bambi is torn by a sentimental duality that will end with a crucial choice...
Through this novel, Marie-Pierre Pruvot pursues her quest for identity. Her loves, her friendships, but also her disillusionments continue to shape her life. The path to an extraordinary destiny then emerges. Through this novel, she continues to take the reader to this distant Paris, colorful and full of frivolities. The cabaret Le Carrousel and its artists come back to life in this story...
2013,
Bambi,
French,
Georges Burou,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Original title: "Coccinelle par Coccinelle" (Coccinelle by Coccinelle). This is the only biography of Coccinelle written by herself.
The book is a biography of Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, also known by her stage name Coccinelle. She was a French actress, cabaret entertainer, and singer. She named herself Coccinelle (Ladybird), a tribute to a red dress with black polka dots that she often wore. She was born on August 23, 1931 in Paris, France and passed away on October 9, 2006 in Marseille, France.
She entered the French world of entertainment in 1953 at Madame Arthur and then at the Carrousel in Paris. This is when she met Bambi, another cabaret performer and legendary transgender icon. Coccinelle helped Bambi with her first performances and gave her shelter at her home.
1987,
Bambi,
Coccinelle,
French,
Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy,
Full title: "Madame Arthur" by Marie-Pierre Pruvot. This is the second part of the 5-book series about Marie-Pierre Pruvot's life.
"The story of Bambi's life, her first year at Madame Arthur, begins in January 1960 and spans a period of one year. We find the character of Edouard there, as in Algiers, but we also discover a certain exuberance that flourishes among the cabaret artists, with rivalries, quarrels, derision, and above all the apprenticeship of the profession of the stage.
We discover small restaurants, warm but dangerous, loves... finally the preparation of a tour, the search for a name that makes Carrousel. Discovery of the traveling show which ends in Algiers with a police ban for moral and political reasons (1961 putsch). "
2013,
Bambi,
French,
Georges Burou,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Full title: "J'inventais ma vie" (I invented my life) by Marie-Pierre Pruvot. This is the first part of the 5-book series about Marie-Pierre Pruvot's life.
"Marie-Pierre Pruvot has had two lives and two careers: one as a teacher, discreet and punctuated by national education schedules; and the other as a reviewer at the Carrousel in the sixties and seventies, where Bambi lit fires on stage and burned with her iron the memory of the men who came to contemplate her plastic. These two professions call on the same talent, and require that we put the world and life on stage to better show our audience how we conceive the world... It is therefore quite naturally that readers will discover this book which mixes the romantic and the real, and in which overlap the events linked to the Algerian war, and those borrowed from the real life of Marie-Pierre. At that time, this part of France beyond the Mediterranean was still bubbling with the aftermath of the war of independence and mentalities were only beginning to hint at the possibility of taking charge of one's destiny... and inventing one's life."
2013,
Bambi,
French,
Georges Burou,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Full title: "J'inventais ma vie" (I invented my life).
This is Bambi's first book. Bambi is the stage name of Marie-Pierre Pruvot, also known as Marie-Pier Ysser, a French author, dancer, singer, cabaret artist, and transgender woman, born Jean-Pierre Pruvot on 11 November 1935, in Les Issers, Algeria. After having been the cabaret star of the 1950s and 1960s, she resumed her French literature studies and became a professor of Modern Literature in 1974, and devoted herself to writing autofiction (notably as Marie-Pier Ysser).
Jean-Pierre spent his childhood and adolescence in Algeria, growing up in both a rural and urban world, enjoying nature and farm animals, much more than school. When he was 10 years old, his sister, whose clothes he liked to wear, died. His father dies 4 years later. Jean-Pierre Pruvot then lived in a feminine environment, reading a lot, sewing and embroidering. He feels that neither his first name nor his gender matches him.
2003,
Bambi,
France,
French,
Georges Burou,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Original title: "Histoire des transsexuels en France" (History of Transsexuals in France)
Being the country of the emergence of the transsexual phenomenon at the beginning of the twentieth century, Germany then met the necessary conditions for the implementation of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld's theories on "sexual intermediaries". After the ransacking by the Nazis of the Institute of Sexology, France takes over in Europe: the artist Michel-Marie Poulain announces her change of gender in Voilà and the deported Marie André Schwidenhammer creates the first organization to help transsexuals.
These two pioneers thus laid the foundations for social visibility that reached its peak with the transgender cabaret culture in Paris in the 1950s and 60s when the French discovered the scandalous Beetle. However, even after "sexual liberation", the judicial, police, and psychiatric authorities put in place repression in order to prevent transsexuals from changing their civil status and making their transition in good conditions.
2006,
Bambi,
Coccinelle,
French,
Georges Burou,
Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Maxime Foerster,
Full title: "Marie parce que c'est joli" (Marie because it's pretty)
"Marie-Pierre's book is the authentic chronicle of a little boy who felt like a little girl, a little girl who became a woman, and a woman who, by dint of tenacity, finds success and meets love.
We follow Marie from her childhood in Algeria to the Carrousel cabaret where she becomes BAMBI, Coccinelle's friend, and the headliner of the show for twenty years.
We follow Marie because she knows how to tell us the simple and exhilarating story of a "transition" that upsets her love and triggers her interest in the university education that leads her to another profession, national education, where she obtains the academic degree and especially the recognition of her former students."
2007,
Bambi,
Christine Jorgensen,
Coccinelle,
France,
French,
Georges Burou,
Lili Elbe,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Michel Marie Poulain,
Roberta Cowell,
Full title: "The Woman I Was Born To Be" by Aleshia Brevard. This is her second biography. In 2001, she published her first biographical book - "The Woman I Was Not Born To Be" (2001).
"For nearly 50 years, Aleshia Brevard hid the fact that she was one of America's first transsexuals from her friends, stepchildren, fellow actors and actresses, film producers, students, university administrators and even from her four husbands.
The Woman I Was Born To Be is a sequel to Ms. Brevard's earlier book, The Woman I Was NOT Born To Be. This book covers the second half of her exciting life, describing the many challenges she encountered and triumphs she achieved after having fulfilled her boyhood dream of becoming her authentic self and finding acceptance as the woman whom from boyhood she'd known herself to be."
I still cannot believe that Alessia is not around anymore. She was my best friend and my second mother. In 2013, we did a very long interview about how she coped with all challenges related to being transgender, and this is what she told me: "When I transitioned the term “transgender” had yet to be invented. At that time, in fact, “transsexuality” was generally thought of as a ‘condition’, an awkward period through which one must pass, like some bothersome adolescence.
Our goal was to move forward, as seamlessly as possible, easing into mainstream society to live as our authentic selves. We wished to live among, work alongside, and compete on an equal footing with other women, including those who had been born female.
2010,
Aleshia Brevard,
Bambi,
Charlotte MacLeod,
English,
USA,
Full title: "She-Male: The Sex-Reversal True Life Story of Coccinelle" by Carlson Wade.
The book is a biography of Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, also known by her stage name Coccinelle. She was a French actress, cabaret entertainer, and singer. She named herself Coccinelle (Ladybird), a tribute to a red dress with black polka dots that she often wore. She was born on August 23, 1931 in Paris, France and passed away on October 9, 2006 in Marseille, France.
She entered the French world of entertainment in 1953 at Madame Arthur and then at the Carrousel in Paris. This is when she met Bambi, another cabaret performer and legendary transgender icon. Coccinelle helped Bambi with her first performances and gave her shelter at her home.
1963,
Bambi,
Carlson Wade,
Coccinelle,
English,
Georges Burou,
Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy,
Original title: "Elle est lui" (She is lui) by Mario A. Costa.
The book is a biography of Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, also known by her stage name Coccinelle. She was a French actress, cabaret entertainer, and singer. She named herself Coccinelle (Ladybird), a tribute to a red dress with black polka dots that she often wore. She was born on August 23, 1931 in Paris, France and passed away on October 9, 2006 in Marseille, France.
She entered the French world of entertainment in 1953 at Madame Arthur and then at the Carrousel in Paris. This is when she met Bambi, another cabaret performer and legendary transgender icon. Coccinelle helped Bambi with her first performances and gave her shelter at her home.
1963,
Bambi,
Coccinelle,
French,
Georges Burou,
Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy,
Mario A. Costa,
"Los travestis: Y el enigma de cambio de sexo" (The Transvestites: And the Enigma of Sex Change) by Jaques Delpal.
I tried to find some information about this publication but unfortunately, I was not able to find any source. On the cover, we can see Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, better known by her stage name Coccinelle, a French transgender actress, entertainer, and singer. She was born on August 23, 1931 in Paris, France and passed away on October 9, 2006 in Marseille, France.
She was an international celebrity and a renowned club singer. She performed regularly at the famous nightclub Le Carrousel de Paris, which also featured regular acts by other famous trans women such as April Ashley and Bambi. She underwent a vaginoplasty by Georges Burou in Casablanca in 1958. After the operation, she became a media sensation and performed the Cherchez la femme revue which ran for 7 months at the Olympia in Paris between 1963 and 1964. In 1987, her autobiography was published, titled Coccinelle par Coccinelle. She was married to Francis Bonnet from 1960 to 1962, Mario Costa from 1963 until his death in 1977, and Thierry Wilson from 1996 until her death.
1974,
Bambi,
Coccinelle,
Georges Burou,
Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy,
Jacques Louis Delpal,
Spanish,
