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: "Becoming Me: A Trans Memoir - A Trans Woman’s Guide to Radical Self-Love" by Julia Shelton.
What if becoming yourself wasn’t about changing who you are, but coming home to the truth you’ve always known?
This is the question at the heart of Julia Shelton’s bold and unflinching debut, Becoming Me: A Trans Memoir – A Trans Woman’s Guide to Radical Self-Love. Part lyrical memoir, part defiant manifesto, Shelton’s book is a raw, radiant chronicle of survival, self-discovery, and sacred transformation.
With the grace of a poet and the grit of a woman who has walked through fire, Julia invites readers not only to witness her journey but to begin (or deepen) their own.
Becoming Me opens with a tender, painful recollection of childhood, a time when gender was both a secret truth and a source of silent shame. Shelton paints early life with aching honesty: the confusion of being assigned male, the ache of invisibility, the early traumas that left her unmoored long before she had the language to name her reality. Her story is neither linear nor sanitized, and that’s what makes it so powerful. It is nonlinear healing. It is poetry breaking into prose. It is a woman wrestling with, and eventually embracing, the parts of herself the world told her to bury.
2025,
English,
Julia Shelton,
USA,
Full title: "Bad Ink: How The New York Times Sold Out Transgender Teens" by Riki Anne Wilchins.
In Bad Ink: How The New York Times Sold Out Transgender Teens, award-winning activist and author Riki Anne Wilchins delivers a deeply researched, incisive, and unflinching exposé on how one of the world’s most respected newspapers abandoned its progressive stance on transgender rights in favor of what can only be described as a calculated campaign against transgender youth.
This book is not merely a critique of journalistic missteps, it is a bold indictment of systemic bias, media complicity, and the devastating impact such narratives have on the lives of vulnerable young people. Through clear-eyed analysis and chilling documentation, Wilchins shows how the New York Times became not just a passive observer of the backlash against trans rights, but an active participant.
Wilchins traces the roots of this ideological shift to 2015, just as A. G. Sulzberger was rising to power as the new Publisher. Up to that point, the Times had been a relatively consistent supporter of transgender rights. But under Sulzberger’s tenure, something changed. The coverage took a sharp and disturbing turn.
2024,
English,
Riki Wilchins,
USA,
Full title: "Finding Eve: Raising a transgender teen in Idaho" by Michael Devitt and Angie Devitt.
In the heart of one of America’s most conservative states, a powerful, deeply personal, and transformative story has emerged. Finding Eve: Raising a Transgender Teen in Idaho (2024) by Michael and Angie Devitt is more than a memoir, it's a clarion call for compassion, understanding, and bravery. It tells the story of their daughter, Eve Devitt, an extraordinary young woman whose courage and authenticity have inspired not only her family and community but countless others across the nation.
Set in Boise, Idaho, Finding Eve begins with a quiet but growing storm, the dawning awareness that their child, assigned male at birth, was experiencing something deeper and more profound than confusion or rebellion. What unfolds is a story of gender dysphoria recognized not as a problem to be solved, but as a truth to be honored. As Eve begins to articulate her experience and identity, her parents are confronted with questions many families of transgender youth face: What does it mean to be supportive? How do you protect your child from a world that isn’t ready?
Michael and Angie do not sugarcoat their journey. The book walks readers through the complexity of coming out within a family that, like many, was unprepared for what lay ahead. Their daughter’s transition challenged their assumptions, tested their relationships, and required a level of self-reflection and vulnerability that few parenting books prepare you for. But through honest conversations and unwavering love, the Devitts transformed what could have been a breaking point into a source of incredible strength.
2024,
English,
Eve Devitt,
USA,
Full title: "Her Name Is Alice: A new 2025 memoir exploring grief, love and the transgender experience, from the mother of Alice Litman" by Caroline Litman.
Her Name Is Alice is a poignant memoir by Caroline Litman, sharing the heartrending journey of her daughter Alice’s life, transition, and untimely death. This deeply personal account sheds light on the challenges faced by transgender individuals and their families.
Alice Litman died by suicide in May 2022 at the age of 20, after waiting nearly three years for her first appointment at a gender identity clinic. Her prolonged wait for gender-affirming healthcare significantly impacted her mental health.
In Her Name Is Alice, Caroline Litman candidly reflects on her initial struggles to accept Alice's transition, the societal stigmas they encountered, and her profound regrets. She emphasizes the urgent need for improved support systems and acceptance for transgender individuals.
The memoir has garnered early praise for its unflinching honesty and emotional depth. Comedian Sofie Hagen described it as "thoughtful, beautiful, incredibly necessary," urging everyone to read it, especially those resistant to its themes. Author Richard Beard called it "uncompromising, anguished," highlighting the real victims of culture wars.
Caroline Litman hopes that by sharing Alice's story, she can raise awareness about the challenges faced by transgender individuals and advocate for timely, compassionate healthcare. She states, "We can never bring Alice back, but we will keep campaigning to ensure all trans people are able to live in dignity and receive the healthcare they need and deserve."
Her Name Is Alice is a testament to a mother's enduring love and a call to action for a more inclusive and supportive society.
2025,
Alice Litman,
English,
USA,
Full title: "Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy Seal's Journey to Coming Out Transgender" by Kristin Beck and Anne Speckhard.
Kristin Beck’s Warrior Princess: A U.S. Navy SEAL’s Journey to Coming Out Transgender, co-authored with Anne Speckhard, is a raw and deeply personal memoir that provides a rare glimpse into the life of a highly decorated Navy SEAL navigating the complexities of gender identity. The book is both an account of Beck’s distinguished military career and an exploration of the emotional and psychological turmoil she faced before embracing her true self.
Beck’s military experiences, spanning 20 years and 13 deployments, including service with the elite SEAL Team Six, make for gripping reading. She recounts intense combat situations and the unwavering camaraderie among soldiers, but beneath the valor and discipline, she harbored a profound sense of dissonance. The memoir does not shy away from detailing the pressures of hypermasculinity within the military, an environment that often left Beck feeling alienated. Her transition was not just a personal journey but a public statement that challenged deeply ingrained perceptions of gender in one of the most traditionally masculine institutions.
2013,
English,
Interview,
Kristin Beck,
USA,
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.
In Tonacity: The Tona Brown Story, readers are offered an unfiltered, emotionally resonant, and deeply inspiring look into the life of one of America's most trailblazing artists, Tona Brown. This compelling collection of interviews, compiled over four years by St. Louis-based writer and musician Chris King, presents not only the raw and riveting narrative of Tona's journey as a transgender musician of color but also serves as a vital cultural artifact documenting the resilience, complexity, and brilliance of Black transgender women in America.
Tona Brown, a classically trained violinist and mezzo-soprano, is a history-maker: the first transgender woman to perform at Carnegie Hall and the first African American transgender woman to perform for a U.S. president. Yet Tonacity reveals that behind these milestones lies a woman whose journey has been shaped by profound pain, hard-won triumphs, and a relentless drive to uplift others. Structured around interview transcriptions, the book captures Tona’s voice with exceptional authenticity. The format allows her story to unfold naturally, raw, reflective, and powerfully human. Chris King’s role is more than that of an interviewer; he is a thoughtful curator who knows when to step back and let Tona speak, and when to frame her words with valuable context drawn from academic research, cultural commentary, and lived experiences of the broader transgender community.
2023,
English,
Interview,
Tona Brown,
USA,
