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: "You have never seen a dancer like Voo Doo: Das unglaubliche Leben des Willy Pape: Das unglaubliche Leben des Willi Pape" (You have never seen a dancer like Voo Doo: The Incredible Life of Willy Pape: The Incredible Life of Willi Pape) by Jens Dobler.
"Magnus Hirschfeld wrote in his study The Transvestites (1910/12): "The young transvestite Willi Pape, whose predisposition became known through a suicide attempt in women's clothes. His parents were informed by the author of his peculiar condition, and then allowed him to go to the vaudeville, where he has since performed with great success as a snake dancer."
Willy Pape (1891–1940) was the dance phenomenon of the vaudeville stages of the 1920s in Berlin, Zurich, Paris and Vienna under his stage name Voo Doo. Man or woman? That was always the question. Classic female actor or early example of trans*, queer or non-binary? Voo Doo has always been more of a stage than a tabloid, more of a top performer than a starlet, more of a diligent worker than a salon hero. Eventually, he opened a club whose guests included Klaus Mann. Escaping the Nazis with a black eye, Pape disappeared into oblivion, but was never completely forgotten. Jens Dobler tells the story of the incredible life of Willy Pape alias Voo Doo, and at the same time takes a foray into the great era of European variety culture."
2022,
German,
Jens Dobler,
Magnus Hirschfeld,
Voo Doo,
Willi Pape,
Original title: "Charlotte Charlaque. Transfrau, Laienschauspielerin. Königin der Brooklyn Heights Promenade" (Charlotte Charlaque: Trans woman, amateur actress. Queen of Brooklyn Heights Promenade) by Raimund Wolfert.
The life of the German-American Charlotte Charlaque (1892–1963) crosses the Atlantic several times – from Schönberg to Berlin, San Francisco and Prague to New York. As a Jew, Charlaque left Nazi Germany in 1934. Eight years later, she made the life-saving "leap" to the USA. In New York, she became a dazzling celebrity as the uncrowned queen of the Brooklyn Heights waterfront. She now liked to call herself Charlotte von Curtius. But what not even her closest friends knew was that her new surname was an allusion to her old birth name. Because when Charlotte Charlaque was born, her parents assumed she was a boy and gave her the name Curt ... And she was not the only one.
2021,
Charlotte Charlaque,
German,
Germany,
Magnus Hirschfeld,
Ragnar Ahlstedt,
Raimund Wolfert,
Toni Ebel,
Original title: "Berlins drittes Geschlecht: Schwule und Lesben um 1900" (Berlin's third gender: Gays and lesbians around 1900) by Magnus Hirschfeld. The book was published in 1904 and republished many times, including the editions of 1991 and 2015.
"Hirschfeld is still unmatched in the vividness and scope of gay and lesbian life in Berlin, although he, too, had to make concessions to public opinion and censorship; for example, he avoided more detailed place names.
The epilogue by Manfred Herzer deals with the history of publications on "Warm Berlin" dating back to the 18th century.
In an appendix, the psychiatrist Paul Näcke describes a "visit to the Homoseuxllen in Berlin", which he undertook under Hirschfeld's leadership and during which he saw some things differently than his companion."
1904,
1991,
German,
Magnus Hirschfeld,
