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: "Cuerpos para odiar" (Bodies to hate) by Claudia Rodríguez.
Claudia Rodríguez’s Cuerpos para odiar (Bodies to Hate) is an unflinching, visceral, and poignant literary statement. More than just a book, it is a political act, a chronicle of exclusion, pain, sisterhood, and survival within the brutal margins of Latin American society. Rodríguez, a Chilean trans activist, poet, and writer, has carved a space for the voices historically erased, ignored, or caricatured.
Her prose is tender yet lacerating, humorous and haunting, deeply lyrical and defiantly political.
The book opens with a chilling confession: “Because it’s believed that what is different is grotesque and monstrous, I have been so hated that I have reasons to write. I was never a hope for anyone. I put letters together and write, poorly, about this emptiness.” These words immediately set the tone for the rest of the work, this is not a book written to please. It is not here to console. It is here to expose. To scream. To remember. To disturb. And perhaps, most of all, to demand that we see the lives so often consigned to the shadows.
Rodríguez writes because she was not alone in her suffering. She writes for her sisters, those who died young, of AIDS, of violence, of neglect, without ever knowing love. “I write for all the travestis who never even realized they were alive, who died of shame and guilt before they could be happy.”
2024,
Chile,
Claudia Rodríguez,
Spanish,
Original title: "Lo que queda de mí: Lo más difícil no es cambiar, es atreverse a ser" (What's left of me: The hardest thing is not to change, it's to dare to be) by Karla Sofía Gascón Ruiz.
In Lo que queda de mí: Lo más difícil no es cambiar, es atreverse a ser (What’s Left of Me: The Hardest Thing Is Not to Change, It's to Dare to Be), Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascón doesn’t just continue her story, she tears the veil off it. This searing, unsparing memoir is both a follow-up and a counterpoint to her 2018 autobiographical novel Karsia. Una historia extraordinaria (Karsia. An Extraordinary Story), written under her former name, Carlos Gascón.
But where Karsia traced the outlines of her transition, Lo que queda de mí dives into the abyss, unflinching, raw, and deeply human.
From the first lines, “A body suspended in the void. A final breath. A moment where time fragments and the mind retraces the paths that led it there”, Gascón’s prose sets the tone: visceral, immediate, and unapologetically personal. This is not a celebrity tell-all, nor a curated victory lap. This is a descent into the wounded core of being. It is, in her own words, “not just a story; it’s a strangled cry, a confession without filters.”
Karla Sofía Gascón has lived many lives, actor, public figure, immigrant, trans woman, controversy magnet, Cannes winner. And yet, she begins Lo que queda de mí not with triumph, but with fragility. That suspended body isn’t just metaphor. It’s the image of a person fractured by years of self-denial, survival, and social performance. “How much of our existence is just an act?” she asks. “And what happens when the curtain finally falls?”
2025,
Carlos Gascón,
Karla Sofia Gascon,
Karla Sofía Gascón Ruiz,
Spanish,
Original title: "Pronto seré de oro y carmín" (Soon I will be gold and carmine) by Vanina Bruc.
In Pronto seré de oro y carmín (Soon I Will Be Gold and Carmine), Vanina Bruc has crafted a radiant literary mosaic of queer, trans, drag, and otherwise dissident lives, characters whose very existence resists normalization. With tender prose and hallucinatory precision, Bruc immerses readers in an expansive and unruly cosmos populated by the alienated and the extraordinary: housewives disenchanted with domesticity, theatre lovers in provincial towns, cosmic pharaohs, spectral drag queens, and witches rising into their own power.
This is a book that doesn’t whisper its resistance, it sings it in gold and carmine, with a voice as brave as it is lyrical.
Published by the audacious Spanish publisher Dos Bigotes, Pronto seré de oro y carmín defies easy categorization. It reads like a collection of short stories, but the pieces are stitched together by a shared spirit of defiance and illumination. Each narrative is a portal into an interior world colored by fear, desire, confusion, and yearning. This is not simply a book about gender or sexuality, it is a book about refusal, about disobedience, and about the beauty that grows in the cracks of conformity.
The magic of Pronto seré de oro y carmín lies in its unapologetic embrace of fluidity, of identity, of genre, of narrative logic.
2021,
Spain,
Spanish,
Vanina Bruc,
Original title: "Flor de invierno: Confesiones de una mujer trans" (Winter Flower: Confessions of a Trans Woman) by Raven Victoria Perich Minguillón.
In Flor de invierno: Confesiones de una mujer trans (2023), Raven Victoria Perich Minguillón offers readers more than just a memoir, she offers a lighthouse. Her words guide those navigating the stormy seas of gender identity, societal expectations, and personal truth. This book is a vivid, raw, and deeply personal journey of a woman who, against all odds, found the courage to bloom in winter, when everything around her seemed cold and hostile.
Raven opens with a jarring yet truthful observation: “Some people believe that transgenderism is a choice. As if one morning you woke up and decided you weren't who everyone thought you were, but someone else.” In these words lies the first crack in the societal illusion that gender identity is something whimsical or voluntary. She reminds us that it's not about becoming someone else, but finally realizing who you have always been. That realization, often delayed by fear and silence, can shatter your world before rebuilding it anew.
2023,
Raven Victoria Perich Minguillón,
Spanish,
Original title: "Entre azul y buenas noches" (Between Blue and Good Night) by Samantha Flores and Antoine Rodríguez.
In Entre azul y buenas noches, Samantha Flores opens the doors to a life filled with dreams, struggles, and triumphs that span over nine decades. Co-written with Antoine Rodríguez, this autobiography is much more than the story of a single woman, it is a testament to the power of authenticity, survival, and love against a backdrop of societal rejection and systemic invisibility.
Born Vicente Aurelio in 1932 in Orizaba, Veracruz, Samantha Flores has lived through eras of profound cultural transformation in Mexico, and through her words, readers are transported into a world where survival often required ingenuity, courage, and unwavering self-belief.
From the very beginning, Samantha's life was a delicate negotiation between who she was expected to be and who she truly was. Baptized Vicente Aurelio, she grew up as an effeminate, sensitive child in a world that had little patience or compassion for difference.
2024,
Mexico,
Samantha Flores,
Spanish,
Original title: "Mi Nombre Es Valentina: Una guía íntima para transitar la identidad con valentía" (My Name Is Valentina: An Intimate Guide to Navigating Identity with Courage) by Valentina Ruiz.
In a world where trans voices are still too often silenced or misunderstood, Mi Nombre Es Valentina: Una guía íntima para transitar la identidad con valentía (My Name Is Valentina: An Intimate Guide to Navigating Identity with Courage) emerges as a powerful and necessary work. Written by Valentina Ruiz, this book isn’t just a memoir, it’s a lighthouse for trans people and their allies, illuminating the complexities, beauty, and bravery involved in living as one’s authentic self.
Ruiz describes Ser Yo (“Being Myself”) as an intense, honest, and deeply human guide to what it means to be a trans woman today. With unflinching vulnerability, she traces her path from childhood silence to adult resilience, offering her readers a hand to hold along the way. Each chapter weaves together personal experience with practical wisdom, creating a space that feels both intimate and empowering.
2025,
Argentina,
Spanish,
Valentina Ruiz,
Original title: "Eva: Retrato colectivo de una transición" (Eva: Collective portrait of a transition) by Eva Faga.
In "Eva. Collective story of a transition" the author constructs herself, in a Transvestite Trans identity, within a real and constantly changing scenario, such as Argentina. With it, the world around us transitions, because it forces us to rethink ourselves and assume the responsibility we have in the construction of others.
Eva does not seek to move or excite, do not expect an emotional story that appeals to the poetics of words, rather one that highlights the importance of collective struggles in obtaining rights. An example of this is the Gender Identity Law.
The author emphasizes the importance of language as an essential form in the construction, not only of culture but also of identity.
It is possible to know, through her testimony, the different areas that Eva navigates, from everyday and family life, to activism and the constant fight for the defense of Human Rights.
2024,
Argentina,
Eva Faga,
Spanish,
Original title: "Mi mejor versión... es femenina: autobiografía de mi transición" (My best version... is feminine: autobiography of my transition) by Silvia Sicore.
The author, a specialist in audiovisual communication, has been writing and creating content for both digital and analog media since a young age. In this autobiography of her transition years, she takes the opportunity, not only to recount the events of that period in her life, but also to reflect on what it means for her to be "trans" in today's world, and how this gender journey has influenced her immediate surroundings in Lleida and Barcelona.
With the pedagogical goal of promoting positive visibility for the trans community, Silvia opens herself up to the reader, revealing who she truly is. She shows that, among all the possible ways of being available to a person, striving to become one's best version is always a valuable path, whether or not that journey leads to a gender transition. This is, therefore, an atypical story. The author comes to the realization, later in life, as an adult and after living for decades as a heterosexual man, that hidden somewhere in the crossword puzzle of her identity was the word gender... and that her best version is, without a doubt, feminine.
Already as a young woman, long before her gender transition, Silvia used writing as a means of expression. It became not only a professional tool but also a source of recognition, earning her awards for her poems and short stories. Although her multifaceted personality led her to explore painting, drawing, and music, it is through writing that she has found the most effective way to communicate her inner world. She explores a variety of styles and genres, from poetry and novels to short stories and, more recently, autobiography, all with the clear intention of better understanding both the world around her and herself.
Sílvia Pérez-Pallarès, also known as Silvia Sicore, is a content manager, programmer, and sociocultural communicator. She has worked for organizations such as Barcelona Activa, the technical team of Pride BCN, and currently serves at the Sabadell City Council. A transgender activist and committed communicator, she is an active member of several associations, including the Platform of LGTBI Entities of Catalonia and the LGTBI.cat Group.
She is also a certified trainer by the Generalitat de Catalunya for educating civil servants on gender diversity, in accordance with the mandate of Law 11/2014 against LGTBIphobia. Silvia has also worked as a lecturer at the Universities of Barcelona, Girona, and Lleida, as well as for the SOC (Catalan Employment Service), and in several public high schools and colleges. She holds master’s degrees in Organizational Coaching, Emotional Intelligence, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Human Resources Management, Online Marketing, Community Management, Gender Equality, and also in Business Administration.
She has participated in several television programs (such as Chester with Risto Mejide on Cuatro and Tabús on TV3), as well as in interviews, media campaigns, and national awareness initiatives. She is also a regular contributor to national media outlets.
2024,
Silvia Sicore,
Spanish,
Original title: "Lo que cuentan de las personas trans" (What they say about trans people) by Zulema Wild.
"This book is for those people who want to learn about trans people.
There will be people who say that we are not normal, but normal is too basic to call us that.
This book tells stories of trans people as well as a lot of information about everything that trans people experience.
A constant fight to be who we want to be, a fight to want to be accepted in a world of people who are still in the Franco era. Zulema is a trans girl and this book is dedicated to all those people who want to expand their knowledge and want to know more about trans people."
2023,
Spanish,
Zulema Wild,
Original title: "Ella era yo: Memorias de mi transición" (She was me: Memories of my transition) is the Spanish language edition of "I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition" by Lucy Sante.
"An iconic writer's lapidary memoir of a life spent pursuing a dream of artistic truth while evading the truth of her own gender identity, until, finally, she turned to face who she really was For a long time, Lucy Sante felt unsure of her place.
Born in Belgium, the only child of conservative working-class Catholic parents who transplanted their little family to the United States, she felt at home only when she moved to New York City in the early 1970s and found her people among a band of fellow bohemians. Some would die young, to drugs and AIDS, and some would become jarringly famous. Sante flirted with both fates, on her way to building an estimable career as a writer. But she still felt like her life a performance. She was presenting a façade, even to herself."
2024,
Interview,
Lucy Sante,
Spanish,
Original title: "Travesti. Una teoría lo suficientemente buena" (Transvestite. A good enough theory) by Marlene Wayar.
"This book proposes a living, communitarian theory. Because when Marlene Wayar says that she has a cemetery in her head, she speaks from the strength that the experience of her entire collective gives her. And that force is oral. With dialogues, she weaves bridges between the oral and the written, and she does so with a power that the written could never capture.
Between conversations, the book invites us to feel without anesthesia from the trans-South American perspective and to think critically about the failure of the world as we know it. It is a cry that envelops the life of the body while inviting us to consider the death of the marks on our bodies promoted by hetero-winca-patriarchy. Actually, Marlene proposes that we kill those pains with daily oblivion and go and build other movable languages that fill us with energy, an energy that ethics imposes that we use in children and adolescents."
2019,
Marlene Wayar,
Spanish,
Original title: "La mujer volcán: Memorias" (The Volcano Woman: Memoirs) by Carla Antonelli and Marcos Dosantos.
Carla Antonelli, an unredeemed activist and protagonist of laws that changed a country forever, has broken all the glass ceilings of trans women. This book is his incandescent account of a life plagued by struggle that travels the paths of abandonment, desire, freedom, and power. In the pages of this journey, there is hunger, love, conquests, and mistreatment; sworn enemies and infinite friendships.
Carla Antonelli (Carla Delgado Gómez) was born in Güímar, Tenerife, in 1959. She is a politician, activist, and actress. Currently a Senator of the Spanish Parliament for Más Madrid, she was a regional deputy for the Socialist Party between 2011 and 2021, becoming the first trans parliamentarian in Spain. Since the 80s, she has played numerous roles and cameos in television series, films, documentaries, and plays (Lisístrata, El síndrome de Ulises, La Veneno, El comisario, Paquita Salas, Periodistas, Triángulos rosas, Hijos de papá, El viaje de Carla…).
2024,
Carla Antonelli,
Marcos Dosantos,
Spanish,
Original title: "Furia travesti: Diccionario Travesti de la T a la T" (Travesti Fury: Travesti Dictionary from la T to la T) by Marlene Wayar.
"This book is a rallying cry against all those discourses that seek to deny transvestite identity, subsuming it in one of the two poles of the hetero binarism. Being transgender, says the author, has nothing to do with being born in a wrong body that needs to be intervened to normalize, make it thinkable, digestible for the binary stomach of a society that is as two-minded as it is hypocritical.
This book is also about the life that is presented for the first time; An experience that is related to the support of militancy in favor of the rights of transgenders as a group. It is, therefore, a cry that is both individual and collective. With a sharp tongue, clarity, and fierceness, Marlene Wayar weaves in these pages a reasoned and lucid exposition of what it means to be a Latin American transgender today: expelled even as children by the institution of the family, they will be migrants all their lives, marginalized, prostitutes. But also beings of enormous charm and beauty, intelligence, attractiveness, and seduction. Like all of them, all of them: they are what they are. And this book, for the first time, gives them the place they deserve."
2019,
Argentina,
Marlene Wayar,
Spanish,
Original title: "(h)amor 6: trans" ((h)love 6: trans) by Alana Portero (Author), Pol Galofre Molero (Author), Ártemis López (Author), Coco Wiener (Author), Roberta Marrero (Author), Iki Yos Piña Narváez funes (Author), Coco Guzmán (Author), Sabrina Sánchez (Author), Teo Pardo (Author), Elsa Ruiz (Author), Alicia Ramos (Author), Jenifer Rubí (Author), and Lucas Platero.
"What happens when we approach desire beyond binary categories? Is care crossed by gender? What relationship exists between identity, orientation and sexual politics? How to take charge of the intersection of gender, class, race? Thirteen voices put body, affection and writing to try to provide answers to these and other questions in this collaborative volume, (h)amor 6_trans. A diverse set of reflections with the same demand, that of a full life, one that deserves to be lived and mourned."
2023,
Alana Portero,
Alicia Ramos,
Ártemis López,
Coco Guzmán,
Coco Wiener,
Elsa Ruiz,
Jenifer Rubí,
Lucas Platero,
Pol Galofre Molero,
Roberta Marrero,
Sabrina Sánchez,
Spanish,
Teo Pardo,
Original title: "Poesía Recuperada" (Recovered Poetry) by Naty Menstrual.
This is Naty Menstrual's third book, entitled "Poesía recuperada", a material that compiles her initial texts created before her official birth as Naty. "These are things I wrote before I cross-dressed, before I was Naty," she said. It is the compendium of "secret" poems, which she herself never believed could be published, but which today she decided to present to society.
"If I were a woman, I would have a thousand children, I would have a thousand children
with a thousand different men.
If I were a woman, I'd have a thousand men, With a thousand red velvet kisses, Tangled on my lips, No rush and no time, Walking through me.
If I were a woman, I'd sleep among a thousand bodies, Entangled in a thousand tentacles of love, With passion, with pain, and with sweat, Sweats of a thousand men
skin, smells, licks, kisses."
2017,
Argentina,
Crossdressing,
Naty Menstrual,
Spanish,
Original title: "A way to Queer (Una senda hacia lo singular): Siempre diferente. Siempre rebelde. Siempre yo" (A way to Queer: Always different. Always rebellious. Always me) by Ayran N.
"Some days I look like a boy who over the years has realized that he feels better functioning as a girl, and other days I feel like a girl trapped in a boy's body. The difference is subtle, but it exists. And sow doubt...
This is how Ayran begins in her particular declaration of intentions. This work collects the written entries from her weblog, from its creation until its final abandonment. In the book, we will experience with straying frankness the daily drama that lives a person with gender dysphoria, as well as the desire to find a place in a society that is cruel and intolerant to those who cannot fit into its solid stereotyped labels."
"Mi hijo en rosa" (My Son in Pink) is the Spanish language edition of "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,
Spanish,
Original title: "La torre de marfil 2: Experiencias de una niña transsexual" (The Ivory Tower: Experiences of a Transsexual Girl 2) by Ernesto Rubio Sánchez.
"This second part of "La torre de marfil" invites the reading public to fully delve into the development of the central character's life, accompanying her from her childhood to her adulthood in the midst of the Movida Madrileña and in a time marked by discrimination where there was no concept of transsexuality and all sexual behavior towards the same gender was synonymous with AIDS.
Within this medium, our character will try to assert her right to live as she perceives herself. Can she make it? And if so, in an environment that will demand her courage, conviction and militancy, will she enjoy the same rights as everyone else or will she continue to be a second-class citizen? However, this fight does not end on the last page of this installment; In the next one, titled Ramón is my daughter, the characters and their stories will mature, always trying to manage their lives in a society that, despite proclaiming itself progressive, still hides the prejudice of a divided world."
2022,
Ernesto Rubio Sánchez,
Spanish,
Original title: "Versos Arcoíris" (Rainbow Verses) by Loana Leona.
"This book is a collection of poetry and poetic prose that celebrates diversity, identity, and love in all its forms. In these pages, you will find a journey through the unique and personal experiences of a trans woman who has fought for acceptance and freedom, self-love, and exploring her sexuality.
Through her verses, Loana invites us to reflect on the beauty of diversity and the importance of inclusion.
This book is an invitation to embrace the uniqueness of each person and celebrate the richness of life in all its forms.
"Rainbow Colors" offers a wide range of themes and emotions, from the deep and reflective to the passionate and liberating. With titles such as "Guerrera sagrada", "Universo interior", "Identidad en construcció" and "La Constelación del Amor", each poem is a sample of the variety of experiences that encompasses the life of a trans person.
We invite you to immerse yourself in the magic of Loana's poetry and let yourself be carried away by the strength and beauty of these words. Open your eyes and your heart to the "Versos Arcoíris" and discover the strength, passion, and love that reside in each of us."
2023,
Loana Leona,
Spanish,
Original title: "Mujeres trans*, violencia y cárcel" (Trans* Women, Violence and Prison) by Chloé Constant.
"From a critical feminist perspective, in this work the author presents methodological reflections on socio-anthropological work in prison and analyzes the experiences of trans* women who were imprisoned in a men's prison in Mexico City. Through a transdisciplinary dialogue, which recovers the perspective of experiences from body and gender studies, she explores the multiple forms of violence that trans * women have experienced before, during and after prison.
Likewise, she shows how the prison constitutes an institution permeated by power and organized according to specific laws, which reproduces and deepens gender inequalities and transphobic violence, attempting to impose a unique way of living gender. This book contributes to studies on the prison system and gender violence in Mexico, showing us how trans* women face social structures that constrain and violate them, and how they explore spaces for resistance."
2022,
Chloé Constant,
Mexico,
Spanish,
