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: "La fille d’elle-même" (The Daughter of Herself) by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay. The book was published in 2021 and republished in 2023."Winner 2022, Prix des Libraires Rights for TV adaptation purchased by Zone 3 A runaway bestseller in Québec, where it has captured the hearts of readers and pushed trans-identity into the mainstream conversation, Dandelion Daughter is an intimate, courageous portrait of what it’s like to grow up having been assigned the wrong sex at birth.Set against the windswept countryside of the remote Charlevoix region some five hours north of Montreal,
2021,
2023,
Canada,
French,
Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay,
Gabrielle Tremblay,
Original title: "Mauvais genre" (Wrong Gender) by Chloé Cruchaudet."Paul and Louise love each other, Paul and Louise get married, but World War I escalates and separates them. Paul, who wants at all costs to escape the hell of the trenches, becomes a deserter and finds Louise in Paris. He is safe but condemned to remain hidden in a hotel room. To put an end to his clandestine existence, Paul imagines a solution: to change his identity. Now he'll be known as... ...Suzanne. Between gender confusion and the trauma of war, the couple will arrive at a very unusual destiny."To escape the horrors of
2013,
Chloé Cruchaudet,
French,
Original title: "Coccinelle: Chercher la femme" (Coccinelle: Look of A Woman) by Luca Conca and Gloria Ciapponi."In 1953, at the now legendary Madame Arthur cabaret, a young woman appeared on stage dressed in a modest sarong but already possessing captivating charm. The audience applauds and does not yet know that they have just attended the first performance of Coccinelle, an artist who will soon have a string of triumphs on stages around the world.
However, nothing predestined Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy, born Jacques Charles in a modest family and raised by a violent and authoritarian
2024,
Coccinelle,
French,
Gloria Ciapponi,
Jacqueline Charlotte Dufresnoy,
Luca Conca,
"Mama Black Widow" is the French language edition of "Mama Black Widow" by Iceberg Slim, published in 2013. The book was translated into French by Gérard Henri."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 o
2020,
Drag queen,
French,
Iceberg Slim,
Otis Tilson,
Original title: "Valide" (Valid) 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 a
2021,
Canada,
Chris Bergeron,
French,
Original title: "Les secrets de l'origami" (The Secrets of Origami) by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay."Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay's second book hardly addresses trans identity, but unabashedly explores the dysfunctional relationships and disillusionment of a woman who claims to be in love with everyone. "I'm a passionate person who doesn't do things by halves, like the movie I starred in. I often get ideas about a relationship that's just been born, like a pre-origami blank page, before realizing it's not working."""Heartbroken by disappointment, she uses words to examine her scars, forc
2018,
Canada,
French,
Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay,
Gabrielle Tremblay,
Original title: "Les hijras: Portrait socioreligieux d'une communauté transgenre sud-asiatique" (Hijras: Socio-religious portrait of a South Asian transgender community) by Mathieu Boisvert.Hijras, often referred to as "transgender" by Westerners, are a distinct community whose identity underpinnings transcend sexual orientation alone. This "third gender" is presented with great finesse in this book, which examines, among other things, family structures, perceptions of aging, human rights issues, and rituals of all kinds – from birth to death to community integration, marriage, or castration.
2018,
French,
India,
Mathieu Boisvert,
Original title: "Trans*" by ÉPICÈNE.The book deconstructs stereotypes related to transgender people by presenting 46 portraits of trans* people from all over Switzerland.
The portraits consist of a photograph taken by Noura Gauper and an interview conducted in one of the three main national languages by a professional journalist. They concern 23 women and 23 men, 20 in French-speaking Switzerland, 20 in German-speaking Switzerland and 6 in Ticino.In concrete terms, our goal is to fight against discrimination and exclusion of transgender people at the social level. Currently, the suicide rate
2020,
ÉPICÈNE,
French,
Switzerland,
Original title: "Je suis transexuelle: j'en fais pas une maladie!" (I'm transsexual: I don't make it a disease!) by Philippine Dhanis.I have to get used to the light gradually so as not to be blinded by my new condition. I will have to gradually learn to master each of the feminine codes, so as not to be a caricature. This gentle yet powerful transformation takes the time necessary for me to totally and definitively incarnate as a woman, smoothly and delicately.I will certainly need strength when tackling the surgical steps that I am considering, but here too, time and hormones will have done
2018,
French,
Philippine Dhanis,
Original title: "Ladyboys de Thaïlande: Une approche anthropologique" (Ladyboys of Thailand: An anthropological approach) 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
2022,
Franck Poupart,
French,
Jean-Pascal Huvé,
Thailand,
Original title: "La loi du genre: une histoire culturelle du troisième sexe" (The Law of Gender: A Cultural History of the Third Sex) by Laure Murat."Man or woman. Is there a viable space between or outside these two categories?" asks Laure Murat at the beginning of The Law of Gender. The answer is yes: there is another category, at once literary, medical and police, that of the "third sex". Starting from the famous definition of the German jurist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (the "third sex" is "a woman's soul in a man's body" and vice versa), the historian considers that the "third sex" is in fac
2006,
French,
Laure Murat,
Original title: "Quand Un Suisse Change De Sexe" (When a Swiss man changes sex) by Laure Viel.""So you think you're a woman?" Dr. Beaugrand's question had destabilized Laurent V. A lump in his throat prevented him from uttering the slightest hint of an answer. Dressed in velvet trousers and a navy sweater, Laurent was acutely aware that he did not look like the one he had always been convinced he was. Yet he would never forget that day, the first in a journey that would make him, he hoped, a singular being, the only Parisian journalist who had been a soldier in the Swiss army. A journey
2020,
French,
Laure Viel,
Switzerland,
Original title: "Casa Susanna: L’histoire du premier réseau transgenre américain 1959-1968" (Casa Susanna: The Story of America's First Transgender Network 1959-1968) by Isabelle Bonnet, Sophie Hackett, and Susan Stryker."In 2004, 340 photographs, dating from the early 1960s, were found at the New York flea market. These amateur snapshots reveal a vast clandestine network of transvestites between the United States and Canada. They belonged to the famous Susanna, who regularly hosted transvestite friends at her property in Catskill (NY). Essential to their practice of transvestism, photography
2023,
Casa Susanna,
French,
Isabelle Bonnet,
Sophie Hackett,
Susan Stryker,
Original title: "Un jour peut-être: Journal d´un champion olympique devenu femme" (One day maybe: Diary of an Olympic champion turned woman) by Sandra Forgues.In 1996, Wilfrid Forgues was crowned Olympic Canoe Champion in Atlanta, together with his teammate Franck Adisson. 22 years later, Wilfrid has become Sandra, and it is under this new identity that she appears to the general public, especially in the media that are interested in the first French athlete Olympic champion to reveal her desire to change gender.It took her a long time to admit that she wanted to become a woman, to accept it.
2018,
French,
Sandra Forgues,
Original title: "Mémoires Régicides I" (Regicide Memoirs I) by Laureen Lemarre Herman.""If I ever had to die here, I would be happy. I asserted myself, against all odds. I have nothing left to prove to the world: Finally, I am Me." The story of these "Memories" began in 2017 when I discovered my trans identity. Since then, my situation has evolved towards a different affirmation of this gender identity.This poetic collection brings together a number of texts and formats (short stories, poems in verse and prose, speeches) which, in addition to showing the diversity of forms, explore the depths
2017,
French,
Laureen Lemarre Herman,
Original title: "Ma fille est un homme" (My daughter is a man) by Ludiane de Brocéliande.There are girls. There are the boys. There are others. This book will help you understand what the daily life of transsexual or intersex people can represent. Most of the texts were inspired by testimonies, meetings, and friends who confided and shared their moods but also the trials, discriminations, and physical mutilations they face.Far from fantasmatic and infamous clichés, and for the first time, an author-poet makes us dive into the universe of their everyday life, with a lot of emotions, sensitivit
2015,
French,
Ludiane de Brocéliande,
Original title: "Mon neveu Jeanne" (My Nephew Jeanne) by Patrick Bard.Since 1983, photographer and writer Patrick Bard has been photographing his nephew. He started without really knowing why, when he was 16 years old. His name was Jean-Pierre. He married early, had two children who grew up and became a road haulier in Sarcelles. When his relationship to gender began to change in the mid-1990s, Patrick Bard continued to take pictures of him, of her, rather. Jean-Pierre officially became Jeanne in 2001. Jeanne knew men, then she ended up falling in love with a woman in 2008. Initially, th
2015,
French,
Patrick Bard,
Original title: "La fille de Casablanca" (The Girl from Casablanca) by Juliette Jourdan."In 1956, in Casablanca, while Morocco struggles for its independence, Jenny, a young trans woman, solicits Dr. Georges Burou, a renowned, if somewhat enigmatic gynecologist, for a 'sex change'...The Girl from Casablanca tells the true story of the first entirely successful sex reassignment surgery, at a time when the word 'trans' didn't even exist. It also tells a tale of daring and courage against all odds. True to himself, Dr. Burou went ahead with the first gender surgery to help a desperate and endear
2017,
French,
Georges Burou,
Juliette Jourdan,
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, o
2018,
Bambi,
Coccinelle,
French,
Jenny Latreille,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
"Eau douce" is the French 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, visua
2020,
Akwaeke Emezi,
French,
Nigeria,
