A random collection of over 1994 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: "From 'Ka' To 'Ki' - Biography Of A Transgender Woman: A 'Transformation Through Strength And Resilience" by Lakshmi Ajoy.
Dr. Lakshmi Ajoy’s book From “Ka” To “Ki” – Biography of a Transgender Woman: A “Transformation Through Strength and Resilience is not merely a biography; it is a mirror reflecting both the cruelty and the hope of our world. At the heart of this work lies the extraordinary life of Deepika Naiduu, a woman who endured unimaginable pain yet rose to claim her identity with courage and grace. Her life is one of survival against betrayal, abuse, and relentless social rejection, but it is also one of rebirth, love, and resilience.
Deepika was born into a world that could not accept her truth. She grew up carrying the weight of rejection, enduring physical and emotional abuse that would have broken many spirits. The shadows of cruelty followed her, yet amidst the bleakness she found small islands of compassion. A handful of people, who saw her not as an outcast but as a human being worthy of love and respect, gave her the strength to keep moving forward. Their belief in her became the scaffolding on which she built her new life. Through them, she learned to embrace her true identity, ultimately transitioning and stepping into the fullness of who she had always been.
2025,
Deepika Naiduu,
English,
Lakshmi Ajoy,
Full title: "Being Ellen: A Second Chance at Life" by Ellen Krug.
How often does anyone get a second chance at life? For most people, life is a continuous journey with only one opportunity to become the person they are meant to be. Ellen Krug, known to friends and readers as Ellie, experienced that rare and extraordinary gift. After living fifty-two years presenting as a man who often prioritized career and societal expectations over personal authenticity, she embraced her true self and transitioned into the woman she had always known herself to be. Being Ellen: A Second Chance at Life is a deeply intimate and inspiring account of that transformation, detailing the challenges, triumphs, and profound lessons Ellie encountered along the way.
In Being Ellen, Ellie reflects on her journey with honesty, humor, and courage. She chronicles the moments of uncertainty and fear, as well as the joy of finally inhabiting her authentic self. Transitioning later in life brought unique challenges, from learning the subtleties of womanhood to navigating relationships that had been formed under her former identity. Ellie emphasizes the importance of chosen family, particularly her enduring friendship with Thap, a bond formed in eighth grade that remained a source of unwavering support throughout her life. Through these relationships, she discovered that love and allyship often appear in unexpected forms and that the people who truly matter will walk with you even when everything else changes.
2025,
Ellen Krug,
English,
Interview,
USA,
Full title: "16,000km or so" by tyrnyr x.
In 16,000km or so, tyrnyr x takes the reader on a journey that is at once deeply personal, culturally specific, and universally resonant. This second collection, following Ulysses: an odyssey in poetry, situates itself within the tradition of road narratives, yet it refuses to conform neatly to expectation. Echoes of Kerouac’s freewheeling spirit, Krakauer’s obsession with escape, and Sanchez’s lyrical urgency are evident, but tyrnyr folds them into a distinctly queer landscape of desire, grief, resilience, and laughter. Even Britney Spears’ cinematic detour in Crossroads becomes part of the book’s constellation of influences, reminding us that pop culture has long been a secret map for those looking to find themselves on unfamiliar terrain.
The premise is deceptively simple. Three queer people, bound together in romantic entanglement, take to the highways of the United States in the summer of 2022. What they seek is not just scenery but healing, and what they pursue is not simply freedom but the elusive presence of Tori Amos, that spectral figure of artistry and queer devotion. Yet the road is more than a backdrop; it becomes a living witness to the turbulence of its time. The trip unfolds amid Pride celebrations that feel both defiant and fragile, as monkeypox spreads and the legal aftershocks of Roe v. Wade’s overturning reshape bodies and futures. The specter of Trump’s first presidency lingers even as the country insists it has moved beyond it. The pandemic, still raw, haunts every public space with a reminder of isolation and loss. And, though unspoken in its immediacy, the book exists on the edge of subsequent global crises, capturing a fleeting interval when America felt both exhausted and restless, weary yet still mythologized.
2025,
Australia,
English,
tyrnyr x,
Full title: "Ten Years: A Transexual Memoir" by Tara Hudson.
Tara Hudson’s book Ten Years: A Transexual Memoir is both a profoundly intimate personal narrative and a sharp indictment of the systems that failed her. Written with honesty and urgency, it recounts a decade of her life in which she endured not only the ordinary struggles of living openly as a transgender woman but also the extraordinary injustices of being placed in a male prison despite her identity. What emerges is a powerful chronicle of resilience and survival, but also a plea for compassion, justice, and lasting change.
Hudson begins by reflecting on her childhood and the early awareness that she was different from those around her. She describes the years of self-discovery that followed, including her work as a make-up artist, where she built a career while continuing her transition. Yet the memoir’s most searing sections revolve around her incarceration in 2015, when she was sentenced to prison and initially placed in HMP Bristol, an all-male facility. What should have been a short custodial sentence turned into a national controversy after more than 150,000 people signed a petition demanding that she be transferred to a women’s prison.
2025,
English,
Tara Hudson,
UK,
Full title: "The Woman Inside: From Outer Space to Inner Peace" by Bobbi Waterman.
There is a rare kind of courage that does not announce itself with fanfare, it moves quietly and persistently through a life lived in service of others, it surfaces in small acts and big decisions alike, and it is the quiet engine behind Bobbi Waterman’s memoir, The Woman Inside: From Outer Space to Inner Peace. This book reads like a voyage, not only across geography and career milestones, but deeper, into the territories of identity, belonging, and what it means to become oneself after a lifetime of roles that were assigned long before the author could consent. If you come for rockets and the steady, exacting world of NASA, you will find them, vivid and technically grounded. If you come for the inner life of transition, you will be met with honesty, nuance, and the kind of reflective clarity that only decades of lived experience can produce.
Waterman organizes her story around a life spent at the edge of human possibility, she spent thirty four years at NASA, a detail that could intimidate a reader who thinks of astronauts and mission control as being far removed from the intimate struggles of gender and self. Yet this is precisely what makes the narrative powerful, the contrast between the institutional, objective world of rocket launches and the deeply personal, subjective world of gender transition creates a tension that the book handles with compassion and intellectual rigor. The tasks of launching payloads, leading teams, and traveling to remote sites around the world become, in Waterman’s hands, metaphors for the stages of self discovery, each mission echoing a small rehearsal for the larger, riskier mission of becoming who she truly is.
2025,
Bobbi Waterman,
English,
USA,
Full title: "Thanuja: A Memoir of Migration and Transition" by Thanuja Singam.
Thanuja: A Memoir of Migration and Transition by Thanuja Singam is a work that defies easy categorisation, because it is at once a story of exile, survival, self-discovery and profound transformation. At its heart is the experience of a Tamil refugee fleeing the violence of the Sri Lankan civil war, making her way first through India and then to Europe. The journey is shaped by political turmoil, family ties and the dislocation that comes with forced migration. Yet woven into this narrative is another journey that is just as urgent and life-altering, the recognition and affirmation of her identity as a woman. The two stories unfold together, making the memoir both a chronicle of geopolitical conflict and a testament to the intimate struggles of gender transition.
Thanuja’s recollections are infused with the pain of displacement and the relentless search for belonging. She describes the bewildering process of adapting to new countries and cultures while carrying the trauma of violence and loss. Her path is not linear. It is filled with moments of confusion, of unexpected pleasures, and of sharp betrayals from people and institutions she hoped might offer understanding. These conflicting experiences shape her gradual acceptance of her womanhood, showing that self-recognition is never a simple act but a process complicated by the expectations and prejudices of others.
2024,
English,
Sri Lanka,
Thanuja Singam,
Full title: "I Was an Abomination: A Story of Trans Survival in Conservative America" by Sheryl Weikal.
Sheryl Weikal’s memoir I Was an Abomination: A Story of Trans Survival in Conservative America arrives at a moment when public debate about the very existence of transgender children is louder than ever. For years, figures like J.K. Rowling and Elon Musk have insisted that trans identities in children are the result of external influence, that young people are not capable of knowing who they truly are, and that transition is always prompted by adults.
Sheryl Weikal’s life story dismantles that narrative with unflinching honesty. Raised in a deeply conservative homeschooling family, she knew from her earliest memories that she was a girl. At eight years old, she even crafted a doll that represented herself in her true gender, a gesture both innocent and profound, one that expressed what words could not yet carry. Her memoir reveals how even the strictest isolation from progressive ideas could not erase her own sense of self.
2025,
English,
Sheryl Weikal,
Full title: "Debbie's Secret Life: The Transgender Experience" by Deborah Ballard.
Deborah Ballard’s Debbie’s Secret Life: The Transgender Experience is not just the story of one girl forced to live in hiding, it is a deeply human account of what it means to carry a truth so profound and yet so dangerous that it must be concealed at all costs. At its heart lies Debbie, a girl with a secret. To the outside world she appears to be a boy. Even her parents are uncertain about her identity, and she quickly learns that revealing the truth could bring consequences so severe that they might cost her everything, even her life. In this world of silence and fear, the question becomes whether she will ever find the strength and freedom to be herself, or whether her struggle will become a catalyst for changing the way the world sees transgender people.
The book weaves together personal testimony, raw emotion, and social critique, offering a voice to the millions of transgender children and adults who have had to live in the shadows. Debbie’s story is not one of fantasy or invention. It comes from the lived experience of Deborah Ballard, an American IT architect consultant, writer, and activist whose own life has been marked by both extraordinary professional accomplishments and the often-painful realities of growing up transgender in a world that did not understand or accept her. She was one of the early pioneers in the commercialization of the Internet during the 1990s, helped advance Linux and Open Source technology in the following decade, and played a key role in globalization initiatives that reshaped international business. Yet behind those achievements was the secret life of a girl who knew her identity from the age of two but was forced to conceal it.
2012,
Debbie Ballard,
Deborah Ballard,
English,
Interview,
Full title: "One Perfect Daughter: He Was The Perfect Son. Until She Wasn't" by Jane Foster.
This memoir by Jane Foster titled One Perfect Daughter: He Was The Perfect Son. Until She Wasn’t is a wrenching, honest chronicle of how a family comes apart and slowly, painfully reassembles itself around a child’s truth. Foster begins from a place many parents know well: pride in an accomplished son, admiration for his brilliance, hopes for his future.
Julian is smart, well‐behaved, full of promise. She loves him, expects him to follow the path she and so many others imagine for a child like him. Then one evening across the dinner table he hands her a note: “Please don’t be disappointed. This doesn’t change who I am.” She reads, confused. He says, “I’m transgender.” That moment becomes a fulcrum on which everything tilts. The future she saw for Julian, the person she thought she knew, begins to shift, to slip in ways she does not yet understand. The story that follows is raw. Uninhibited. Foster allows us into the collapse of her certainties. She admits to shock, grief, confusion. She grapples with what it means for her child to change identity, how that affects their relationship, how it changes her view of herself as a mother. The emotional currents are turbulent. There is denial, there is acceptance, there is resistance, there is reconciliation. There are late‐night arguments, anguished tears, moments of fierce love that transcend everything else.
2024,
English,
Jane Foster,
Full title: "Do You Still Like Football: From Harley-Riding Rancher to Fashion Icon: A Journey of Courage and Reinvention" by Andrea Leigh.
Andrea Leigh’s memoir Do You Still Like Football: From Harley-Riding Rancher to Fashion Icon: A Journey of Courage and Reinvention is a story that refuses to fit neatly into one category. It is part life story, part manifesto, part guide to self-discovery, and part love letter to authenticity. What begins as the account of a rancher, husband, father, and pharmaceutical executive soon unfolds into something far deeper: the journey of a woman who dared to look into the mirror and acknowledge a truth that had been waiting for her all along.
By all standard measures, Andy, as she was known then, had built the American Dream. A successful career in the pharmaceutical industry brought security, while a marriage and family life on a ranch grounded in sustainable practices offered both beauty and meaning. Yet beneath the outward picture of success was a persistent sense of incompleteness, a quiet calling toward something more. That unspoken longing would eventually lead Andrea to confront herself with honesty, vulnerability, and ultimately, courage.
2024,
Andrea Leigh,
English,
Full title: "Dance Naked with God" by Barbara Marie Minney.
Barbara Marie Minney’s Dance Naked with God is a collection that challenges readers to immerse themselves in the raw, multi-layered rhythms of human emotion. The work unfolds in language that is emotionally fractured yet intricate, each poem resonating with intensity and vulnerability. Partway through, Barbara poses the question, “How do poets love?” and in doing so, she invites readers to consider love not as a simple, singular experience but as a force that is complicated, all-encompassing, and profoundly human.
Her poems teem with imagery that overlaps and interlocks like scales, creating a shimmering, chameleon-like effect that captures the kaleidoscope of introspection, desire, and spiritual seeking. By the final poem, the reader is left with a sense of renewal, an awareness that passion, grief, and joy can coexist in the same space, transforming the self in subtle yet profound ways. These poems do not offer a neat answer to the question of how poets love, but they illuminate the depth and ferocity of poetic devotion, the ways it can challenge and expand one’s understanding of intimacy, identity, and faith. Reading the collection, I found myself transported into moments of ecstatic reflection and quiet revelation, feeling the liveliness of my own resurrection mirrored in Barbara’s words.
2023,
Barbara Marie Minney,
English,
Interview,
Full title: "Am I Trans Enough?" by Cathy Heart.
In a time not too far behind us, transgender people lived largely in silence, invisible to a society that did not yet have the words, understanding, or compassion to grasp their realities. The cultural landscape was bleak, dominated by misconceptions that being transgender was either a sexual preference or a curious lifestyle choice. Into this difficult world came the early life of Cathy Heart, whose book Am I Trans Enough? reflects not only her personal journey but also the broader struggle of transgender individuals trying to find their place in a society that often refused to see them.
Cathy’s story begins in the pre-internet years, a period when information about transgender lives was scarce and communities of support were hard to find. For many, admitting to oneself that they were living in the wrong gender felt almost criminal. Cathy captures this atmosphere vividly, showing what it meant to grow up with an inner truth that could barely be spoken aloud. Her earliest memories stand out with remarkable clarity, such as being four years old and joyfully wearing a dress in her grandmother’s home. That small but powerful moment carried a sense of rightness that never left her, even as life grew more complicated.
2016,
Cathy Heart,
English,
Full title: "Sincerely, Katherine.: Life, Gender, Inclusivity, and Leadership for the Future" by Katherine Dudtschak.
There are books that entertain, and there are books that quietly shift the ground beneath your feet. Sincerely, Katherine.: Life, Gender, Inclusivity, and Leadership for the Future belongs to the latter category. It is not only the story of a corporate leader but also the unveiling of a truth so deeply buried that acknowledging it required dismantling an entire life and rebuilding it anew.
Katherine Dudtschak grew up in southern Ontario, the daughter of immigrants who survived World War II camps. Her early life was defined by scarcity, post-war trauma, and the kind of challenges that can press a child into becoming either brittle or unbreakably determined. She chose the latter. Despite learning difficulties and the weight of expectation, she carved out a path into one of Canada’s most competitive industries, rising to the upper echelons of banking. To the outside world, she had it all: four children, a successful career, the respect of peers, and material security. But inside, something essential was missing. The man her colleagues and friends saw was a mask, and behind it lived Katherine, the woman she had always known herself to be.
The turning point came unexpectedly, in the most ordinary of settings: her daughter’s university dormitory. There, on a wall, hung a poster about gender inclusivity. To most passersby, it was a piece of student activism, easily overlooked. For Katherine, it was a mirror. In its language, she recognized herself, the truth she had buried for decades rising suddenly, urgently, irrepressibly. That poster did not just open a door; it unlocked a life.
2026,
Canada,
English,
Katherine Dudtschak,
Full title: "I Hardly Knew Me: Following Love, Faith, and Skittles to a Transgender Awakening" by Nia Chiaramonte.
In her memoir I Hardly Knew Me: Following Love, Faith, and Skittles to a Transgender Awakening, Nia Chiaramonte offers an intimate portrait of transition that is striking for its immediacy. Rather than narrating her journey from the safe distance of hindsight, she writes from within the unfolding moments themselves, therapy sessions, late-night reflections, family conversations, and the uncertain but luminous steps toward authenticity. The result is a profoundly human book that refuses simplification, capturing the painful, messy, and beautiful process of becoming oneself.
The title itself, I Hardly Knew Me, conveys the heart of Chiaramonte’s story: years of hiding, even from herself. “I used to be so hidden that even I couldn’t see who I was,” she writes, a confession that resonates deeply with anyone who has lived in silence or fear. That silence eventually breaks, sometimes quietly, sometimes with shattering force, in moments like posting her truth online, enduring the echo of responses and silences, and sharing vulnerable conversations with her wife Katie and their children. Through it all, Nia’s voice is both tender and unflinching, guiding readers through her discovery that authenticity is not only possible but necessary for survival.
2025,
English,
Interview,
Nia Chiaramonte,
Full title: "Becoming Jade: A Memoir of Transition, Music, and Self-Discovery: A Memoir of Transition, Music, and Self-Discovery" by EJ Jade Manalo.
In her heartfelt memoir Becoming Jade: A Memoir of Transition, Music, and Self-Discovery, EJ Jade Manalo opens the door to her world with honesty, courage, and a spirit of resilience that is as inspiring as it is humbling. More than a personal narrative, Jade’s book is a beacon for anyone searching for authenticity and strength in the face of adversity.
At its core, Becoming Jade is the story of a young trans woman navigating a world that often seemed unwilling to embrace her for who she was. Growing up with autism added another layer of complexity to her journey, shaping both the challenges she faced and the unique ways she approached them. Jade doesn’t shy away from discussing the realities of transferring between schools with rigid rules and minimal accommodations. These institutions, meant to nurture growth, often became spaces of tension where she had to fight for her right to be herself.
But Jade’s narrative is never one of defeat. Instead, it is about resilience, about finding ways to thrive despite barriers, about discovering moments of joy and independence even when surrounded by misunderstanding. She invites readers to see the world through her eyes, where something as simple as riding an elevator becomes a source of solace and empowerment.
2025,
EJ Jade Manalo,
English,
Full title: "Free To Be Me: Transitioning at 40" by Dominique Gallaway.
When Dominique Gallaway made the decision at age forty to embrace her authentic self, she wasn’t just making a personal choice, she was writing a radical act of survival and joy into existence. Her memoir, Free To Be Me: Transitioning at 40, is not only a story of transformation but also a testimony of courage, grief, resilience, and the deep beauty of becoming who you always were.
Dominique, a proud Black transgender woman, opens her life to readers with unflinching honesty. For decades, she had lived behind a carefully constructed façade, fulfilling roles others expected of her while secretly carrying the weight of a truth she feared the world wasn’t ready to accept. Like so many transgender women who transition later in life, her silence was not born of weakness, but of survival. Yet, as Free To Be Me reveals, silence can only hold back authenticity for so long.
2025,
Dominique Gallaway,
English,
Full title: "Both Sides of the Great Divide" by Nikita Carter.
Both Sides of the Great Divide by Nikita Carter offers readers an intimate, powerful account of her life’s most profound transformation, a late-in-life awakening to her true self as a trans woman. At the age of 60, after a series of shattering experiences, Carter describes how she was “broken open,” awakening to a new awareness that reshaped her existence and compelled her to live authentically, embracing a truth she had long buried.
More than just a memoir, this book is a testament to resilience, courage, and the relentless pursuit of identity and freedom.
Nikita Carter’s life is steeped in music. A celebrated musician, composer, educator, and producer, her artistry is deeply woven into the fabric of her identity. For decades, she has been a vibrant force in the world of music, touring extensively across Canada, the United States, and Europe. Her blues-drenched, soulful sound is at once haunting and joyous, expressive and unmistakably her own. From early gigs at the age of 16 to performances at renowned jazz festivals and collaborations with some of the most respected figures in jazz and contemporary music, Carter’s career is marked by a commitment to pushing boundaries and exploring new sonic landscapes.
She has worked with luminaries such as Wadada Leo Smith, Nicole Mitchell, George E. Lewis, Amina Claudine Myers, Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Anderson, Oliver Lake, and Marilyn Crispell, collaborations that have enriched her musical vocabulary and deepened her creative expression.
2024,
English,
Interview,
Nikita Carter,
Full title: "Still Here, Still Becoming" by Jessie Parker.
In a world that often demands certainty and clarity, Jessie Parker offers something far more honest and healing in her book Still Here, Still Becoming: vulnerability, evolution, and truth told in motion. This stirring collection of essays is not a triumphalist memoir nor a neat blueprint of trans identity. Instead, it is something rarer and more necessary, an invitation into the beautiful, messy, and resilient becoming of one transgender woman who refuses to be anything other than fully, unapologetically herself.
At the heart of Still Here, Still Becoming is Parker’s unwavering commitment to truth-telling, even when it hurts. Each essay opens a window into her inner world and lived experiences as a trans woman navigating a society that is too often hostile, indifferent, or simply unprepared to understand. But this is not a book solely about suffering. Yes, Parker addresses the heartbreak, confusion, and pain of living in a body, and a world, that sometimes feels at odds with one's identity. But she also writes about joy. Real joy. Loud, earned, glittering joy that bursts forth in moments of connection, affirmation, love, and self-recognition. From the earliest pages, Parker’s prose is intimate, generous, and deeply reflective. “I didn’t write this book because I have all the answers,” she tells us. “I wrote it because I’ve lived the questions.” That statement captures not only the tone of the book, but its very ethos.
2025,
English,
Jessie Parker,
Full title: "Just Nod If You Can Hear Me: A Memoir" by Rae Elle Riley.
There are memoirs that explain. There are memoirs that reflect. And then, once in a very long while, there’s a memoir that doesn’t ask for permission, doesn’t wait for understanding, and certainly doesn’t smooth over the jagged parts. Instead, it grabs you by the collar, shoves you into its world, and demands that you feel every splinter of bone-deep truth embedded in its prose.
Rae Elle Riley’s Just Nod If You Can Hear Me is that memoir. From the very first page, we meet Chuck Keiran, a steamfitter, a brawler, a man etched from grit and gasoline, your classic blue-collar antihero clinging to life in a rust-soaked world of factories, unions, and dive bars. But Chuck is not who he seems. Beneath the hard exterior and years of camouflage lives Rae, a trans woman buried under the wreckage of a life built to survive everyone else’s expectations. Rae doesn’t step out of the shadows gently. She explodes into them, armed with nothing but her truth, her pain, and her art. Just Nod If You Can Hear Me doesn’t offer a redemptive arc in the traditional sense. There are no clean breaks, no sudden epiphanies, no “and then everything was fine” ribbon to tie it all up. Instead, Riley offers readers a series of emotional detonations, each chapter a blowtorch to shame, silence, and societal erasure.
2025,
English,
Rae Elle Riley,
Full title: "Just Tess: A Trans Female's Journey to Womanhood" by Tess Juliana.
In Just Tess: A Trans Female's Journey to Womanhood, author Tess Juliana opens a window into the tender, complex, and deeply human evolution of identity, soul, and purpose. This memoir is not just a record of transition from male to female, but a spiritual and emotional chronicle of duality, of two spirits, Jules and Tess, walking side by side until they could become one. Tess Juliana’s life is anything but ordinary.
Born with what many Indigenous cultures would call the gift of "Two Spirits," she navigated much of her early life as Jules, a man who served honorably in the United States Air Force as an air traffic controller. Jules' military career included a transformative year in remote Greenland, an experience that sparked a lifelong passion for geology and the Arctic's harsh and magnificent landscapes. That same passion carried him into a decades-long career in science education, during which he earned degrees in geology, science education, and biology. But science and adventure were only half the story. In Just Tess, the reader travels not only through physical terrain, across glaciers, mountains, and oceans, but also through the interior landscapes of longing, silence, love, fear, and truth.
2025,
English,
Tess Juliana,
