A random collection of over 1994 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: "Then This Happened: After Transparently" by Lisa Salazar.
When Lisa Salazar published Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life in 2011, she offered the world an honest, tender, and hopeful memoir of self-discovery. The book chronicled her first fifty-nine years and six months, culminating in the first month after her gender confirmation surgery. She wrote it during the three months leading up to that life-changing event, a time filled with anticipation and quiet optimism. The title reflected her state of mind then, she felt transparent, open, and grateful for the life she had lived, aware of her many privileges and the support that had carried her to that point. Nothing in her writing was embellished or self-congratulatory. It was the portrait of a woman embracing truth after a lifetime of waiting to live authentically.
2023,
Canada,
English,
Lisa Salazar,
Full title: "Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life" by Lisa Salazar.
Lisa Salazar’s Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life is not just a memoir; it is a revelation of faith, identity, and courage written by a woman who spent nearly half a century living a life that wasn’t truly hers. Born in Colombia in 1950 and raised in California, Lisa, then known as Santiago, grew up in a world that had no words for what she was feeling. The term “transgender” did not yet exist in her vocabulary, leaving her sense of self adrift and unanchored. When she moved to Vancouver in the early 1970s, she built a successful career as a graphic designer and photographer, became a husband and father, and lived as a devout Christian. But beneath this picture of stability was an inner battle that only deepened with time.
After forty-eight years of living as Santiago, Lisa received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a term that finally put words to her lifelong sense of disconnect between her body and her identity. Yet the diagnosis did not bring peace. Instead, it opened the door to a decade-long spiritual crisis. Lisa could not reconcile what she now knew about herself with what she believed about her faith. She had lived for years as a man who loved his family, prayed earnestly, and believed that God could “fix” what she saw as her flaw. For her, transition was not a dream; it was a terrifying moral question.
2011,
Canada,
English,
Interview,
Lisa Salazar,
