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.
Full title: "Eva's World: A Real Woman’s Life" by Ella Marques.
This is the third book by Ella Marques. "I was born a boy, from Venus: It's time to be yourself" (2017) was the first autobiography of Ella Marques. In 2020, she published her second book: "Coming Home to Venus: The story of a woman transitioning to her real self".
"Eva’s World is the story of a transgender pansexual hard-working woman that travels the world for business and pleasure. She and her three friends Linda, Olympia and Victoria come together regularly, talk about their lives, their loves and their expectations. Two of these girls are transgender, the other two are cisgender - their lives and expectations are similar, just some small differences. This is a positive book about life as a very privileged transgender person, about traveling, about fun, expectations but above all about love. Yes, transgender women are women. They live, they love, and they can be quite normal. All I ask is that you open your eyes."
2020,
Ella Marques,
English,
Interview,
Full title: "Poetic Memoir Chapbook Challenge" by Barbara Marie Minney.
This is the second poetry book by Barbara Marie Minney. She is a transgender woman, award winning poet, writer, speaker, teaching artist, and quiet activist. Her poetry and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Politico, The Buckeye Flame, The Gasconade Review, Gargoyle Magazine, The Pine Cone Review, Women Speak: Women of Appalachia Project, Woman Scream: The International Poetry Anthology of Female Voices, The New Wasteland, new words (issue one): a trans and gender-expansive journal, and I Thought I Heard A Cardinal Sing, Ohio’s Appalachian Voices.
Barbara’s poetry has also been translated into Spanish. She is the author of If There’s No Heaven, the winner of the 2020 Poetry Is Life Book Award and an Akron Beacon Journal Best Northeast Ohio Book in 2020; the Poetic Memoir Chapbook Challenge; and Dance Naked With God. Barbara is a retired attorney and a seventh-generation Appalachian and lives in Tallmadge, Ohio, with her wife of over 42 years and a menagerie of stuffed animals.
2021,
Barbara Marie Minney,
English,
Interview,
Original title: "Ella era yo: Memorias de mi transición" (She was me: Memories of my transition) is the Spanish language edition of "I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition" by Lucy Sante.
"An iconic writer's lapidary memoir of a life spent pursuing a dream of artistic truth while evading the truth of her own gender identity, until, finally, she turned to face who she really was For a long time, Lucy Sante felt unsure of her place.
Born in Belgium, the only child of conservative working-class Catholic parents who transplanted their little family to the United States, she felt at home only when she moved to New York City in the early 1970s and found her people among a band of fellow bohemians. Some would die young, to drugs and AIDS, and some would become jarringly famous. Sante flirted with both fates, on her way to building an estimable career as a writer. But she still felt like her life a performance. She was presenting a façade, even to herself."
2024,
Interview,
Lucy Sante,
Spanish,
Full title: "Enthusiastically Me" by Hazel Krebs.
"A journey of self discovery, covering only a few years, though a lifetime of emotions starting with despair and anguish created through expectations from family, society, and religion; eventually leading to discovering the beautiful life that was always held within. The journey uncovers the darkest paths of one existence, seemingly necessary to find the correct route for joyful happiness.
The story begins in March 2018, when the narrator, who is in the throws of a depressive episode, considers if this day will be the end. Along the path is the first stop at a familiar park, finding a bench that held the whole life for an afternoon. Eventually moving on from the bench and parts of the life, there is a meeting at that very bench, which is frustrating at first; however, later becomes the start of a new path. This time perhaps with a helpful trailblazer to join.
2024,
English,
Hazel Krebs,
Interview,
Full title: "If There's No Heaven" by Barbara Marie Minney.
"After almost thirty six years, I began writing poetry again as a means of documenting and processing my thoughts, feelings, struggles, and triumphs during my transition to living authentically as the woman that God always intended me to be. I began my transition at the age of sixty three after repressing my true gender identity for over sixty years, and the poetry in this book charts the first two years of that journey. My poetry is also a challenge to stereotypical beliefs and to accept other people for who and what they are. I am a Christian and conservative leaning, which has caused me to be shunned by my community. My poetry is also a challenge to unapologetically and proudly accept and love yourself for who you are."
2020,
Barbara Marie Minney,
English,
Interview,
Full title: "Not Ded Aslepe" by Iden Crockett.
"Not Ded Aslepe is an illustrated collection of poetry chronicling the author's emotions as she explores her gender, PTSD, OSDD, eating disorder, self injury, love, sexuality, and friendship. The collection is centered around the non-linear poetic narrative of the author and her primary other. The story unfolds through the meeting of this shadow sister, attempting to resist their influence, and ultimately accepting Them as a part of themselves.
his collection is a frank and unflinching look into one person's struggle to discover themselves while maintaining sanity. It is a celebration of love and sexuality, queerness, gender expression, and a powerful commentary on the duality of the soul.
This collection features eighty poems and is beautifully illustrated with nearly thirty original digital collages. The artwork for this collection was created by the author and is a re-interpretation of previously created work. Words and images combine to create a profoundly affecting piece of art. Not Ded Aslepe is a truly honest look at the author's mind. All of the beauty, horror, sensuality, and joy of a life is on display here."
2023,
English,
Iden Crockett,
Interview,
Full title: "Bernie Wagenblast's Transformative Expedition: Resonances Below Ground: A Voice Discovering Its Harmony" by Richard M Hunter.
"Descend inside the subway system at the center of New York City, where the sounds of millions of stories are mixed with the roar of trains. We meet Bernie Wagenblast here, in the midst of the busy platforms and flickering fluorescent lights—the voice that leads travelers through the underground veins of the city.
However, "Bernie" is only a whisper, hiding the lady who is desperate to be free: Beatrice. A moving and engrossing journey through Bernie's metamorphosis, Echoes in the Underground is a symphony of emotions set against the backdrop of a world in upheaval. See his inner battles as he juggles his own need for authenticity with society's expectations. Sensitize to the quiver in his voice as he leaves the mask of "Bernie" and enters the platform as Beatrice, her voice now free to soar instead of being limited to announcements. This is a tapestry made of the threads of innumerable people impacted by Bernie's courage, not just her narrative. Watch how her transition encourages a young trans woman to speak up, deepens the relationship between a father and daughter, and challenges the city's systemic racism."
2024,
Bernie Wagenblast,
English,
Interview,
Richard M Hunter,
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."
2023,
English,
Interview,
Tilly Bridges,
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."
2015,
Aleshia Brevard,
English,
Interview,
Full title: "Queer Sex: A Trans and Non-Binary Guide to Intimacy, Pleasure and Relationships" by Juno Roche.
"In this frank, funny and poignant book, transgender activist Juno Roche discusses sex, desire and dating with leading figures from the trans and non-binary community. Calling out prejudices and inspiring readers to explore their own concepts of intimacy and sexuality, the first-hand accounts celebrate the wonder and potential of trans bodies and push at the boundaries of how society views gender, sexuality and relationships. Empowering and necessary, this collection shows all trans people deserve to feel brave, beautiful and sexy."
Juno Roche is a British author, journalist, and transgender activist known for her work in raising awareness about transgender issues. She has written extensively on topics related to gender identity, sexual health, and transgender rights. Roche is also recognized for her advocacy work and speaking engagements, where she shares her personal experiences as a transgender woman.
2018,
English,
Interview,
Juno Roche,
Full title: "Transformative Surgeries: What to Expect at Each Surgical Stage of your Transgender Journey" by Christina Vegas.
"Transitioning in and of itself is an extremely challenging process. Add-in the multiple surgeries during this scary, sometimes-tumultuous journey can be incredibly overwhelming.
When I started transitioning, I couldn’t find many books on the subject of trans surgeries. There was lots of information about each procedure but not a lot of information on what each one was really like. A few of these procedures have a profound impact on your life, and I was desperate to know what they were like. I had so many questions: How long does it really take to recover? Were you happy with the results? Did they address your dysphoria?"
2023,
Christina Vegas,
English,
Interview,
Full title: "I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition" by Lucy Sante.
"An iconic writer's lapidary memoir of a life spent pursuing a dream of artistic truth while evading the truth of her own gender identity, until, finally, she turned to face who she really was For a long time, Lucy Sante felt unsure of her place.
Born in Belgium, the only child of conservative working-class Catholic parents who transplanted their little family to the United States, she felt at home only when she moved to New York City in the early 1970s and found her people among a band of fellow bohemians. Some would die young, to drugs and AIDS, and some would become jarringly famous. Sante flirted with both fates, on her way to building an estimable career as a writer. But she still felt like her life a performance. She was presenting a façade, even to herself."
2024,
English,
Interview,
Lucy Sante,
"Disidentes de género: la nueva generación" is the Spanish language edition of "Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation" by Kate Bornstein.
"Transgender narratives have made their way from the margins to the mainstream and back again, and today’s trans and nonbinary people, genderqueers, and other sex/gender radicals are writing a drastically new world into being.
Edited by the original gender outlaw, Kate Bornstein, together with writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, Gender Outlaws collects and contextualizes the work of this generation's trans and genderqueer forward thinkers - new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world's most respected publications. Gender Outlaws includes essays, commentary, comic art, and conversations from a diverse group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives."
2019,
Interview,
Kate Bornstein,
Spanish,
USA,
Full title: "Forward!: Thoughts of a Trans Woman on the Christian Journey" by Lynn Elizabeth Walker.
"While there are many books containing essays on "ordinary" life from a spiritual or religious perspective, there are only a few with a perspective grounded in the trans identity. Moreover, a number of books for or about trans people have to do with the "exceptional" aspects of life of individual trans folks.
This book offers the perspective of a trans-identified clergy member in gaining greater understanding of ordinary life, seen through the specific lens of her lived experience. Forward! is a series of essays addressing issues that might arise for trans women during their transition journey. In general, the focus is on such aspects of day-to-day living as religion, philosophy, society, church, people, love, alienation, families, aging, and work."
2023,
English,
Interview,
Lynn Elizabeth Walker,
USA,
Full title: "Tonacity: The Tona Brown Story" by Tona Brown.
"This book is a collection of interview transcriptions designed to share the life and story of Tona Brown, a transgender musician of color. In working to build this book, St. Louis writer and musician Chris King conducted dozens of interviews with Tona. In the span of four years, they compiled nearly eight hours of interview transcriptions. These transcriptions are reproduced for you here, having been edited for clarity and flow only; no original content has been removed."
"The conversation is supplemented with quotes from, and narrative informed by, academic research, scientific data, and the lived experiences of the Transgender community. Most importantly, this book is filled with Tona’s honest responses to Chris’s often penetrating and personal questions.
You will learn the brutal realities of the experiences shared by so many transgender men and women, and especially by Black transgender women."
2023,
English,
Interview,
Tona Brown,
USA,
Full title: "Foggy Googles: A sequel memoir to 'Do you know who I once was'" by Cami Richardson.
"Foggy Googles is a sequel memoir to my first book called 'Do you know who I once was.' In my discussions with my editor on the first book, she suggested I leave out many of my stories and memories about my firehouse years, my amazing wife Teri, my ski career and entrepreneurial years and try to focus the book on my transition to that of being a transgender woman. I agreed and I believe that first book helped me move forward in reaching my personal mission goal of educating and enlightening others about the transgender community. After publishing it and in allowing some friends and family to read some chapters that were left out, the common response I received was that I should publish them and include them in a sequel, so “Foggy Googles” became a reality."
2022,
Cami Richardson,
English,
Interview,
USA,
Full title: "Kuri Aruththen/குறி அறுத்தேன்" (I cut the mark) by Kalki Subramaniam/கல்கி சுப்ரமணியம்.
Each word of Kalki Subramaniam's poetry comes from her heart like an arrow from a bow, it shoots rage against gender injustice, the poems are powerful, sarcastic, and challenging, and show the pride in the writer in her identity as a transgender woman.
From transgender people's lives to climate issues, her Tamil poems are deep, and heart-touching and would leave an impact on the reader for many days after reading the book. I interviewed Kalki in 2014 and asked her what she thinks about the present situation of transgender women in the Indian society in general: "It is sure changing for better in some states like Tamilnadu and Karnataka. However, many states of India still are not safe places for transgender people to live, for example, Kerala.
2022,
India,
Interview,
Kalki Subramaniam,
Tamil,
Full title: "My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely" by Kate Bornstein.
"Gender isn't just about "male" or "female" anymore - if you have any doubts, just turn on your television. RuPaul is as familiar as tomato ketchup with national radio and television shows, and transgendered folk are as common to talk-shows as screaming and yelling. But if the popularization of gender bending is revealing that "male" and "female" aren't enough, where are we supposed to go from here? Cultural theorists have written loads of smart but difficult-to-fathom texts on gender, but none provide a hands-on, accessible guide to having your own unique gender. With My Gender Workbook, Kate Bornstein brings theory down to Earth and provides a practical approach to living with or without a gender."
1997,
English,
Interview,
Kate Bornstein,
USA,
"Olá Mundo Cruel!" is the Portuguese language edition of "Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws: 101 Alternatives to Teen Suicide" by Kate Bornstein.
"Celebrated transsexual trailblazer Kate Bornstein has, with more humor and spunk than any other, ushered us into a world of limitless possibility through a daring re-envisionment of the gender system as we know it.
Here, Bornstein bravely and wittily shares personal and unorthodox methods of survival in an often cruel world. A one-of-a-kind guide to staying alive outside the box, Hello, Cruel World is a much-needed unconventional approach to life for those who want to stay on the edge, but alive.
Hello, Cruel World features a catalog of 101 alternatives to suicide that range from the playful (moisturize!), to the irreverent (shatter some family values), to the highly controversial. Designed to encourage readers to give themselves permission to unleash their hearts' harmless desires, the book has only one directive: "Don't be mean." It is this guiding principle that brings its reader on a self-validating journey, which forges wholly new paths toward a resounding decision to choose life.
Tenderly intimate and unapologetically edgy, Kate Bornstein is the radical role model, the affectionate best friend, and the guiding mentor all in one.
2011,
Interview,
Kate Bornstein,
Portuguese,
USA,
Full title: "A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The True Story of a Nice Jewish Boy Who Joins the Church of Scientology and Leaves Twelve Years Later to Become the Lovely Lady She is Today" by Kate Bornstein.
"In the early 1970s, a boy from a Conservative Jewish family joined the Church of Scientology. In 1981, that boy officially left the movement and ultimately transitioned into a woman. A few years later, she stopped calling herself a woman—and became a famous gender outlaw.
Gender theorist, performance artist, and author Kate Bornstein is set to change lives with her stunningly original memoir. Wickedly funny and disarmingly honest, this is Bornstein's most intimate book yet, encompassing her early childhood and adolescence, college at Brown, a life in the theater, three marriages and fatherhood, the Scientology hierarchy, transsexual life, LGBTQ politics, and life on the road as a sought-after speaker."
2012,
English,
Interview,
Kate Bornstein,
USA,
