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.
"Yo soy mi propia mujer: Una vida (Tiempo de Memoria)" (I am my own woman: A life (Memory Time)) is the Spanish language edition of "Ich bin meine eigene Frau. Ein Leben" by Charlotte von Mahlsdorf.
"A soft-spoken transvestite wanting nothing more than to live as a hausfrau, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf instead was caught up in the most harrowing dramas of 20th-century Europe, surviving both the Nazis and the Communists.
Originally published as I Am My Own Woman, this exquisitely written autobiography reveals her lifelong pursuit of sexual liberty. The story is reaching an entirely new readership of enthusiastic theater fans with I Am My Own Wife, the new Broadway show by Doug Wright about the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in drama."
2023,
Charlotte von Mahlsdorf,
Crossdressing,
Spanish,
"La chica danesa" is the Spanish language edition of The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff.
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.
2015,
David Ebershoff,
Lili Elbe,
Spanish,
Original title: "Me llamo Eva: Mi lucha por ser mujer" (My name is Eva: My struggle to be a woman) by Eva Vildosola Leo.
Eva was born in the wrong body and didn't know why until she was eleven and first heard the term "gender dysphoria." From a very young age, she endured the incomprehension and intransigence of a society that drowns us with its impositions.
After publicly denouncing an attack last year in Barcelona, the life of the well-known influencer turned upside down.
Her face began to appear in all the newspapers and televisions and thousands of people showed their support on social networks.
In this book, she shares for the first time her life story and how she decided to become the woman she always wanted to be. This is a real testimony, which gives us the possibility of knowing through their eyes what it is like to grow up surrounded by prejudices.
2021,
Eva Vildosola Leo,
Spain,
Spanish,
Original title: "Hispanic Star en español: Sylvia Rivera" (Hispanic Star in Spanish: Sylvia Rivera) by Claudia Romo Edelman and J. Gia Loving.
"Read about Sylvia Rivera, who is among the most groundbreaking, iconic Hispanic and Latinx heroes who have shaped our culture and the world in Hispanic Star: Sylvia Rivera, co-written with J. Gia Loving, from Claudia Romo Edelman's gripping Hispanic Star biography series for young readers.
Meet Stonewall uprising veteran Sylvia Rivera―once just a kid from New York City. A transgender Latina, Sylvia became an influential gay liberation and transgender rights activist who fought especially for transgender people of color. In the 1970s, Sylvia and Marsha P. Johnson founded the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a group devoted to providing services and advocacy for homeless LGBTQ+ people. Nearly two decades after her passing, Sylvia and her legacy continue to have an impact on the LGBTQ+ rights movement and remain an inspiration for marginalized queer people everywhere."
2023,
Claudia Romo Edelman,
J. Gia Loving,
Spanish,
Sylvia Rivera,
"Manantial" is the Spanish 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."
2021,
Akwaeke Emezi,
Nigeria,
Spanish,
Original title: "Whipping girl: El sexismo y la demonización de la feminidad desde el punto de vista de una mujer trans" (Whipping Girl: Sexism and the demonization of femininity from the point of view of a trans woman) is the Spanish language edition of "Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity" by Julia Serano.
For centuries, feminism has been built as a movement to do justice to women, and until recently, from the female perspective. But it is an unfinished movement, which usually excludes, from some of its aspects, working, black and trans women. This book, from one of the most prominent and recognized voices of trans activism, Julia Serano, within American feminism, contributes to alleviating this absence.
2020,
Julia Serano,
Spanish,
Original title: "Cómo ser trans y morir asesinada en el intento" (How to be trans and die murdered in the attempt) by Frida Cartas.
For Frida Cartas, transsexuality, or being a trans woman, does not mean a "transition", or a "change" from A to B, a "person who stopped being X to become Y"... Nor any of these stories that are generally society (through discourses of inclusion) who adjudicate them via sociocultural patterns and standards, and that are repeated even by the same people, trans women and men.
For Frida Cartas, being a trans woman is an expropriation of her own body, previously stolen precisely by these patterns and standards. For Frida Cartas to be a trans woman is to have done justice to herself, within a world in which it seems that no woman has justice. If, as Marx pointed out, we must take the means of production, Frida took the first and most hers: her body and all the sexuality that inhabits it, then she not only began to build and produce, but also to do politics. A work that has earned her the derision and the simplistic and light criticism of those who do not support collectivity and self-management.
2022,
Frida Cartas,
Intersex,
Mexico,
Spanish,
Original title: "Crucé la frontera en tacones: Crónicas de una TRANSgresora" (I Crossed the Border in Heels: Chronicles of a TRANSgressor) by Alexandra R. DeRuiz.
"I Crossed the Border in Heels" is the personal testimony of Alexandra R. DeRuiz in which she recounts her escape from Mexico across the border with the United States, where she had to create a life from scratch.
There she had to assimilate multiple identities, learning that racism, transphobia, exploitation, stereotypes, and violence are daily acts and a reality for undocumented trans people living between both countries.
2023,
Alexandra R. DeRuiz,
Mexico,
Spanish,
Original title: "Tesis sobre una domesticación" (Thesis on a domestication) by Camila Sosa Villada.
A trans actress – who could not be a mother – adopts a six-year-old boy with her husband, a homosexual lawyer. That HIV-positive boy – who did not know his biological father and whose mother committed suicide when she discovered that she infected him with AIDS – was raised by the maternal grandparents, until the grandfather killed his wife and then committed suicide.
The book lays bare the fragility of the bonds and the "invisible" agreements, not exempt from violence, that are woven around marriage and couples. The writer and actress from Cordoba raises questions about motherhood, fatherhood and orphanhood with an unlimited curiosity to try to account for the abyss between desires and experiences, between what is imagined or dreamed and what happens in the family back room. The apparent initial happiness of "life resolved" explodes. "Her legs, her heart, her transvestism, her family, everything weighs on her then as she had never weighed on. And being an orphan too," warns the narrator.
2019,
Argentina,
Camila Sosa Villada,
Spanish,
Original title: "Yo soy Transexual: Guia y vida personal, experiencias personales, soy transexual y naci asi, cambio de sexo y consejos para entendernos, esta guia es... como para personas cis" (I am Transsexual: Guide and personal life, personal experiences, I am transsexual and I was born that way, my sex change and tips to understand each other, this guide is... also for cis people) by Sandra María Alvarez Melendo.
Here are the guide and experiences about my personal life, answers to how to deal with transsexuality in ourselves and in others, personal experiences and tips to deal with it in a healthy and natural way.
2022,
Sandra María Alvarez Melendo,
Spanish,
Original title: "Historia de lo trans" (History of Trans) is the Spanish language edition of "Transgender History" by Susan Stryker.
When and how is the term transsexual created? Who has fought in the North American context when it comes to obtaining rights for people who leave gender norms, are transvestites, transsexuals, or non-binary? How is the memory of trans people made?, What leaders promoted other ways of understanding gender transgressions? What social challenges arise thanks to the experiences of trans people and their activism?
Historia de lo trans presents, through a critical and decolonial vision, the key moments of a political and cultural movement that has questioned the bases of feminism and the conceptual frameworks of LGBT struggles. In this tour, we find exciting biographies of the protagonists of trans struggles, inserted in the history of gender theory, and the book shows how they have been shaping our global story.
2017,
Spanish,
Susan Stryker,
"Léeme.Txt" is the Spanish language edition of "README.txt: A Memoir" by Chelsea Manning.
"While working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq for the United States Army in 2010, Chelsea Manning disclosed more than seven hundred thousand classified military and diplomatic records that she had smuggled out of the country on the memory card of her digital camera.
In 2011, she was charged with twenty-two counts related to the unauthorized possession and distribution of classified military records, and in 2013, she was sentenced to thirty-five years in military prison. The day after her conviction, Manning declared her gender identity as a woman and began to transition, seeking hormones through the federal court system. In 2017, President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and she was released from prison."
2023,
Chelsea Manning,
Spanish,
Original title: "Cuerpo de hombre, experiencia de mujer: Hablan las travestis" (A man's body, a woman's experience: the transvestites speak) by Georgina Burgos.
In this book, seventeen transvestites and one wife narrate what it means to be and live with a transvestite. These stories come from the most human, intimate, and deep side of each protagonist and show us the most unknown face of cross-dressing.
Throughout these pages, we will travel to the electric instant of personal discovery, we will contemplate the details of the intense ritual of the transformation from man to woman, and we will know how it is and what the inner woman that a transvestite carries within herself wants, we will live her first outing to the street... and much more.
2010,
Crossdressing,
Drag queen,
Georgina Burgos,
Spanish,
Original title: "El Nunca Más de las locas: Resistencia y deseo en la última dictadura" (The Nunca Más de las locas: Resistance and desire in the last dictatorship) by Matthias Maximus.
The persecution, kidnapping, torture, and murder of gays, lesbians, transvestites, and trans people was systematic in both military and civilian governments. Forty years after the return of democracy, the time has come to think about whether the emblematic figure of 30,000 is complete without the disappeared individuals of the LGBT+ community. Why don't words like "transvestite," "homosexual," "puto," "gay," "lesbian," "tortillera," "inverted" appear in the CONADEP report? How could a transvestite approach the disappearance of her partner, if because of her identity she could also be detained? How could a Marica militant complain about a kidnapping if the revolutionary organizations themselves discriminated against her?
2023,
Argentina,
Matthias Maximus,
Spanish,
Original title: "Mi transición de niño a mujer: Descubriendo la libertad de ser yo misma: Una historia de valentía y autenticidad en la transición de género" (My Transition from Child to Woman: Discovering the Freedom to Be Myself: A Story of Courage and Authenticity in the Gender Transition) by Juani Mora.
Discover the inspiring story of courage and authenticity in "My Transition from Child to Woman: Discovering the Freedom to Be Myself," a moving book that will take you on a journey of personal growth and overcoming. Through the author's exciting memoir, you'll be able to experience a transgender woman's struggle to find her true gender identity and live freely.
2023,
Juani Mora,
Spanish,
Original title: "Orgullo travestido: Egmont de Bries y la repercusión social del transformismo en la España del primer tercio del siglo XX" (Transvestite Pride: Egmont de Bries and the social impact of transformism in Spain in the first third of the twentieth century) by Juan Carlos Usó Arnal.
The fascinating life of the transformist Egmont de Bries, the star of female impersonation in the Spanish scene of the 20s of the last century, and where heteronormativity was sanctioned by law as the only valid social model, gives rise to reflect on the past, present and future of gender identity and condition. He died sadly, fané and detached, in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. Famous in his time, De Bries died in the most pitiful vulgarity, attended by charitable friends at the last minute. The book is illustrated with 80 images of great documentary value, in many cases of surprising beauty.
2022,
Drag queen,
Egmont de Bries,
Juan Carlos Usó Arnal,
Spanish,
Original title: "Invertidos. Los Verdad, justicia y reparación para gais y transexuales bajo la dictadura franqui" (Invested. Truth, justice and reparation for gays and transsexuals under the Franco dictatorship) by Geoffroy Huard.
In 2019, the Barcelona City Council, headed by Ada Colau, filed a complaint against the Franco regime for crimes against humanity against LGBT people. This book reworks and expands the report written by historian Geoffroy Huard to accompany the complaint. It shows, thanks to the archives of the courts of vagos and thugs and dangerousness and social rehabilitation, that "inverted" and "homosexuals" were categories used by the Francoist authorities as a kind of catch-all in which any sexual deviation and especially gender deviation (effeminate, transvestite, transsexual, prostitute, etc.) fit.
2021,
Geoffroy Huard,
Spanish,
Original title: "Gala" by Joan Trinidad.
A graphic novel that tells the day-to-day of Gala, a girl who is first a person and then many other things. The story is dedicated to Leelah Alcorn, the young transsexual who took her own life because of the difficulties posed by this situation and whose case became known when her farewell letter was public on social networks.
2017,
Joan Trinidad,
Leelah Alcorn,
Spanish,
Original title: "Si te viera tu madre: Activismos y andanzas de Claudia Pía Baudracco" (If Your Mother Saw You: Activism and Adventures of Claudia Pía Baudracco) by María Marta Aversa and Matías Máximo.
The story they never told you about one of the most important people in Argentina of LGBTIQ+ activism. The life of Claudia Pía Baudracco, La Gorda, was a whirlwind of impulses that spilled seeds in dozens of activisms: repeal of police edicts, gender identity, access to comprehensive health, cannabis culture, and human rights were some of the issues that obsessed her.
After finding out about the activist movement in Europe, in 1993 she founded, together with María Belén Correa, the Association of Transvestites, Transsexuals, and Transgenders of Argentina, the first T space that achieved representation throughout the country. Claudia Pia also lived the vicissitudes of a community that for many years was left out of "official history", having the Police section as the only possible destination.
2023,
Argentina,
Claudia Pía Baudracco,
Spanish,
Original title: "Cuerpos en resistencia: experiencias trans en ciudad de México y Bogotá" (Bodies in resistance: trans experiences in Mexico City and Bogotá) by Manuel Roberto Escobar Cajamarca.
The body is mainly a scenario of power, which becomes a multiplicity of tensions and resistances subscribed to specific contexts. In particular, this work deals with the bodies of people who move through gender, and the political dimension of these experiences in Latin America, in two of its main cities: Mexico City and Bogotá.
The importance of these subjectivities that strive for what a body can be in our contexts, has to do with the fact that the body goes beyond individual and social expression and constitutes a node of identity, with which the construction of the body allows us to specify our own sameness, difference, as well as perceive it in the other.
2016,
Colombia,
Manuel Roberto Escobar Cajamarca,
Mexico,
Spanish,
