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: "Juopa" (Gap) by Kim Kansas.
Kim Kansas, also known as Ansa Kansas, is a pivotal figure in the history of transgender visibility, and her 1971 memoir "Juopa" offers an insightful look into her life. Known for her courageous personal journey and her involvement in both film and literature, Kansas became an icon in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly for her gender transition and her public efforts to share her story.
In 1967, Kansas's life was the subject of "I Was a Man", a documentary directed by Barry Mahon. The film, while sensational in some aspects, remains one of the earliest to document the story of a transgender woman undergoing gender-affirming surgery. Kansas's transformative journey is at the heart of the film, capturing her struggles with identity, love, and acceptance. The documentary explores Kansas's childhood in Finland, where she felt an intense desire to live as a girl. As an adult in New York City, she led a double life—working as a cook on a freighter while secretly expressing her true gender identity through makeup and women’s clothing. It was during this period of internal conflict that Kansas decided to seek medical help, ultimately traveling to Finland for a sex-change operation.
The documentary is notable not only for the emotional and physical transformation it follows but also for its groundbreaking portrayal of transgender issues. Kansas plays herself in the film, offering an intimate and honest depiction of her own journey. At the time, transgender topics were rarely discussed publicly, and the film provided a rare glimpse into the emotional, psychological, and societal challenges faced by trans individuals.
1971,
Ansa Kansas,
Finnish,
Kim Kansas,
"Inkognito" is the Finnish language edition of "Inkognitó" by Tibor Noé Kiss, first published in 2010.
Tibor/Noémi has visited the women's section of a shoe store for the first time. Another customer groaned and called her names, the salesperson complimented the choice of boots and smiled. Tibor/Noémi tried to smile too. That was four weeks ago. Today she would go out into town in boots. But now she sits alone in an armchair with her body, and each hates the other.
Incognito is an impressive depiction of how a football-loving youth finds a stranger in herself and her body. It is a coming-of-age story, a coming-of-the-closet story, and a skilled, frantic novel in its minimalist conciseness about creating one's identity in the cross-pressures of one's own feelings and the surprise and disapproval of the surrounding society.
2021,
Finnish,
Tibor Noé Kiss,
Original title: "Lola" by Lola Lorenzo and Barbara Lybeck.
The historical and courageous story of a trans Somali woman. An open and honest biography of Lola Lorenzo, the first Somali woman in history to appear publicly as a trans woman. Although Lola's life has been marked by racism, bullying, violence, and abuse, she has continued to fight.
Lola was born in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, in 1990, but moved to Finland with her family soon after the start of the civil war. At the age of 7, she was sent to Somalia for four years to learn her mother tongue, religion and Arabic. At the age of 11, Lola returned to Finland. She forged a career as a trusted make-up artist for Somalis who was flown to weddings around the world. In 2013, she came out as a woman.
2023,
Barbara Lybeck,
Finnish,
Lola Lorenzo,
Somalia,
Original title: "Kallion kuningattaret" (Queens of the Rock) by Tarja Surakka.
The gritty glittering life stories of two divas, Jari Vihinen and Morgan Devereaux. On stage, divas have been allowed to shine as drag queens, dancers, and actresses. Jari and Morgan co-founded Finland's first drag queen groups and dressed at a time when homosexuality was first a crime and later classified as a disease.
In the underground world of the rock, they lived a glamour life - snatching a poke for themselves from restaurants, and sometimes also directly from the street. There were men buzzing around who liked the "girls" dressed in the dress. Offstage, life has been a fierce struggle for space as an artist, for a living, and for the opportunity to live in peace as oneself.
2015,
Drag queen,
Finnish,
Jari Vihinen,
Morgan Devereaux,
Tarja Surakka,
Original title: "Peilissä näin naisen: Zoen tarina" (I saw a woman in the mirror: Zoe's story) by Zoe Foster, Petri Pietiläinen, and Juha Metso.
A woman who was born into the body of a man. Everyone considered him an English boy. She looked at herself in the mirror and dreamed at night - she was a woman. Then she fell in love with a Finnish woman, got married, moved to Finland, and had two children. For a long time, Zoe Foster gathered the courage to transform into the person she really was. She told her wife, "I'm a woman clad in a man's body!" Tears, anxiety, sadness, anger, and divorce followed. Zoe was on the verge of suicide. She paid a heavy price for his honesty.
This story encourages everyone to be happy as human beings without the gendered compulsion to be female or male. Zoe is a proud trans woman. She is more than a woman or a man. Petri Pietiläinen (b. 1966) is an award-winning non-fiction writer from Kotka, whose works include One Regiment, One Hundred Stories - Veterans Tell (Docendo 2017) and Junnu Vainio, Such a Life Is (Docendo 2018). Juha Metso (b. 1965) has been successful as both a newspaper and art photographer. His images have been used in dozens of books.
2019,
Finnish,
Juha Metso,
Petri Pietiläinen,
Zoe Foster,
Original title: "Tranny: Punkrockin kaupallisimman anarkistin tunnustuksia" (Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Commercial Anarchist) is the Finnish language edition of "Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout" by Laura Jane Grace.
Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! Not only has it been one of the most influential punk bands in the world, but also one of the most controversial. Throughout their career towards success, they have been conquering new fans while raising blisters among the old guard who supported them from the beginning. They got into trouble with the law, changed drums repeatedly, and faced a furious horde of punks who called them "sell-out" and sabotaged their concerts.
But, beyond all this, something much more important disturbed Tom Gabel, the founder of the group; A secret that for thirty years he only revealed in the pages of his diary and hinted at in some of the lyrics of his songs. After a difficult childhood and delinquent adolescence marked by drug use, Gabel continued to struggle to find her own identity, until in May 2012 she revealed it to everyone in an interview for Rolling Stone: Gabel declared to be transgender, and since that day she lives as a woman under the name of Laura Jane Grace.
2018,
Finnish,
Laura Jane Grace,
Original title: "23 transmyyttiä: Totta ja tarua transihmisistä" (23 Trans Myths: True and false stories about transgender people)
Everyone has an opinion about transgender people, but few people know the true stories and facts behind the myths. 23 trans myths is your ticket to the world of gender minorities under the guidance of Mona Bling, a journalist with a trans background. What kind of life experiences are hidden behind beliefs and taboos? What actually happens in the gender reassignment process? How do trans people have sex? What is it like to date as a trans person?
23 trans myths debunk, chapter by chapter, myths through the author's own life experiences, stories and expert interviews with other people with a trans background. The book is aimed at anyone who has an opinion about transgender people and has the curiosity to know if the belief is actually worth knowing. The work challenges the reader to break their own prejudices and see transgender people in a new light.
2022,
Finnish,
Mona Bling,
Original title: "Ennen kuin mieheni katoaa" (Before my husband disappears) by Selja Ahava.
I found this fantastic review: "You may be a woman, but does it need to be seen?"
This is how the Finnish writer Selja Ahava has written in her autofiction novel, where she has written down her thoughts and feelings during the period when her husband suddenly exclaims one day after 10 years of marriage that he has always wanted to be a woman.
Selja Ahava has written her thoughts exactly as they have appeared in her head, and we follow the process from when her husband says it at the kitchen table, until they have to sign the divorce papers, and she has to get used to calling her husband, who has had breast surgery, wears makeup and handbags, changed her social security number and now goes by the name Lili.
2017,
Finnish,
Selja Ahava,
"Makeaa vettä" is the Finnish language edition of "Freshwater" by Akwaeke Emezi.
I liked Gina Maya's review a lot, so let me quote her: "Transgender narrative this may be, but it's far removed from Western, U.S.-based definitions in spite of its primary location in the U.S. The story follows the young life of Ada, a Nigerian child who travels to America to study, but her whole life involves psychical interaction with the indigenous spirits who vie for control of her. Is Ada Ogbanje too?
By the end, she appears to embrace this self-conception as an offspring of the Universal Creator Ala, visualized as cosmic python – the source of the spring from which all freshwater comes from its mouth. Yet Ada for almost the novel's entirety is also the human, engaged in an uneasy relationship with otherworldly spirits who inhabit her mind, visualized in turn as a room of marble, perhaps not unlike the Kaaba of Mecca. The most powerful, possessive, and controlling of the spirits is Asughara, occasionally presented as Ada's pernicious alpha. At times, Asughara blocks out Ada from consciousness, either to protect or punish Ada."
2021,
Akwaeke Emezi,
Finnish,
Nigeria,
"Tanskalainen tyttö" is the Finnish language edition of The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff.
Having gender reassignment surgery in the 1930s was an unusual and sensational affair, and the man who took the step to do so was the Danish painter Einar Mogens Andreas Wegener, who after the operation took the name of Lili Elbe.
The operation took place at the Institute for Sexology in Berlin, where the male organs were removed. The surgery was performed by Felix Abraham at the recommendation of Magnus Hirschfeld.
Einar Wegener was married to the beautiful, celebrated artist Gerda Wegener. They lived in a highly unusual marriage. Their life fate is told in this book, which is a fiction novel based on authentic events and diary entries from Einar Wegener.
2015,
David Ebershoff,
Finnish,
Lili Elbe,
