Transgender Biographies: English | Your Blog Description

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Wiebke ter Lichten - Becoming Wiebke VI

Full title: "Becoming Wiebke VI: Part VI of a diary of someone genetically born a man and diagnosed as transgender (May 22 - Jul. 22)" is the English language version of "Wiebke werden VI: Teil VI eines Tagebuchs von jemandem, der genetisch als Mann geboren und als transident diagnostiziert wurde (Mai 22 - Jul. 22)" by Wiebke ter Lichten.

"This is the sixth part of my ever-growing diary and I highly recommend reading the earlier parts first. I had finished my third book by stating that I would not publish any more parts unless there was more progress to report. I didn't expect it at the time, but it happened! That's why in the fall of 2022 I published three new episodes of my diary in a short time and this is the later German translation. I have the diagnosis, have been in transition for a year and of course I have continued to write my diary and reached a point where publishing makes sense again. The speed of my progress has increased and my social transition is more than halfway. This part covers the period between May and July 2022."

Full title: "RuPaul: The Biography of RuPaul" by BiographInk Press.

"From the gritty backdrop of a broken home to the glittering stage of drag, RuPaul's life story unfolds with breathtaking clarity and tenderness. It's a journey that traverses the complexities of growing up Black, poor, and queer, and the relentless pursuit of dreams in the face of adversity. RuPaul's life is a testament to the power of performance, the importance of found family, and the significance of self-acceptance. In this biography, we peel away the layers of artifice to reveal the unvarnished truth of his existence.

We share his early years as a queer Black child in San Diego, navigating the turbulent waters of family dynamics. He takes us into the punk and drag scenes of Atlanta and New York, where he forged his identity and found his voice. But this biography is more than a journey—it's a profound introspection into RuPaul's life, relationships, and identity. It's a self-portrait of a legendary icon who has not only scaled the heights of fame but has also transformed the way the world perceives drag."

Full title: "Danica Roem: Biography. Beyond Boundaries: The Legacy of Danica Roem's Political Prowess" by Moonlight Press.

"Step into the compelling narrative of "Danica Roem", a powerful biography that chronicles the extraordinary journey of Danica Roem, a trailblazer who shattered barriers and transformed American politics. From her early days as a musician to her groundbreaking election as the first openly transgender person in the Virginia House of Delegates, Roem's story is one of resilience, authenticity, and unwavering commitment to creating positive change.

Explore the intersection of her personal and political life as she navigates challenges, confronts societal norms, and leaves an indelible mark on the legislative landscape. This biography delves deep into Roem's transformative leadership, capturing the essence of her advocacy for inclusive policies and the tangible impact of her legislative initiatives. Discover how her legacy extends beyond individual achievements, influencing a cultural shift towards acceptance, representation, and a more inclusive society."

Full title: "The Murder Mystery of Brianna Ghey: Inside Story of The Transgender Girl, Brief Biography, Investigations & Trials" by Smith Curtshall.

"The Murder Mystery of Brianna Ghey” is a precise account of the life and untimely death of Brianna, a courageous transgender girl whose journey was cut short by a heart-wrenching act of violence. The book begins by introducing readers to Brianna’s background."

"The narrative takes a devastating turn as the book unfolds the circumstances surrounding Brianna’s murder at the hands of two teenagers. The police investigation becomes a focal point, revealing the pursuit of justice for Brianna. The author provides a clear and precise account of the efforts to uncover the truth. In the final chapters, the book navigates through the trials that follow, examining the impact on Brianna’s family, the accused, and society at large."

Full title: "A Body of One's Own: A Trans History of Argentina" by Patricio Simonetto.

"A history of Argentina that examines how trans bodies were understood, policed, and shaped in a country that banned medically assisted gender affirmation practices and punished trans lives. As a trans history of Argentina, a country that banned medically assisted gender affirmation practices and punished trans lives, A Body of One’s Own places the histories of trans bodies at the core of modern Argentinian history. Patricio Simonetto documents the lives of people who crossed the boundaries of gender from the early twentieth century to the present.

Based on extensive archival research in public and community-based archives, this book explores the mainstream medical and media portrayals of trans or travesti people, the state policing of gender embodiment, the experiences of those transgressing the boundaries of gender, and the development of homemade technologies from prosthetics to the self-injection of silicone. A Body of One's Own explores how trans activists' challenges to the exclusionary effects of Argentina’s legal, cultural, social, and political cisgender order led to the passage of the Gender Identity Law in 2012. Analyzing the decisive yet overlooked impact of gender transformation in the formation of the nation-state, gender-belonging, and citizenship, this book ultimately shows that supposedly abstract struggles to define the shifting notions of "sex," citizenship, and nationhood are embodied material experiences."

Full title: "Transitory" by Subhaga Crystal Bacon.

"Grounded in protest and solidarity, Subhaga Crystal Bacon’s Isabella Gardner Award-winning Transitory is a collection of elegies memorializing 46 transgender and gender-nonconforming people murdered in the US and Puerto Rico in 2020. Epistolary in nature, these commemorative poems are “gleaned sketches” attempting to reconstruct lives and deaths from the typically scarce information made available on the internet.

Interspersed with the elegies are personal explorations of gender identities and sexualities from a Queer elder who has lived through the post-Stonewall years of sexual liberation, the second wave of feminism, and the recent rapid increases in awareness about gender and sexualities met almost equally with anti-trans and anti-Queer violence. Seen through the lenses of whiteness and privilege from the last quarter of a lifetime, these poems navigate the desire to be at home in our bodies, to be loved and desired without danger, and most of all to live free, healthy, and welcome in the world we inhabit."

Full title: "Math in Drag" by Kyne Santos.

"Join sensational drag queen Kyne Santos on an extraordinary journey through the glamorous world of . . . math? This sassy book is your VIP pass, taking you behind the scenes with a TikTok superstar who shatters stereotypes and proves that math can be fascinating and fun, even for people who think they aren't good at it. With her irreverent style and unique perspective, Kyne investigates mathematical mysteries while educating us about the art of drag.

She explores surprising connections, such as the elegance of ballroom culture and the nature of infinity, the rebellious joys of Pride and dividing by zero, and the role of statistics in her own experience on Drag Race. Kyne gets personal while sharing her experiences as a queer person forging a path in STEM, overcoming obstacles to stay fierce, stay real, and thrive! She empowers readers of all skill levels to break school rules, question everything, and embrace math's beauty. In Math in Drag, numbers glitter, equations sashay through history, and inclusivity is a celebration. Read it to fire your excitement and unleash your inner math diva!"

Full title: "Jeanne Hoff: Concealing Pain, Dismantling Boundaries. The Amazing Tale of America's First Discreet Transgender Psychiatrist" by John T. White.

"Take an uplifting trip through the life and teachings of Jeanne Hoff, a light of compassion in the field of psychiatry, with this pocket book. An amazing Tale that is a poignant manual that is little in size yet teeming with wisdom and resiliency.

Explore the amazing life of Jeanne Hoff, a pioneer who changed the field of transgender psychiatry, on these pages. The story is told in simple yet meaningful language, allowing you to experience the fortitude that shaped Jeanne's life. Sharing her experiences, both personal and professional, with an honesty that makes one feel something. It is a wisdom-filled pocket boom that provides an understanding of acceptance, empathy, and the transforming potential of compassion. The tales here speak to the accomplishments of the human spirit as well as the struggles Jeanne endured."

Full title: "Mama Black Widow" by Iceberg Slim.

"Mama Black Widow tells the tragic story of Otis Tilson, a stunning black drag queen trapped in a cruel queer ghetto underworld. In hopes of escaping the racial bigotry and economic injustice of the South, Otis’ family journeys north from their plantation to an urban promised land. Once in Chicago Otis and his brother and sisters become prisoners to a wasteland of violence, crime, prostitution and rape. This is the gut-wrenching tale of the destruction of a family and the truest portrayal of homosexuality in the ghetto ever told."

"Otis Wilson hesitates between the woman who wants him and the woman he wants to be. He struggles against his homosexuality and femininity, against these impulses that push him to cross-dress and that cause him to be rejected, despised, raped. He also recalls the tragic fate of his family, who left the plantations of the South to seek their fortune in the North, but found only the violence and misery of the ghetto. Collecting this testimony, Iceberg Slim gives us a biography of tragic realism."

Full title: "Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects" by David Evans Frantz, Christina Linden, and Chris E. Vargas.

"Spanning over four centuries, this volume brings together a wide-ranging selection of artworks and artifacts that highlight the under-recognized histories of trans and gender-nonconforming communities. Through the contributions of artists, writers, poets, activists, and scholars, this title reflects on historical erasure and imagines trans futures. An expansive array of objects chart not a patriarchal history but a gender-neutral, trans-centric history.

The first publication of its kind, this survey celebrates trans forebearers, highlights struggles and triumphs, and reflects on the legacies of trans creative expression. Contributions by Kate Bornstein, Ria Brodell, Vaginal Davis, Leah DeVun, Mo B. Dick, Zackary Drucker, David Getsy, Martine Gutierrez, Andrea Jenkins, Jade Guarano Kuriki-Olivo (Puppies Puppies), Thomas (T.) Jean Lax, Abram J. Lewis, Miguel A. López, Amos Mac, Cyle Metzger, Deborah A. Miranda, Morgan M Page, SA Smythe, C. Riley Snorton, Dean Spade, Sandy Stone, Jeannine Tang, Michelle Tea, McKenzie Wark, and many others probe new horizons where institutional critique and trans culture meet. This book is copublished by the Museum of Trans Hirstory & Art (MOTHA), a conceptual art project of artist Chris E. Vargas that is forever “under construction” by design to allow continual transformation."

Full title: "Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix" by Tilly Bridges.

"Trans woman and screenwriter Tilly Bridges takes you through the trans allegories of the Matrix franchise, with deep dives into The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Animatrix, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections, tracking one person’s transition journey - from Thomas Anderson, to Neo... to Trinity. Each movie’s allegory is deeply layered, building from movie to movie, and speaks to a different aspect of trans existence.

You’ll learn how color is used to convey more than you realize, how Neo’s psyche is personified in the people around him, how no other mass media franchise speaks as truly, deeply, and honestly to the trans experience, and exactly why these movies are beloved and vital to the trans community (and their cis allies). Free your mind, and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes."

Full title: "Passage" by Gwen Benaway.

"In her second collection of poetry, Passage, Gwen Benaway examines what it means to experience violence and speaks to the burden of survival. Traveling to Northern Ontario and across the Great Lakes, Passage is a poetic voyage through divorce, family violence, legacy of colonization, and the affirmation of a new sexuality and gender. Previously published as a man, Passage is the poet's first collection written as a transwoman. Striking and raw in sparse lines, the collection showcases a vital Two Spirited identity that transects borders of race, gender, and experience.

In Passage, the poet seeks to reconcile herself to the land, the history of her ancestors, and her separation from her partner and family by invoking the beauty and power of her ancestral waterways. Building on the legacy of other ground-breaking Indigenous poets like Gregory Scofield and Queer poets like Tim Dlugos, Benaway's work is deeply personal and devastating in sharp, clear lines. Passage is a book burning with a beautiful intensity and reveals Benaway as one of the most powerful emerging poets writing in Indigenous poetics today."

"Valid: Dystopian Autofiction" is the English language edition of "Valide" by Chris Bergeron.

"Although it is described as an autobiographical science fiction novel, the context it offers is not that far removed from our current world. We project ourselves 30 years into the future, in a world governed by the artificial intelligence Total David. Human beings are then confined and are only allowed a few hours of going out a day. "This feeling of living in a bubble that is in the novel, and that came before the pandemic, is for many trans women what they experience on a daily basis. Valide is a sci-fi and sci-fi novel, but it's also an allegory of today. What I tried to describe was this isolation, this feeling that maybe society isn't built for me.""

"This novel is also an opportunity to show a very dark future for the LGBT community and especially trans people. Indeed, in the story, in order to adapt to this new regime dominated by artificial intelligence, the heroine Christelle is forced to become Christian again. And to erase all traces of his past. This echoes a reality experienced on a daily basis by transgender people, which is the fear of not being accepted by our society. That of losing their job if they decide to transition. That of no longer existing within society."

Full title: "Bilbo's Bend" by Aleshia Brevard.

"Trey Bilbo spent his early life on a Tennessee farm, the son of a loving Appalachian-born mother and a distant blue-blooded father. Young, handsome, and talented, he wins an art school scholarship that takes him to San Francisco. He finds himself an affordable place to live in the nefarious Tenderloin district, where he is befriended by a male street hustler with a flair for fashion design, a Cajun stripper who performs with his pet boa, and an assortment of 1960s social activists.

Trey experiments with several personas in his search for identity-as the boy-toy of a wealthy male art connoisseur, the husband of a pregnant friend, an ally to a transsexual high fashion model-all the while struggling to find himself. Does sleeping with another man mean he's gay? Why does that feel not quite right? In this coming-of-age novel, Trey Bilbo wrestles with probing questions about his sexual uncertainty, as he revisits many of the San Francisco haunts and wilder sides of streets that Ms. Brevard herself knew in her pre-gender-transitioning days.

Author Aleshia Brevard transitioned from male to female in 1962, not long after sex change surgery, as it was called then, became available. In the years since, she has often wondered what life as a boy might have been if gender reassignment had not been possible. This novel is her answer."

"Being Wiebke II: Part VIII of the diary of a trans woman, the second “I finally am myself” part (Jan. - Mar. 2023) (Becoming Wiebke) is the English language edition of "Wiebke sein II: Teil VIII des Tagebuchs einer trans Frau, der zweite “angekommene” Teil (Jan. - Mär. 2023)” (Wiebke werden) by Wiebke ter Lichten.

""It must have been around the summer of 2018 when my girlfriend asked me out of the blue if I had ever thought of being completely transformed into a woman. She suggested that it might be interesting. I was pushing around quite a bit, and honestly, the thought might have crossed my mind for a fraction of a second, but I had discarded it because I was absolutely sure that the result wouldn't come close to meeting my quality standard."

Full title: "A Working Class Family Ages Badly" by Juno Roche.

"Juno Roche has had a remarkable life. They were born in Peckham in the 1960s, into a working-class family who dabbled in minor criminality. The only one of their siblings to go to university, shortly after beginning their course at Brighton they were diagnosed with HIV, then a death sentence. They spent much of their younger life caught up in serious drug addiction, addiction financed often by sex work, but recovered and, after working for some years as a teacher, have for a long time now been a writer and successful campaigner.

Through a series of interconnecting essays covering a range of major topics, but with reference to the intensely personal - pubic lice, drug smuggling on budget airlines, the painful process of dilation after gender reassignment surgery - Juno Roche seeks to debunk complacent preconceptions and radically hone in on our essential humanity. This is beautiful, vulnerable, often very funny writing which, despite the extremeness of the writer's own experience, is constantly, reassuringly relatable. Destructive impulses, sexual and romantic awkwardness, ill equipped parents and a constant sense of feeling out of sorts in and with the world, there is a universality to much of this, and that feels crucially important."

"Ladyboys of Thailand: An Anthropological Approach" is the English language version of "Ladyboys de Thaïlande: Une approche anthropologique" by Jean-Pascal Huvé and Franck Poupart.

It is estimated that between half a million and one million "kathoeys" live in Thailand. All of them, from a very young age, have had the feeling of being little girls trapped in boys' bodies and have never stopped assuming or claiming their femininity. Why in Thailand, why so many, why so pretty?

The authors met and interviewed many ladyboys, whether they were veterinarians, escorts, cabaret dancers or political science graduates, but also with academics, an anthropologist specializing in Kathoeys in Chiang Mai or a researcher from the University of Liège whose laboratory studies the neuro-hormonal mechanisms underlying sexual behavior.

Full title: "Danica Roem: Biography. Breaking Barriers, Challenging Societal Norms, And Effecting Positive Change" by Eric Miller.

"Danica Roem, is a trailblazing figure whose remarkable journey spans music, journalism, and groundbreaking politics. A passionate violinist in her early years, Roem's commitment to self-expression and community service set the stage for her multifaceted life.

Transitioning from a career in journalism, where she worked at the Gainesville Times, Roem entered the political arena with a historic win in the 2017 Virginia House of Delegates election. Her victory made her the first openly transgender person elected to a U.S. state legislature, challenging norms and inspiring a new era of diverse political representation."

Full title: "Italian Trans Geographies" by Danila Cannamela, Marzia Mauriello, and Summer Minerva.

"To my knowledge, this collection is absolutely unique-and, for that reason, absolutely vital. Over and over again, I was impressed with how smart it is. Besides being accessible to audiences both inside and outside of the academy, the movement across gender studies, anthropology, history, and political activism is also useful. I learned a lot by reading this anthology, and it really challenged me to think about the relationship between my own Sicilian American identity, gender, and sexuality, and the possibilities they might present for future projects and encounters, both scholarly and personal." - John Champagne, author of Queer Ventennio: Italian Fascism, Homoerotic Art, and the Nonmodern in the Modern

Full title: "Transsexuality in Turkey: The Representation of Transsexual Identities in Contemporary Turkish Films" by Hüma Saruhan.

"LGBT issues in Turkey are often ignored by the government entities and mostly misrepresented in the Turkish mass media. Transsexual subjects, often erroneously identified as transvestites, yet have been subjected to various types of violence and stereotyping throughout the history of the modern Turkish Republic. The mass media undoubtedly played a part in enforcing many negative and/or erroneous stereotypes in the minds of the audience. Yet, there are some Turkish films that on the surface aim to bring to light the hard conditions transsexual subjects face in their daily lives. Apart from reviewing the background of transsexual issues in the Turkish history and analyzing the approach of the Turkish media in their treatment of transsexual subjects, I also aimed to establish the extent in which the media could be the cause of the re/creation and re/production of the transsexual image, gender roles and violence within the heterosexist and transphobic social structure in Turkey.

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Wiebke ter Lichten - Becoming Wiebke VI

BiographInk Press - RuPaul: The Biography of RuPaul

Moonlight Press - Danica Roem: Biography

Smith Curtshall - The Murder Mystery of Brianna Ghey

Patricio Simonetto - A Body of One's Own

Subhaga Crystal Bacon - Transitory

Kyne Santos - Math in Drag

John T. White - Jeanne Hoff: Concealing Pain...

Iceberg Slim - Mama Black Widow

Chris E. Vargas & Others - Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects

Tilly Bridges - Begin Transmission

Gwen Benaway - Passage

Chris Bergeron - Valid: Dystopian Autofiction

Aleshia Brevard - Bilbo's Bend

Wiebke ter Lichten - Being Wiebke II: Part VIII of the diary

Juno Roche - A Working Class Family Ages Badly

Jean-Pascal Huvé & Franck Poupart - Ladyboys of Thailand

Eric Miller - Danica Roem: Biography

Danila Cannamela & Others - Italian Trans Geographies

Hüma Saruhan - Transsexuality in Turkey

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