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.
Full title: "It Gets Better . . . Except When It Gets Worse: And Other Unsolicited Truths I Wish Someone Had Told Me" by Nicole Maines.
"Nicole Maines knows a little something about “happily ever after”—not just because she’s a self-professed expert in the Disney princess canon, but because she’s lived it. After coming out at an early age, her family had not only to educate themselves, but also those around them as they fought and won a landmark court case in the state of Maine before she graduated high school. She made it into college, got the guy, and finally had The Surgery.
She achieved her lifelong goal of becoming an actress when she landed a major role in the CW’s Supergirl, playing television’s very first live-action transgender superhero. Cue sappy music and sunsets, because we’ve got ourselves a happy ending, right? Ha! As if. For the first time, in her own words, Nicole tells the story of her journey from childhood in rural Maine to the spotlights of Hollywood, sharing the lessons she’s learned along the way. With clever wit and unflinching honesty, she tackles some of the most insidious messaging absorbed by queer kids and all young women, from the idea that any one thing can (or should) ever really “fix” you, to wondering what’s wrong with you when things don’t always feel better, and reminding us that, sometimes, a happy ending is only the beginning of the story."
2024,
English,
Nicole Maines,
USA,
Full title: "Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us" by Jennifer Finney Boylan.
"What is the difference between men and women? Jennifer Finney Boylan, bestselling author of She's Not There and co-author of Mad Honey with Jodi Picoult, examines the divisions--as well as the common ground--between the genders, and reflects on her own experiences, both difficult and joyful, as a transgender American.
Jennifer Finney Boylan's She's Not There was the first bestselling work written by a transgender American. Since its publication twenty years ago, she has become the go-to person for insight into the impact of gender on our lives, from the food we eat to the dreams we dream, both for ourselves and for our children. But Cleavage is more than a deep dive into gender identity; it's also a look at the difference between coming out as trans in 2000--when many people reacted to Boylan's transition with love--and the present era of blowback and fear.
How does gender affect our sense of self? Our body image? The passage of time? The friends we lose--and keep?"
2025,
English,
Jennifer Finney Boylan,
USA,
Full title: "Maybe This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Art, Addiction and Transformation" by Tommy Dorfman.
"From filmmaker, writer, producer and actor Tommy Dorfman—currently starring in Broadway's Romeo + Juliet—comes a beautifully written, bracingly original memoir, structured through the profound revelations of a single tarot card reading, chronicling her troubled teen years, the highs and lows of her creative career, and her journey to self-acceptance
On a hot summer day, twenty-eight-year-old Tommy Dorfman was enjoying a beautiful outing on a boat. But inside she felt unmoored.
After a lifetime of confusion, she’d finally gained clarity around her gender and had begun to transition. But there were still parts of herself she’d locked away, elements of her story that she needed, for the first time, to fully confront. She sought guidance in a tarot deck, using it as a tool to make sense of her life up until that point.
Maybe This Will Save Me, Dorfman’s spellbinding debut memoir, is structured through the cards of that tarot pull. The youngest of five children, she grappled with her own identity from an early age and spent her teenage years numbed by drugs and alcohol. At the same time, she harbored dreams of creative stardom and a desire to make herself seen."
2025,
English,
Tommy Dorfman,
USA,
Full title: "Body Lessons: A Trans Memoir of Joy (The Trans Chronicles - Part 3)" by Bethany Beeler.
"For 50 years, I slogged through life, starved for some magic to rescue me. Nothing I did was ever enough. So, I grasped at anything that didn’t reek of unworthy me. Then I named myself and unleashed magic. Welcome to my life, marriage, family, friendships, and creative work, as well as some stories about coming out - a life lived both in soft places and hard, ravaged, gritty neighborhoods of the soul.
Join award-winning author, Bethany A. Beeler on her journey from pain to power, from fear to fearlessly voicing she is. Who we all are.
2022,
Bethany Beeler,
English,
USA,
Full title: "TransCountry: A Trans Journey Across America (The Trans Chronicles - Part 4)" by Bethany Beeler.
"You own a 50-year-old VW Camper that’s eight years younger than you. Your newborn grandson’s in Boston, while you live in Colorado. Of course, you drive cross-country with your wife.
Oh, yeah - you’re also trans.
Join Bethany and Pam on a heartland journey as they test their sanity and 35 years of marriage against an emotional rollercoaster of breakdowns, power outages, busted refrigerators, and drag races with 18-wheelers, all to hold the next generation of their family.
2022,
Bethany Beeler,
English,
USA,
Full title: "The Well at World’s End: A Fable and A Life" by Bethany Beeler.
"“My transition revealed the flat-out obviousness of my being a woman. Still, I’m stunned that I get to be me after years not knowing who I was, reinforcing in my flesh 3,500 years of patriarchy. Of course, then, the best way to tell this is through a fable … about a rabbit.”
Author, artist, and baker, Bethany A. Beeler ran from a thousand enemies through years of presenting as a man. Then, she found magik when she plumbed the fault lines of her life to discover the Well at World’s End. It’s not the apocalypse, but an invitation to our true selves and to learn that though the world teems with enemies who would kill you, they first have to catch you."
2023,
Bethany Beeler,
English,
USA,
Full title: "Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir" by Zoë Bossiere.
"A stunningly written literary memoir about gender-fluidity, class, masculinity, and the American Southwest that captures the author’s experience growing up in a trailer park outside of Tucson, Arizona.
We meet Zoë as an 11-year-old moving through a world of giant beetles, thundering javelinas, and gnarled palo verde trees. Although Zoë lacks the vocabulary to express it, they experience life as a trans boy, spending summers running in a pack of other sunburnt hoodlums and school years fending off classmates’ intrusive questions about the body underneath their baggy clothes."
2024,
English,
USA,
Zoë Bossiere,
Full title: "Timeless Dance: A Story of Change and Loss" by Karen Shiffman Lateiner.
"TIMELESS DANCE: A Story of Change and Loss, is just that - a compelling memoir about life, death, gender change, acceptance, advocacy, and coping within the family, the community, and the world. It is a well told story of generational challenges and reflections on life altering events; a skillfully woven mix of narrative, prose, poetry, and letters. A page turner by many accounts, Timeless Dance illuminates issues not often contemplated, especially those related to transgender and gender non-conforming individuals."
"Understanding the transition of her child from male to female during the mid-1990's, and then grappling with her new daughter's tragic death two years later, motivated her to share what she experienced and learned about transgender issues, as well as life in general. Her compelling book, Timeless Dance: A Story of Change and Loss, stands as a memoir, biography, and primer for understanding gender diversity. Telling her story and speaking at a variety of educational, social, religious, and corporate venues provides an opportunity to open important conversations about LGBTQ+ issues, past and present."
2018,
English,
Karen Shiffman Lateiner,
USA,
Full title: "Sexed Up: How Society Sexualizes Us, and How We Can Fight Back" by Julia Serano.
"The author of landmark manifesto Whipping Girl exposes the violent ways we are all sexualized–then offers a bold path for resistance.
Feminists have long challenged the ways in which men tend to sexualize women. But pioneering activist, biologist, and trans woman Julia Serano argues that sexualization is a far more pervasive problem, as it’s something that we all do to other people, often without being aware of it.
Why do we perceive men as sexual predators and women as sexual objects?
Why are LGBTQ+ people stereotyped as being sexually indiscriminate and deceptive? Why are people of color still being hypersexualized? These stereotypes push minorities farther into the margins, and even the privileged are policed from transgressing, lest they also become targets. Many view sexualization as a mere component of sexism, racism, or queerphobia, but Serano argues that liberation from sexual violence comes through collectively confronting sexualization itself."
2022,
English,
Julia Serano,
USA,
Full title: "The Punk-Rock Queen of the Jews: A Memoir" by Rossi.
"This is Rossi’s wild, queer coming-of-age story. Rossi was taught only to aspire to marry a nice Jewish boy and to be a good kosher Jewish girl. At sixteen she flowers into a rebellious punk-rock rule-breaker who runs away to seek adventure. Her freedom is cut short when her parents kidnap her and dump her with a Chasidic rabbi―a “cult buster” known for “reforming” wayward Jewish girls―in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Rossi spends the next couple of years in a repressive, misogynistic culture straight out of the nineteenth century, forced to trade in her pink hair and Sex Pistols T-shirt for maxi skirts and long-sleeved blouses and endure not only bone-crunching boredom but also outright abuse and violence.
The Punk-Rock Queen of the Jews is filled with wonderfully rich characters, hilarious dialogue, and keen portraits of the secretive hothouse Orthodox world and the struggling New York City of the 1980s: dirty, on the edge, but fully vital and embracing."
2024,
English,
Rossi,
USA,
"Disidentes de género: la nueva generación" is the Spanish language edition of "Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation" by Kate Bornstein.
"Transgender narratives have made their way from the margins to the mainstream and back again, and today’s trans and nonbinary people, genderqueers, and other sex/gender radicals are writing a drastically new world into being.
Edited by the original gender outlaw, Kate Bornstein, together with writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, Gender Outlaws collects and contextualizes the work of this generation's trans and genderqueer forward thinkers - new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world's most respected publications. Gender Outlaws includes essays, commentary, comic art, and conversations from a diverse group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives."
2019,
Interview,
Kate Bornstein,
Spanish,
USA,
Full title: "Rock ‘N’ Roll Resurrection!!! Queenage Baby & Beyond: The Authorised Biography of Jayne County" by John Wombat.
"This book presents the life and career of rock ‘n’ roll and punk music’s first-ever trans artist, the pioneering Jayne County. Growing up in a small and rigidly conservative town in Georgia, Wayne Rogers found herself welcomed into the drag scene of Atlanta before heading for New York after the trauma of being shot at by a local redneck. The underground creative scene of New York accepted Wayne, and she soon appeared onstage as part of Jackie Curtis’ play ‘Femme Fatale: The Three Faces Of Gloria’ as Wayne County. Impressing Andy Warhol with her own play ‘World - Birth Of A Nation: The Castration Of Man’, the next stop for Wayne was a part in Warhol’s stage play ‘Pork’, which enjoyed a successful run of performances in London."
2020,
English,
Jayne County,
John Wombat,
USA,
Full title: "Man Enough to Be a Woman" by Jayne County, published in 1995 and republished in 2021.
"Born in rural Georgia in 1947, Jayne moved to New York and became part of the 60s art scene surrounding Andy Warhol's Factory. Jayne's story follows the arc of LGBT liberation in the US - she came of age living hand-to-mouth, faced off against police at Stonewall and came out as a trans woman while she was touring Europe with her band.
She went everywhere and met everyone and lived to tell the tale.
Man Enough to Be a Woman is the funny, fierce memoir of Jayne's extraordinary journey, now including a new epilogue where she reflects on how the world has (almost) caught up with her."
1995,
2021,
English,
Jayne County,
USA,
Full title: "Forward!: Thoughts of a Trans Woman on the Christian Journey" by Lynn Elizabeth Walker.
"While there are many books containing essays on "ordinary" life from a spiritual or religious perspective, there are only a few with a perspective grounded in the trans identity. Moreover, a number of books for or about trans people have to do with the "exceptional" aspects of life of individual trans folks.
This book offers the perspective of a trans-identified clergy member in gaining greater understanding of ordinary life, seen through the specific lens of her lived experience. Forward! is a series of essays addressing issues that might arise for trans women during their transition journey. In general, the focus is on such aspects of day-to-day living as religion, philosophy, society, church, people, love, alienation, families, aging, and work."
2023,
English,
Interview,
Lynn Elizabeth Walker,
USA,
Full title: "Tonacity: The Tona Brown Story" by Tona Brown.
"This book is a collection of interview transcriptions designed to share the life and story of Tona Brown, a transgender musician of color. In working to build this book, St. Louis writer and musician Chris King conducted dozens of interviews with Tona. In the span of four years, they compiled nearly eight hours of interview transcriptions. These transcriptions are reproduced for you here, having been edited for clarity and flow only; no original content has been removed."
"The conversation is supplemented with quotes from, and narrative informed by, academic research, scientific data, and the lived experiences of the Transgender community. Most importantly, this book is filled with Tona’s honest responses to Chris’s often penetrating and personal questions.
You will learn the brutal realities of the experiences shared by so many transgender men and women, and especially by Black transgender women."
2023,
English,
Interview,
Tona Brown,
USA,
Full title: "The Spectrum of Sex" by Hida Viloria and Maria Nieto.
"This transformative guide completely breaks down our current understanding of biological sex and gender diversity.
Introducing readers to seven variations of human sex, commonly considered intersex, the book challenges the myth that sex and gender are exclusively binary and explores the inherent diversity of biological sex and its relationship to gender identity and expression, and the impact this has on society."
"Examining historical, linguistic and socio-cultural understandings of sex and gender, as well as genetic and scientific definitions, the book is an important resource for dismantling gender and sexuality-based discrimination and promoting understanding and inclusivity.
Co-written by one of the world's leading intersex activists and a highly respected scholar in biological sciences, and accompanied with detailed anatomical illustrations throughout, this pioneering text is the essential introduction to gender and sex diversity for gender studies, women's studies, biology and genetics courses, as well as professionals working with intersex and trans communities."
2020,
English,
Hida Viloria,
Maria Nieto,
USA,
Full title: "Foggy Googles: A sequel memoir to 'Do you know who I once was'" by Cami Richardson.
"Foggy Googles is a sequel memoir to my first book called 'Do you know who I once was.' In my discussions with my editor on the first book, she suggested I leave out many of my stories and memories about my firehouse years, my amazing wife Teri, my ski career and entrepreneurial years and try to focus the book on my transition to that of being a transgender woman. I agreed and I believe that first book helped me move forward in reaching my personal mission goal of educating and enlightening others about the transgender community. After publishing it and in allowing some friends and family to read some chapters that were left out, the common response I received was that I should publish them and include them in a sequel, so “Foggy Googles” became a reality."
2022,
Cami Richardson,
English,
Interview,
USA,
Full title: "Pas De Deux: A Transgender Memoir" by Rachel Miyoko Conlin-McLeod.
"A self-reflective memoir of Rachel Conlin-McLeod's journey of self-discovery, realization, and transition. It is an exploration of gender identity and expression, the struggles of finding one's true sense of genuine identity and the joys and pains of being a transgender girl."
"Pas de deux. A duet typically between a male and female
pair of dancers, as in classical ballet. In my case, a ballet between the young boy who tried to be a man, and a young girl, trying to be a woman. A duet between my past self as David and my present self as Rachel. This is a self-reflection on the journey I have made from self-discovery and self-realization to transition and beyond. This is a story of my struggles to be genuine and authentic. It is a reflection on my search for truth in myself."
2023,
English,
Rachel Conlin-McLeod,
USA,
Full title: "Transgender Story" by Jordan Hammonds.
"I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. My name is Jordan Hammonds, born on December 14. I graduated from Covenant House Southwest on 13 June 2017. I started as gay at the age of 13. After being molested I didn’t know what to do with myself. Day after day I tried to talk to people about it but people did not want to hear me out.
I started dressing up at the age of 14. I’ve been a cross-dresser for 21 years now and I am happy with who I am but every day I think about my family. My family wants no part of me and that kind of makes me upset. They don’t have anything to do with me. I am out here on my own. I’ve been on my own since the age of 13. I had my first house after the age of 16 and I’ve been on my own for a very long time and I know how it is."
2018,
English,
Jordan Hammonds,
USA,
Full title: "Transitioning in Faith: An Autobiography of a Transgender Christian Woman" by Mariah Renee Dowker.
"I was born a male named Tony, but I never felt like myself as a man. Now, at long last, my name is legally changed to Mariah, and people are starting to accept me as the woman I’ve always wanted to become. But the journey to get here wasn’t always easy. Mine is a story of a transgender female who has been through many trials in my life.
I’ve experienced a lot of tragedy and prejudice, but I’ve been able to overcome it all through the help of my Lord Jesus Christ and the many friends He has blessed me with. Mine is a story of grief, abuse, and hardship. But it’s also a story of faith, love, and overcoming. As you join me on my journey, may it inspire you to realize that no matter what trials you are facing in this life, you can overcome them too."
2021,
English,
Mariah Renee Dowker,
USA,
