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: "AINDA HÁ UMA CHANCE: Relatos de uma mulher transexuall" (THERE'S STILL A CHANCE: Reports of a transgender woman) by Fernanda Resteles.
"Discover the story of Fernanda Resteles narrated by herself in the 57 chapters of this book. She does not spare the reader knowing every detail of her life, both on the streets and in the privacy of her home. In these pages you will understand how a transsexual woman struggles when she is abandoned by those who should protect her the most: her family.
Fernanda recounts her entire trajectory since the age of 13, when she had to leave home to avoid suffering more abuse simply because she assumed her transsexual condition. She entered prostitution to not die of hunger, survived on the streets, was almost murdered several times, took refuge in drugs, made good friends but also enemies and had to flee Rio de Janeiro because of a crime she did not commit. The author constructed her narrative in such a way that not only the dramatic parts of her life were visualized, but also the funny and amusing ones. The book is easy to read and fluid and is a great example that the battles of this life can be won by people of determination, strength, and faith."
2022,
Brazil,
Fernanda Resteles,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Transcendendo Limites: A Jornada de Luna, uma menina trans em busca de sua verdade" (Transcending Limits: The Journey of Luna, A Trans Girl in Search of Her Truth) by Bruna Miranda.
Welcome to an extraordinary story of courage, resilience, and self-discovery. In a world where societal expectations often shape who we are. Luna, defied all norms and struggled to find her true identity as a transgender girl. Her journey was filled with challenges, doubts, and moments of deep introspection, but also with achievements, love, and inspiration.
From an early age, Luna felt that something was out of place. As her friends fell in love with girls, she wondered why she didn't share those same feelings. In a society that often imposes gender labels and expectations, Luna found herself on an internal quest to understand who she really was.
The discovery of her identity as a trans girl did not come all at once. She realized that there was something deeper in her essence.
2023,
Bruna Miranda,
Portuguese,
"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,
Original title: "Tranny: Confissões da Anarquista Mais Infame e Vendida do Punk Rock" (Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Selling Anarchist) is the Portuguese language edition of "Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock's Most Infamous Anarchist Sellout" by Laura Jane Grace.
Since its inception in 1997, Against Me! Not only has it been one of the most influential punk bands in the world, but also one of the most controversial. Throughout their career towards success, they have been conquering new fans while raising blisters among the old guard who supported them from the beginning. They got into trouble with the law, changed drums repeatedly, and faced a furious horde of punks who called them "sell-out" and sabotaged their concerts.
But, beyond all this, something much more important disturbed Tom Gabel, the founder of the group; A secret that for thirty years he only revealed in the pages of his diary and hinted at in some of the lyrics of his songs. After a difficult childhood and delinquent adolescence marked by drug use, Gabel continued to struggle to find her own identity, until in May 2012 she revealed it to everyone in an interview for Rolling Stone: Gabel declared to be transgender, and since that day she lives as a woman under the name of Laura Jane Grace.
2018,
Laura Jane Grace,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Vidas Trans: A luta de transgeneros brasileiros em busca de seu espaco social" (Trans Lives: The struggle of Brazilian transgenders in search of their social space) by Amara Moira, João W. Nery, Márcia Rocha, and Tarso Brant.
In VIDAS TRANS, four trans people: Amara Moira, João W. Nery, Márcia Rocha, and Tarso Brant tell readers about the moment when they realized that something was different, about the feeling of inadequacy before the required standards, about the prejudices and pain experienced inside and outside the family, about the moment of transition and, finally, about the freedom felt by this decision. In four individual reports, each one tells their life story, and constant and everyday struggle in reaffirming the right to their name, body, and full existence.
2019,
Amara Moira,
Brazil,
João W. Nery,
Márcia Rocha,
Portuguese,
Tarso Brant,
Original title: "Transfeminismo" (Transfeminism) by Letícia Nascimento.
In the book, Letícia Nascimento, thanks to accessible and didactic language, brings to the general public necessary explanations about the concepts of gender, transgenderism, womanhood, femininity, and feminism. She shows that it is necessary for people to be open to the various existences that do not necessarily fit into the binary and cisgender organization of the world.
"A first step in this sense is to know the experiences of those who are part of these groups and this book, written by a transgender woman, an overweight woman of colour, who is present in academic circles and is an inspiration for other transsexual and transvestite women, presents these experiences, brings historical concepts and situates transfeminism within other existing feminisms."
2021,
Brazil,
Letícia Nascimento,
Portuguese,
"O parque das irmãs magníficas" (The Park of the Magnificent Sisters) is the Portuguese language edition of "Las malas" (The Bad Girls) published in Argentina in 2019 by Camila Sosa Villada.
From the Argentine author Camila Sosa Villada, a book of love and affection: when we finish the last page, we want the whole world to read it too! When she arrived in the city of Córdoba to study at the university, Argentine author Camila Sosa Villada decided to go to Parque Sarmiento during the night. She was scared to death, thinking that the brutal verdict she had heard from her father could come to fruition at any moment: "One day they will knock on this door to warn me that they found you dead, thrown into a ditch." For him, this was the only possible destination for a boy who dressed as a woman.
2019,
Argentina,
Camila Sosa Villada,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Eu, travesti: Memórias de Luísa Marilac" (I transvestite: Memories of Luisa Marilac) by Luísa Marilac and Nana Queiroz.
Biography of transvestite and activist Luísa Marilac by Nana Queiroz, author of Prisoners who menstruate. Luísa Marilac was born in Minas Gerais and assumed to be a transvestite at the age of 17.
In addition to the traditional traumas associated with the transition of gender in a conservative and lower-class family, she was stabbed seven times at the age of 16, was a victim of sex trafficking in Europe, prostituted herself, raped and arrested more than once. She went to fame after she went viral on YouTube for a video of herself with the catchphrase "And they said I was in the worst".
2019,
Brazil,
Luísa Marilac,
Nana Queiroz,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Pedagogias das Travestilidades" (Pedagogies of The Travestilities) by Maria Clara Araújo dos Passos.
In Pedagogies of The Travestilities, the educator and activist Maria Clara Araújo dos Passos records the struggle of the Movement of Transvestites and Transsexual Women in Brazil, to ensure that the State perceives this community as dignified and guarantees social and political rights.
In order to do so, the author documents the knowledge that has been produced, since 1979 until the present day, by this collective, from its beginning, in the streets, until its arrival in the privileged space of the academy.
2022,
Maria Clara Araújo dos Passos,
Portuguese,
Original title: "E se eu Fosse Puta" (What if I Were a Whore) by Amara Moira.
And what if I was a whore? You, reader, tell me. It has a little of everything, but above all truth, the kind we like just under the rug, well hidden, the day-to-day on the street, the bargain, the bed, the man after enjoying sex.
Amara sees herself in drag and together she discovers the life that would follow from then on, a whore wherever she went, whether to spit or to discreetly ask the price ("everything in secrecy, I'm married, you know?"). A body that has no place, a body that made itself in spite of rules and norms, a body that lent itself to the shadow, that was me and I didn't make sense, I didn't even know where I wanted to go. Who understood me? This book is about choosing that doesn't make sense, this book is about looking for whys. What if I was a whore? What if I were you?
2016,
Amara Moira,
Brazil,
Portuguese,
Original title: "A Princesa - Depoimentos de um travesti brasileiro a um líder das Brigadas Vermelhas" (The Princess - Testimonies of a Brazilian transvestite to a leader of the Red Brigades) by Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque and Maurizio Jannelli. The book is the Portuguese (Brazil) language edition of "Princesa" published in Italian in 1994.
According to Wikipedia, Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque (1963–2000), known as Princesa, was a Brazilian transgender woman. Born in the Brazilian countryside, she grew up without her father in a family with economic difficulties. At the age of seven, she is the victim of sexual abuse and later she leaves home. After a brief period as a kitchen assistant, she begins to prostitute herself in the big Brazilian cities, adopting the name of Guerra Princesa.
1995,
Brazil,
Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Rainhas da noite: As travestis que tinham Sao Paulo a seus pes" (Queens of the night: The transvestites who had Sao Paulo at their feet) by Chico Felitti.
Between the 1970s and 2010s, Jacqueline Welch, Andréa de Mayo, and Cristiane Jordan commanded downtown São Paulo. Three T people who underwent political and social changes, suffered and perpetuated various threats and violence, abuses, and crimes. However, their story hardly appears in the official documents. There are no pictures left of Jacqueline with her "daughters" in the brothel. There are no reports or processes of when Cristiane was the victim of pedophilia in prostitution. There are no police inquiries into the murders Andrea claimed to have committed.
2022,
Brazil,
Chico Felitti,
Portuguese,
"Água Doce" is the Portuguese language edition of "Freshwater" by Akwaeke Emezi.
I liked Gina Maya's review a lot, so let me quote her: "Transgender narrative this may be, but it's far removed from Western, U.S.-based definitions in spite of its primary location in the U.S. The story follows the young life of Ada, a Nigerian child who travels to America to study, but her whole life involves psychical interaction with the indigenous spirits who vie for control of her. Is Ada Ogbanje too?
By the end, she appears to embrace this self-conception as an offspring of the Universal Creator Ala, visualized as cosmic python – the source of the spring from which all freshwater comes from its mouth. Yet Ada for almost the novel's entirety is also the human, engaged in an uneasy relationship with otherworldly spirits who inhabit her mind, visualized in turn as a room of marble, perhaps not unlike the Kaaba of Mecca. The most powerful, possessive, and controlling of the spirits is Asughara, occasionally presented as Ada's pernicious alpha. At times, Asughara blocks out Ada from consciousness, either to protect or punish Ada."
2019,
Akwaeke Emezi,
Nigeria,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Meu corpo minha prisao: Autobiografia de um transsexual" (My Body My Prison: Autobiography of a Transsexual) by Loris Ádreon.
According to Duda Zanine, the book is an autobiographical account of Loris Ádreon from birth to adulthood. There is (at least) an evident romanticization of the facts or, as Bernardete Lira would say, a “cheesy delusional” tone.
Born in Spain, Loris moved to Manaus with her family sometime in her teens. In Brazil, she ends up torn between the love of an Italian immigrant and an indigenous man. Meanwhile, she suffers various violence for being transgender. The narrator presents herself as an unfortunate romantic maiden with a pure heart, while Oitameno represents the noble colonized savage. Something similar to Ceci and Peri from O Guarani. Curious, I researched and found nothing relevant about Loris Ádreon on the internet, not even a photo. Total mystery. The author has fallen into oblivion, although the book involved intellectuals such as Herbert Daniel and Rose Marie Muraro in its publication.
1985,
Brazil,
Loris Ádreon,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Muito Prazer: Roberta Close" (Much Pleasure: Roberta Close)
Anyone looking for celebrity biographies to delve into scandalous topics will certainly be disappointed in this book, but not much. Those who reject volumes of scientific information believing that reading them is always tedious may miss this book. But you will regret it. In 'Much Pleasure: Roberta Close', Lúcia Rito managed to bring together exact doses of scandal and science to reconstruct the amazing trajectory of a human being who aroused the curiosity of an entire country.
In the best tradition of biographies of Hollywood stars or members of the British royal family. Lúcia tells everything, everything, about the life of the transgender woman who leaves Brazil breathless every time she makes it to the cover of a magazine, appears on television, is featured in a social column or appears at a carnival party.
1998,
Brazil,
Lucia Rito,
Portuguese,
Roberta Close,
Original title: "Olhares de Claudia Wonder: Crônicas e Outras Histórias" (Looks of Claudia Wonder: Chronicles and Other Stories).
The multimedia book Claudia Wonder brings together texts, chronicles, and stories published in the national media. The compilation presents the multifaceted and diverse look of the actress, singer, activist, columnist, and diva-trans-cult, revealing the sophisticated creative diversity unprecedented in the Brazilian transgender community.
Cláudia Wonder (1955-2010) was a Brazilian artist performer, writer, singer-songwriter, columnist, and transgender activist. As a teenager, she was already active in the transgender community where she met other legendary transgender icons, such as Andréa de Mayo, Thelma Lipp, Nana Vogel, Brenda Lee, Roberta Close, and Janaína Dutra. She also started acting, and in the 1980s she discovered her musical talent and debuted as a lyricist and vocalist of the rock band Jardins das Delícias, with the show "O Vomito do Mito", at the legendary São Paulo club Madame Satan.
2008,
Brazil,
Claudia Wonder,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Obviamente mulher" (Obviously Woman) by Filipa Gonçalves & Maria Carvalho Costa.
'Filipa Gonçalves was born a boy in Lisbon in April 1979. At the age of three, she began to assert herself as a girl, rejecting being a boy. Observed by physicians of various specialties from an early age, it was confirmed, over the years, her determination to be a woman.
At the age of 16, still as a boy, she took a modeling course at The Idealis School. Invited by seamstress Luís Barbeiro to be the bride in his next parade, she started her career on the fashion catwalk. Soon several successful advertising campaigns followed. She became a successful model before her gender reassignment surgery, hiding her male ID document.
2010,
Filipa Gonçalves,
Maria Carvalho Costa,
Portugal,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Caminhos Tortuosos de uma Transgénero" (Tortuous Paths of a Transgender) by Francisca Solange Vaz Martins.
'Tortuous paths, freedom restricted to the will of the other, life in captivity, no guilt, no crime. Injustice, frustration, unceasing search. Massocratic stereotypes, dignity of the dying human person, struck at every moment. The war for liberation, fought for decades, alone.
Finally, she had finished, the beginning of the path always dreamed of, her own managed to prevail. - Now, in freedom, I could say it out loud!!! ... - In all the paths I've traveled all my life, I didn't mean to be a psychologist!
I didn't want to be a lawyer! Lawyer or Historian! Not even a thinker or writer! wanted to be, just and only, a woman!!!!! ... I am finally. My own - The Francisca Solange.
2020,
Francisca Solange Vaz Martins,
Portugal,
Portuguese,
Original title: "Ontem Homem, Hoje Mulher" (Yesterday Man, Today Woman)
João Décio Ferreira, a doctor, one of the leading specialists in gender change surgeries, was immediately interested in the case of the boy with a girl figure. Patricia was still Nuno, but whoever saw her saw a woman. Blonde, expressive-looking, and a smiling girl, trapped in the wrong body. Only, when she managed to free herself from the body that imprisoned her, the singer went through a long ordeal.
First, as a child, she struggled with identity issues. She played with dolls and that was the nickname she had at school. She cried in the silence of the room.
At one point, increasingly aware that something was going on, Patricia would put together coins that she then exchanged for girly clothes and make-up. It was at the fair, and in the stores of the 300, that she was tied up in women's accessories.
2014,
Patricia Ribeiro,
Portugal,
Portuguese,
"A Rapariga Dinamarquesa" (2010) and "A Garota Dinamarquesa" (2016) are the Portuguese language editions of The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff. It was published twice in the Czech language in 2011 and 2016.
Having gender reassignment surgery in the 1930s was an unusual and sensational affair, and the man who took the step to do so was the Danish painter Einar Mogens Andreas Wegener, who after the operation took the name of Lili Elbe.
The operation took place at the Institute for Sexology in Berlin, where the male organs were removed. The surgery was performed by Felix Abraham at the recommendation of Magnus Hirschfeld.
Einar Wegener was married to the beautiful, celebrated artist Gerda Wegener. They lived in a highly unusual marriage. Their life fate is told in this book, which is a fiction novel based on authentic events and diary entries from Einar Wegener.
2010,
2016,
David Ebershoff,
Lili Elbe,
Portuguese,
