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.
"Poco Raccomandabile" (Not very recommendable) is the Italian language version of "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 the trenches, Paul becomes a deserter. He manages to make his way to Paris, where he hides with the help of his wife Louise. As a deserter threatened with death, he is doomed to stay forever in the same four walls — or to be transformed. Disguised as "Suzanne", Louise's best friend, she dares to flourish as a woman.
2014,
Chloé Cruchaudet,
Italian,
Original title: "Mio figlio in rosa" (My Son in Pink) by Camilla Vivian.
"Confronting different people and places has taught me to understand and accept diversity, but above all, it has made me become a curiosity junkie. This is the conclusion Camila reaches after verifying that her son has always felt the desire to be a girl.
In fact, far from putting any obstacle or obstacle, Camila decides to take her son's hand and help him during the process of searching for his own identity, a path during which they will have to face numerous prejudices and the lack of information that characterize the world around them."
2017,
Camilla Vivian,
Italian,
Original title: "Perpetue Rifrazioni: Poesie del corpo e dell'anima" (Perpetual Refractions: Poems of the body and the soul) by Mirella Izzo.
The poems of Mirella Izzo, founder of Crisalide AzioneTrans ONLUS, on the themes dear to her and directly concerning her biography as a transgender, lesbian, and - later - disabled woman. She elaborates on the themes - some of which - never dealt with in the form of poetry: gender transition from male to female, love and trans/lesbian sex, physical handicap, and the cybernetic body.
For those who know the author for her public commitment, the book is a way to find her most personal and private emotions. For those who don't know her, this is a way to get closer, through her poems, to the problems of transgender (or transsexual) people, to lesbian love - especially translesbian - but also concerning the disabled and the cybernetic body.
2007,
Italian,
Mirella Izzo,
Original title: "Una Storia A Pezzi" (A Story in Pieces) by Tiziana Lorenzi.
The author of the book is a trans woman who writes about her life. It is an attempt to explain a different life, without falling into the banal and the obvious, far from gossip and romance novels. She wrote not only a chronicle but a small novel of a, perhaps, small life, the somewhat psychedelic story of a long journey.
2007,
Italian,
Tiziana Lorenzi,
Original title: "Essere o apparire. Nascondersi è un po' morire" (To be or to appear. Hiding is a bit dying) by Paola Catanzaro.
"When duality dwells in us, there is always a predominant part. In me surely the strongest part was the female one, despite my body being male. Those who have divided the human race into two genders have not taken into account that in nature there is always the exception.
So how to overcome preconceptions, phobia, and differences? I wrote this book to tell the true story of a "woman by choice". My life, my pains, my battles. The wounds inflicted for no reason, healed and made me stronger. The tears dried up new horizons for me. Hiding is useless, hiding is like dying."
2022,
Italian,
Paola Catanzaro,
Original title: "Diario di Transgenders" (Diary of Transgenders) by Rosario Cirimondo.
The author who by nature has always been interested in social problems and in particular in the needs of minorities, actively participating personally in the countless struggles against inequality in the world, decides to publish the personal life stories of ten Transgenders, coming from different parts of the world, reporting everything as in an intimate diary of the mostly tragic events, which have marked and continue to mark the Transsexual minority, which despite appearing well received and respected in the facade of today's society, still hides many backgrounds of abuses and unimaginable abuses, perhaps for too long kept hidden and therefore this book aims to bring to light.
2021,
Italian,
Rosario Cirimondo,
Original title: "Life 1 - Ora che la nebbia non c'è più: La rivoluzionaria storia di libertà e conquiste individuali di una donna transgender" (Life 1 - Now that the fog is gone: The groundbreaking story of freedom and individual achievements of a transgender woman) by Charlotte Verniani.
To enter society as transgender, one cannot afford the luxury of wasting time or having one's mind "diverted" to people or things that will inevitably be harmful; Insults and insults can only be useful as a stimulus and source of inspiration. I am living proof that a transgender can live like any woman, like the one who passes by the house every morning, a co-worker, the baker, your mother, or your sister.
2023,
Charlotte Verniani,
Italian,
Original title: "La proprietà transitiva dell'amore. Il diario segreto di una transessuale" (The transitive property of love. The secret diary of a transsexual) by
A beautiful woman imprisoned in the body of a man, Selene discovers her diversity during adolescence, when she prefers volleyball to football and the company of boys to that of girls.
Supported by her family, she gives space to her true identity and, in addition to being a model student, she is also a happy girlfriend. That is until she discovers the man of her life in bed with another. And until, alone and desperate, she finds herself accepting the advances of two guys at the height of an evening with a lot of alcohol and a lot of sadness.
2010,
Italian,
Joseph Martin,
Selene,
Original title: "Solitudini Travestite: Racconti reali tra sogno e realtà di transessuali e travestite" (the Solitude of Tranvestite: Real Tales between Dream and Reality of Transsexuals and Transvestites) by Sabrina Love.
Subtle sarcasm travels through these real-life tales of Sabrina Love's concrete dreams. The author, bisexual transvestite as she defines herself, travels into a world of dreams where the acceptance of women like her is the norm or at least not a scandal.
Clear and fluent writing accompanies the reader in this world of sweet sex where the third gender is an integral part of life.
The last story, very short, points the finger fiercely against hypocrisy.
The author then wanted to enrich this ebook with four of her personal photos: "Do I look like a man?"
2019,
Italian,
Sabrina Love,
Original title: "Nei miei okki. Storia di una donna nata bambino" (In my okki. Story of a woman born child) by Tania Ferrucci.
A child born in 1960 in the slums of Naples daydreams of freedom, of running away from the misery in which she lives. Her body is that of a boy, although from an early age she feels like a “little girl inside.” At 13, she begins prostituting herself and will continue to do so to pay for her gender reassignment surgery (at age 26), and legal procedures to be finally recognized as Tania Ferrucci.
She is beautiful and she makes a living as a model, she is desired and earns a lot of money but she is increasingly addicted to alcohol and drugs, until, at age 39, she decides to enter the Samam community, where she starts her recovery. The journey towards her freedom is long but “I was born stubborn,” she says.
Writing her memoir – Nei miei okki. Storia di una donna nata bambino – has allowed her to make sense of her past and find redemption.
2021,
Italian,
Tania Ferrucci,
Original title: "Il prezzo di essere" (The Price of Being) by Rossella Bianchi.
Rossella Bianchi, one of the first and historic Italian transsexuals, tells her story in this raw and realistic autobiography, not without renouncing the irony that distinguishes her.
As with her previous books, she also dedicates this to Don Andrea Gallo who, as she herself says, "tiptoeing into my life, instead of trying to change myself, helped me realize my dreams." Her hope is that this book will reach parents above all, to bring them the message of those who have no voice: "Love and help your children for who they are and not for what you wanted them to be."
2022,
Italian,
Rossella Bianchi,
Original title: "La mia vita (non più) scandalosa. Scritti inediti di Giò Stajano" (My life (no longer) scandalous. Unpublished writings by Giò Stajano) by Giò Stajano.
Gioacchina Stajano, aka Giò, a famous character of the homo-trans Italian world, has always been labeled as a transgressive and scandalous person. In reality, she was desperately searching for an identity which, after ups and downs, she found reflected in the merciful Love of God and in faith in Christ. The book highlights the face of the great Giò, outlined by some unpublished writings that reveal her delicacy of soul and her profound spirituality.
According to Wikipedia, Countess Maria Gioacchina Stajano Starace Briganti di Panico, known simply as Giò Stajano (1931-2011), was an Italian nobleman, writer, journalist, actress, and transgender painter. In the 60s, before her mtf transition in 1983, she was the center of public attention as one of the first homosexual men publicly declared in Italy. She is remembered for a night swim in the Fontana della Barcaccia. She was said to have been inspired by Federico Fellini's scene of Anita Ekberg's bath in the Trevi Fountain in La dolce vita (1960).
2014,
Giò Stajano,
Italian,
Original title: "Gli svergognati. Vite di gay, lesbiche, trans... storie di tutti" (The shameless. Lives of gays, lesbians, trans... Everyone's stories) by Delia Vaccarello.
The book tells the true stories of ten people who have stopped being ashamed and are finally living their lives as lesbian, transgender, and gay people.
A wife leaves her husband to live with her, a transgender person writes to her son explaining that she can no longer call him dad, a twenty-year-old woman falls in love with a peer via email, a transgender man describes the journey towards an undoubtedly male identity: these are some of the stories told in the book.
Love for the person who belongs to one's own sex or the search for a gender identity other than that written in the forms of the body are considered transgressions with respect to the recognized normality. The book wants to place the stories of people defined as gay, lesbian, transgender in the open sea of life, tracing as the only possible frame a space to live equal for all. Not stories of different people, but stories of people.
2022,
Delia Vaccarello,
Italian,
Original title: "Gender libera tutt*. Storie vere per amare, capire e fare la rivoluzione" (Gender frees all. True stories to love, understand and make the revolution) by Camilla Vivian.
"My fight for transgender rights started with a pink t-shirt with a unicorn: my daughter wanted to wear it and I just didn't understand why a male couldn't do it. Trying to defend this right made me start studying and understanding what gender identity really is. But the thing that helped me the most on this trip was meeting so many transgender people, of all ages and nationalities. Each with their own history and peculiarities just like anyone: people, however, who live in a society that not only does not foresee them, but that to date still seems to have no intention of accepting them. Just think of the endless discussions for the inclusion of the expression "gender identity" within the DDL Zan and that shameful applause when it was scuttled.
2022,
Camilla Vivian,
Italian,
"README.txt. La mia storia" is the Italian language edition of "README.txt: A Memoir" by Chelsea Manning.
"While working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq for the United States Army in 2010, Chelsea Manning disclosed more than seven hundred thousand classified military and diplomatic records that she had smuggled out of the country on the memory card of her digital camera.
In 2011, she was charged with twenty-two counts related to the unauthorized possession and distribution of classified military records, and in 2013, she was sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison. The day after her conviction, Manning declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition, seeking hormones through the federal court system. In 2017, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and she was released from prison."
2022,
Chelsea Manning,
Italian,
Original title: "Una vita da donna" (A Life of a Woman) by Letizia Muratori.
Doris Wishman was a less famous director than Ida Lupino, but also a very prolific professional in years when, for a woman, it was not easy to be. Pragmatic and determined, when she could not find money to direct one of her legendary B-movies, she dedicated herself with the same application and the same disenchantment to selling dedicated objects in a sex shop. Wishman's story is little known that needed to be told, also because it helps to understand how sex and gender have a variable geometry, often for reasons very different from those we imagine.
Zoe, for example, another figure we meet on these pages, has lived as a man for sixty-two years and decides to face the male-to-female transition very late. She is driven by a legitimate, subtle, and very strong desire: to see at least a stretch of life that had always been told to coincide with the one she lives.
2022,
Italian,
Letizia Muratori,
Original title: "Eva. Il prezzo dell'ambizione. La ricerca dell'amore nonostante tutto, oltre il pregiudizio" (Eva. The price of ambition. The search for love despite everything, beyond prejudice) by Eva Carieri.
Intolerance, drugs, sex, and violence in an Italy that no one has ever talked about enough. The search for love despite everything, beyond fear, beyond prejudice.
Eva Carieri is an Italian actress, presenter, and writer, born in Palermo on February 25, 1980. She lives in Bologna, Italy. She began her career as a transgender model and then wrote for international blogs on medicine and surgeries, a topic of great interest to her. In 2016 she posed as a model in Croatia for Globus. She manages a Fashion Web TV and artistic events. Foreword by Eva Robin's.
2022,
Eva Carieri,
Eva Robin's,
Italian,
Original title: "Affettività invisibili: Storie e vissuti di persone e famiglie transgender" (Invisible affectivity: Stories and experiences of transgender people and families) by Giuseppe Masullo and Marianna Coppola.
The concept of family has acquired, over the decades, greater forms of legitimation on the scientific level even if, however, the paths of analysis have emphasized a traditional position that does not contemplate homoparental families. This starts from the assumption that the parental capacity corresponds to a given type of family, and not to its main function of caring.
This has also led to leaving on the margins, the lives as well as the socio-political problems encountered by individuals who exist outside the most normalized categories (those of cisgender gays and lesbians), and who remain outside (by choice or by constraint) from the question of parenthood and marriage (civil union).
2022,
Giuseppe Masullo,
Italian,
Marianna Coppola,
Original title: "Sconvolti. Viaggio nelle realtà transgender" (Upset. Journey into transgender realities) by Chiara Dalle Luche and Roberta Rosin.
This book presents stories where Gender Dysphoria appears during the transition paths of Andrea and Sara. Two lives, two transsexuals who decided to go all the way. The work becomes a tool to reflect on some issues that find little debate, discussion, and understanding.
Desiring the possible, putting together the pieces of the whole between fragmentation and reconstruction, filling the void, dwelling on the theory of opposites, swaying between known and unknown, upsetting and settling, and dreaming of the other side of oneself, it is possible. Going beyond the gray area through useful information on gender variance and transgenderism are also present for a path of knowledge in the light of the model of Functional Psychology and the ONIG protocol (National Observatory on Gender Identity).
2017,
Chiara Dalle Luche,
Italian,
Roberta Rosin,
Original title: "Persone transessuali a Cuba" (Transsexual people in Cuba) by Mariela Castro Espin.
The book addresses a crucial belief that all forms of discrimination have the same origin, but are expressed in different ways according to the specific socio-historical contexts. "Transsexual People in Cuba" highlights how exploitative economic relationships and processes of a cultural nature reproduce and recreate values, perceptions, representations, stigmas, and stereotypes.
The book presents how the socialist experience has inherited codes that contradict actions towards emancipation in the field of justice and social equity because various studies testify that iniquity continues to reproduce itself in contexts associated with skin colour, the condition of women, generations, and territories of residence.
2019,
Cuba,
Italian,
Mariela Castro Espin,
