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: "I am a woman now" by Daniëlle Serdijn and Michiel van Erp.
In the mid-20th century, Casablanca was more than just the backdrop of a Hollywood classic, for a small group of courageous people, it became the setting of their rebirth. In 1956, French gynecologist Georges Burou quietly opened a clinic where he performed experimental and illegal sex reassignment surgeries. At a time when gender transition was shrouded in secrecy, stigma, and outright impossibility in most parts of the world, Burou’s discreet Moroccan practice became a beacon of hope. His reputation spread quickly across Europe.
Before long, famous figures such as the French performer Marie-Pierre Pruvot, known to the world as Bambi, the flamboyant British model April Ashley, Belgian dancer Corinne van Tongerloo, German pioneer Jean Lessenich, and Dutch beautician Colette Berends made their way to Casablanca. They were among the first wave of people who risked everything, socially, financially, and physically, to live as women. Their stories, groundbreaking at the time, would go on to inspire future generations.
More than half a century later, Dutch writer Daniëlle Serdijn and filmmaker Michiel van Erp revisited these trailblazers in the book I Am a Woman Now, published as a companion to van Erp’s internationally acclaimed documentary of the same name.
2012,
April Ashley,
Bambi,
Corinne Van Tongerloo,
Daniëlle Serdijn,
Dutch,
Georges Burou,
Jean Lessenich,
Marie-Pier Ysser,
Marie-Pierre Pruvot,
Michiel van Erp,
Original title: "Die transzendierte Frau: Eine Autobiografie" (The Transcended Woman: An Autobiography)
'I'm sixty-seven and staring in the mirror. Thence reality stares back at me. I am Transsexual. I was born as a male and now live my life as something else. Forty years ago I underwent an operation in Casablanca, which consisted of making my male body a female one – and made me from a heterosexual man into a lesbian woman.
Out of love, Jean Lessenich decided twelve years after her sex change, to live as a man again. This seemed to her to be the only way to give her Japanese partner permanent residence in Germany. Today fifteen years after her death, she lives again as a lesbian wife.
Beyond all clichés, this autobiography shows us that life as a transsexual is not a Hollywood movie. It does not promise women's happiness after appropriate surgery, but shows, that it is worthwhile to go your own way.'
2012,
German,
Germany,
Jean Lessenich,
