Transgender Biographies

River Ocean - Totally Not a Trans Cult Leader

Full title: "Totally Not a Trans Cult Leader: Commune Guide and Memoir" by River Ocean.

"The commune that started in a run-down apartment somehow survived into a farm on some land. How? From River Meets the Ocean, a cult survivor and brown transgender woman with the altogether too much queer audacity, comes Totally Not a Cult Leader: Commune Guide and Memoir. She details steps needed to build the commune strong enough to withstand the issues of today.

Externally it includes rituals like house meetings and validating others' emotions. Internally it includes rituals and prompts to get to know oneself better. Sprinkled in are stories from her life that got her to the point of starting a successful commune in today's world. Together they blend together in a way that creates a larger how-to guide of what it takes to build community internally and externally."

Full title: "How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States" by Joanne Meyerowitz.

"How Sex Changed is a fascinating social, cultural, and medical history of transsexuality in the United States. Joanne Meyerowitz tells a powerful human story about people who had a deep and unshakable desire to transform their bodily sex. In the last century when many challenged the social categories and hierarchies of race, class, and gender, transsexuals questioned biological sex itself, the category that seemed most fundamental and fixed of all.

From early twentieth-century sex experiments in Europe, to the saga of Christine Jorgensen, whose sex-change surgery made headlines in 1952, to today’s growing transgender movement, Meyerowitz gives us the first serious history of transsexuality. She focuses on the stories of transsexual men and women themselves, as well as a large supporting cast of doctors, scientists, journalists, lawyers, judges, feminists, and gay liberationists, as they debated the big questions of medical ethics, nature versus nurture, self and society, and the scope of human rights."

Full title: "Kuri Aruththen/குறி அறுத்தேன்" (I cut the mark) by Kalki Subramaniam/கல்கி சுப்ரமணியம்.

Each word of Kalki Subramaniam's poetry comes from her heart like an arrow from a bow, it shoots rage against gender injustice, the poems are powerful, sarcastic, and challenging, and show the pride in the writer in her identity as a transgender woman.

From transgender people's lives to climate issues, her Tamil poems are deep, and heart-touching and would leave an impact on the reader for many days after reading the book. I interviewed Kalki in 2014 and asked her what she thinks about the present situation of transgender women in the Indian society in general: "It is sure changing for better in some states like Tamilnadu and Karnataka. However, many states of India still are not safe places for transgender people to live, for example, Kerala.

Full title: "The Other Side of the Mirror: A Wife's Memoir of a Nightmare" by Gayle Weinberg.

"A memoir reflecting on the dramatic shift in a marriage following the husband's coming out as transgender and the profound effect the transition had on the woman left behind. For fifteen years, Gayle Weinberg thought she was married to a confident husband. Looking back at the early years of her marriage, Gayle described her husband as strong, smart, self-assured, and a "real Alpha male."

Then, her husband dropped a bombshell into their relationship: He was, and always had been, desperate to be a woman. He had already seen counselor and had determined the best course of action for his life would be to begin transition."

Full title: "In Between: A Memoir" by Kate Birdsall.

"Just after World War II, a child in Detroit found no words to describe the mismatch between body and soul. It would be decades before Kate Birdsall claimed her true self and transitioned, at 65. In Between is Kate’s story. As Kate made her way through jobs, homes, and relationships, she and our culture slowly developed the vocabulary to express who she was.

By turns practical and personal, In Between shares a story more often lived than told. When Kate finds the love of her life as her true self, it proves that not every transgender story is a tragedy. Now adapted as the feature film, Strictly for the Birds, Kate’s story is an inspiration for anyone who has ever been relegated to the category of Other."

Original title: "Travestie in Nederland en Vlaanderen" (Travesty in the Netherlands and Flanders) by Paul Vennix.

Cross-dressing is usually different from what people are presented with in the media. Most transvestites keep it jealously hidden from their surroundings and certainly don't go out in a dress. They dare not show who they are.

In this transgender study, in which nearly five hundred transvestites from the Netherlands and Flanders participated, transvestism is examined in depth from various angles. Extensive attention is paid to what wearing women's clothing means for transvestites; cross-dressing turns out to be necessary for them.

Full title: "Mommy, I’m a Girl!: My Acceptance Journey Mothering a Transgender Child" by Tasha Kuxhausen.

"Tasha Kuxhausen’s son was just three years old the first time he said, “Mommy, I’m a girl!” When Tasha Kuxhausen heard those words, she knew in her heart it was time to embrace a reality her mind had been unwilling to accept. Charlie’s obsession with all things female wasn’t a phase; he wasn’t confused; he wasn’t gay.

Although born with male anatomy, Charlie’s brain and heart were that of a girl. And he knew it by the time he was three years old. Told from the very personal perspective of a loving mother torn between social constructs and her son’s gender nonconforming behavior, Mommy, I’m a Girl! Takes readers inside the mind of a parent coming to terms with raising a transgender child.

Full title: "My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely" by Kate Bornstein.

Gender isn't just about "male" or "female" anymore, if you have any doubts, just turn on your television. RuPaul is as familiar as tomato ketchup, and transgender people have become regulars on talk shows and reality TV. But while the mainstreaming of gender variance might reveal the cracks in the binary, it doesn't necessarily help us figure out where to go from here. Cultural theorists have written volumes on the topic, often in inaccessible academic language. What was missing, until Kate Bornstein came along, was a playful, hands-on guide to help us navigate and create our own gender identities. My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Man, a Real Woman, the Real You, or Something Else Entirely is exactly that.

Published in 1998, Bornstein's My Gender Workbook is part workbook, part philosophical challenge, and part joyful rebellion. It starts from a radical, yet increasingly intuitive idea: that there are not just two genders, but countless. What society lumps into "male" and "female" is only a small slice of the wild spectrum of identity and expression available to us. Using a deceptively light tone filled with quizzes, diagrams, pop culture references, and humor, Bornstein invites readers into a kind of gender laboratory where they can test, discard, and reinvent pieces of identity at will. She uses the USDA food pyramid to explain gender roles, pokes fun at Mars and Venus books by blasting them to Uranus, and weaves in testimonies from real “gender outlaws.”

Original title: "Handboekje voor de transseksuele vrouw haar entourage en voor belangstellenden" (Handbook for the transsexual woman and her entourage and for interested parties) by Che Dansart.

"Not published as a paper book. Towards a deeper insightful understanding of the transition path from man to woman. About the psychological experience of transsexuality with special attention to the intertwining of gender experience with the experience of sexuality and sexual orientation. From despair to inner strength, unity and happiness on our way and practical hints through the transition.

Transsexual Che Dansart, now female, was born male; she underwent gender reassignment surgery and during the process she gathered a wealth of knowledge and experience that she wrote down in the book HANDBOOK for the transsexual woman – her entourage and for stakeholders. For 54 years, the Belgian transsexual Che Dansart walked around in a man's body. A man who had built a career, a fairly well-known filmmaker. Yet Che threw everything into becoming a woman. “As a man I was wise, respected, so to speak. I know others can't really understand it. But transsexuality is something that gnaws at you, like an irresistible drive that you will do anything for at some point.”

Full title: "My Body Is Distant: A Memoir" by Paige Maylott.

"In My Body Is Distant, Paige Maylott writes about her life ― both virtual and IRL ― as she explores her authentic self and sexuality through dream-like virtual worlds. While Paige dances in online BDSM clubs and hurls spells on virtual battlefields, she is swept into a fairy tale romance that pushes her into discovery mode: How can she transcend her carefully curated computer universe and manifest that happiness in the real world?

As she discovers the person she is meant to be, Paige contends with a cancer diagnosis and an imploding marriage while struggling to convert an online love story into reality. When a humiliation at work provides the necessary push to transition, Paige finds the freedom to explore her new self. Part trans woman’s coming-out story and part heartfelt romance, My Body Is Distant follows Paige from a childhood obsession with the 1980s game Zork, through a health crisis and divorce, to, ultimately, an affirmation of authenticity and self-love."

Full title: "One Sunny Afternoon: A Memoir of Trauma and Healing" by Amanda Jette Knox.

"For writer and human rights advocate Amanda Jetté Knox, the inspiring story of their family’s journey of love and acceptance, when both their child and partner came out as transgender one after the other, was the hopeful beginning to their new lives. Their tale, shared in her memoir Love Lives Here and embraced by readers everywhere, quickly found its way to the top of bestseller lists.

Yet in the spring of 2020, Amanda began to experience targeted attacks on social media, and they soon became the subject of a small but very vocal group that criticized their book’s success and their advocacy work. The intensity of the backlash grew and drove Amanda to contemplate suicide. But instead of taking their life, on one sunny afternoon, they went to the hospital to seek help."

Full title: "Wiebke werden V: Teil V eines Tagebuchs von jemandem, der genetisch männlich geboren wurde, die sich aber als transident definiert (Jan. - Apr. 2022)" (Becoming Wiebke V: Part V of a diary written by someone who was born genetically male but considers herself transgender (Jan - Apr. 2022)) by Wiebke ter Lichten.

"This is the fifth part of my ever-growing diary and I strongly recommend reading the earlier parts first. I had ended my third book stating that I wouldn't publish any further parts, unless there'd be major progress to report. At the time I didn't expect that to happen, but it did! That's why I'm now publishing three new installments of my diary since then in a short time frame. I am in transition for a year now and of course I've kept on writing my diary and I've reached a point where publishing makes sense again. The speed of my progression has increased and my social transition may well be halfway through. This part covers the time frame between January and April 2022."

Full title: "The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation" by Raquel Willis.

"In 2017, Raquel Willis took to the National Women’s March podium just after the presidential election of Donald Trump, primed to tell her story as a young Black transgender woman from the South. Despite having her speaking time cut short, the appearance only deepened her commitment to speaking up for communities on the margins.

Born in Augusta, Georgia, to Black Catholic parents, Raquel spent years feeling isolated, even within a loving, close-knit family. There was little access to understanding what it meant to be queer and transgender. It wasn’t until she went to the University of Georgia that she found the LGBTQ+ community, fell in love, and explored her gender for the first time. But the unexpected death of her father forced her to examine her relationship with herself and those she loved. These years of grief, misunderstanding, and hard-won epiphanies seeped into the soil of her life, serving as fertilizer for growth and allowing her to bloom within."

Full title: "Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls" by Kai Cheng Thom.

"Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, psychotherapist, conflict mediator, and spiritual healer, she’s always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being, no matter how hateful or horrible, is intrinsically sacred.

But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith, overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated one another, and barely clinging to the values and ideals she’d built her life around: justice, hope, love, and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism, she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith: she wrote. Whether prayers or spells or poems—and whether there’s a difference—she wrote to affirm the outcasts and runaways she calls her kin. She wrote to flawed but nonetheless lovable men, to people with good intentions who harm their own, to racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. What emerged was a blueprint for falling back in love with being human."

Original title: "Yumewoakiramenaide 68-sai de seibetsutekigō shujutsu" 夢をあきらめないで 68歳で性別適合手術 (Don't give up on your dreams: Gender reassignment surgery at 68) by Akemi Mitsuchi 三土明笑.

"The author is now a 70-year-old economist. From her childhood, she felt uncomfortable with her male body. She took action as LGBT awareness spread, but she soon developed bipolar disorder and fell into a long period of depression. She overcame his dysphoria and underwent gender reassignment surgery after retirement.

When she was a boy, she said that she "wanted to be a man (to have a man's heart)," even though she was a woman at heart. A glimpse of the pressure from society can be seen in the fact that she wanted to be a man rather than a woman. The book chronicles her journey from nearly a decade of suffering, mostly depressed, to the point where she came to believe in her own way of life."

Full title: "Finding the Real Me: True Tales of Sex and Gender Diversity" by Tracie O'Keefe and Katrina Fox.

"Finding the Real Me is an extraordinary collection of real-life stories told by a wide-range of sex and gender diverse people. These healing tales of struggle and transformation reveal just how creative, resourceful, and adventurous the individuals in this community can be and also helps to bridge the gap between ignorance and understanding.

As each incredible story unfolds we become part of the author's journey to self-acceptance and join the celebration of their new life. Page by page, we laugh, cry, and learn to appreciate these wonderful courageous people and the road they walked to be their true selves. Finding the Real Me is a landmark book that encourages us to embrace diversity, to never fear our differences, and to remain always in awe of our amazing possibilities."

Full title: "It's Not Over: Insights of A New Woman" by Karen Lyra.

"In March of 2021, I published my first book titled “Finding Myself – Discovering My Gender Identity”. As I explained on it, the realization that I was transgender came late in my life although I felt something was not “right” with me since I was a child; been born with a male body, but feeling I wanted to be a girl.

It took me a long time with an inner fight through phases of denial that always ended with a new phase of acceptance that was growing as years passed by until I finally accepted I am transgender. The inner fight about my gender identity has finally finished. I learned to embrace my realization of being transgender and end loving myself completely for who I am. I had found myself, finally. What should I do next? What my next step should be?"

"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."

Full title: "The Red Light Runner" by Bobbi Lancaster.

"Dr. Bob Lancaster was a family physician with a buried secret: he felt more natural and comfortable as a woman. As a child he concealed his feelings for fear of being bullied; during adulthood, he was afraid of losing his reputation and practice. When he did confess to a priest at fourteen, he was told his desires were sinful. Even as he became a husband and father, he engaged in cross-dressing and dreamed of being female.

After years of yearning and despair, Dr. Bob gave up and planned suicide. He recovered after his attempt failed, but his depression continued. When he suffered a stroke and confronted his own mortality for the first time, he finally underwent gender confirmation surgery shortly before his sixtieth birthday."

Full title: "Sex Change - Male to Female: An Essential Guide for Understanding the Process of Gender Reassignment Surgery and Getting to Know the New You" by Eleanor Nye.

"Sex change surgery is a life-changing decision that has to be thoroughly considered and thought through. However, if you’ve reached the point of hating yourself for being male, or where being male is negatively affecting your mental and emotional health, then perhaps a male to female (MTF) sex change is the right step for you in order to feel like a more authentic version of yourself.

Before you proceed, there are some vital facts that you should know. The process is not as simple and straightforward as you might think. There are rules implemented by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) before any surgery can be performed."

"Dilemma: Verandering van sekse" (Dilemma: Change of sex) is the Dutch language edition of "Conundrum" by Jan Morris.

I found this nice intro on Goodreads: "The great travel writer Jan Morris was born James Morris. James Morris distinguished himself in the British military, became a successful and physically daring reporter, climbed mountains, crossed deserts, and established a reputation as a historian of the British empire. He was happily married, with several children. To all appearances, he was not only a man, but a man’s man."

And here is an excerpt from a fantastic review from Transascity: "Conundrum is an autobiography, a tale about the life and transsexual journey of Jan Morris, noted British journalist and author. Born Humphrey Morris, Jan led an idyllic if somewhat lonely childhood, feeling since age 3 or 4 that she was born into the wrong body."

Full title: "Eternal Rainbow Dawn: A Trans Woman Realized" by Rhiannon Tibbetts.

"This is a story of perseverance in the face of pain, ostracism, and oppression. The author has worked hard to fully become who she always was deep in her heart, body, and mind. She has had scant resources in her quest to become fully female, and she has also had to wage an ongoing battle with mental illness throughout her life.

She has an abiding faith that has guided her and supported her along the way. She has maintained her deep connection with Christ, despite the fact that many in her transgender community feel troubled with the treatment that some folks that call themselves Christians show towards people in the trans community. Rhiannon has finally found some peace and satisfaction in her golden years after having struggled on so many fronts throughout much of her life."

Full title: "The Lady and the Dale car: The true story of a con-man who desguised as a woman to create a false car in 1970s America" by David Serero.

The book presents Geraldine Elizabeth "Liz" Carmichael, an American automobile executive and convicted fraudster. During the 1970s energy crisis, she promoted a prototype for a low-cost fuel-efficient car via Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation, but fled with investor money. She was captured in 1989, and served 18 months on fraud charges. She was born Jerry Dean Michael in Indiana in 1927. She grew up in Jasonville, Indiana, later moving to Detroit, Michigan with her family.

According to Wikipedia, Carmichael married four times while identifying as Jerry Dean Michael. She was charged with desertion for leaving her first wife, Marga, whom she met while stationed in Germany, and their two children.

Original title: "Die Transautolegasthenistin" (The transautodyslexic) by Nicole Doll and Nikolai Fritz.

This book was to become something like an autobiography by the author Nikolai Fritz under the title "The Autodyslexist". It started with a lot of euphoria, but then remained largely unfinished on the computer's hard drive. Then Nikolai Fritz became a woman - Nicole Doll. She now has little or no interest in para-science and even less in fantasy stories. But it was time to speak out about what had happened to Nikolai Fritz. So she picked up the manuscript she had started and added an account of the transformation from man to woman.

The "autodyslexic" became a "transautodyslexic". The biography that had started was thus expanded into a trans biography. The result is a mixture of novel, biography, non-fiction, satire, and whatever else. Nicole Doll / Nikolai Fritz does not want to instruct anyone and does not claim to be scientifically correct at any point. Therefore, he/she also does not indicate the sources of his/her findings.

Full title: "Little People Big Dreams: Laverne Cox" by Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara.

!¡Hola! My name is Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara and I’m a writer and creative director from Barcelona. When I was a little girl, I used to read books under the covers with a flashlight once my mom had turned the light off. I always wanted to be a writer… but when I grew up, I ended up in advertising. It was a lot of fun though; I loved working with directors, photographers, designers, and I also wrote scripts, documentaries and texts for all kinds of things."

"Then, I decided to self-publish a book that had been in my mind for a long time. One day, one thousand copies of the book arrived at my home – I had no idea what I was going to do with them! I opened a little online shop, offered them to some pretty stores in my neighborhood and, one by one, I sold them all. Soon, publishing houses started to approach me to write books, but I was working on another idea of my own: a series about little people with BIG dreams."

Full title: "Why Drag?" by Magnus Hastings.

"Photographer Magnus Hastings' new book Why Drag? asks this most basic question of drag queens in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. And the answers range from cliché to surprising in this gorgeous and lush coffeetable tome on this bombastic cultural phenomenon as it reaches new heights in a time of cultural change about gender identity and expression.

While there have been many photography books of drag queens, no one has given it the polish and sparkle that Hastings has with his 135 portraits, including familiar faces like Trixie Mattel, Paige Turner, Bianca Del Rio, Jinkx Monsoon and Major Scales, Jackie Beat, Milk, Lady Bunny, Tammie Brown, Raja, Peaches Christ, Detox, Willam, and cover model Courtney Act.

Original title: "Trans Und Ich: Gefangen Im Falschen Körper - Teil 1" (Trans and Me: Trapped in the Wrong Body - Part 1) by Stefanie Claudia Schmitz.

In this book, the author Stefanie Claudia Schmitz tells of her ordeal and the difficult and often rocky path she had to take as a trans woman in order to be able to live her real life. In addition to her life story, the author also explains common terms and names some social network groups and contact points that those affected, relatives or interested parties can turn to.

The author Stefanie Claudia Schmitz was born in Cologne in 1981 and felt as a child that she belonged to the female sex. Due to the lack of support from her family, a decade-long long ordeal until she came out completely in 2021 and finally began to live.

Available via Amazon

Full title: "Turning Inside Out" by Emily Pittman Newberry.

"Stories of real lives, like Turning Inside Out, help all of us remember the particularity of our own lives and the challenges we have faced or avoided in living authentically as who we are. These stories are critical in the changing of attitudes and the ending of violence. These stories also offer hope that all of us may finally be able to accept and love ourselves as all we are. I love Emily’s candid and engaging writing.

I love the details she re- members and shares of her journey. I was moved by the times when her heart was broken and the moments of reconciliation. But my strongest reaction is gratitude for Emily’s willingness to share the truth of her life and the remarkable example of courage her story offers us all as a gift."

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River Ocean - Totally Not a Trans Cult Leader

Joanne Meyerowitz - How Sex Changed

Kalki Subramaniam - Kuri Aruththen

Gayle Weinberg - The Other Side of the Mirror

Kate Birdsall - In Between: A Memoir

Paul Vennix - Travestie in Nederland en Vlaanderen

Tasha Kuxhausen - Mommy, I’m a Girl!

Kate Bornstein - My Gender Workbook

Che Dansart - Handboekje voor de transseksuele...

Paige Maylott - My Body Is Distant: A Memoir

Amanda Jette Knox - One Sunny Afternoon

Wiebke ter Lichten - Wiebke werden V

Raquel Willis - The Risk It Takes to Bloom: On Life and Liberation

Kai Cheng Thom - Falling Back in Love with Being Human

Akemi Mitsuchi - Yumewoakiramenaide 68-sai de...

Tracie O'Keefe & Katrina Fox - Finding the Real Me

Karen Lyra - It's Not Over: Insights of A New Woman

Akwaeke Emezi - Manantial

Bobbi Lancaster - The Red Light Runner

Eleanor Nye - Sex Change: Male to Female

Jan Morris - Dilemma: Verandering van sekse

Rhiannon Tibbetts - Eternal Rainbow Dawn

David Serero - The Lady and the Dale car

Nicole Doll & Nikolai Fritz - Die Transautolegasthenistin

Maria Isabel Sánchez Vegara - Little People Big Dreams

Magnus Hastings - Why Drag?

Stefanie Claudia Schmitz - Trans Und Ich

Emily Pittman Newberry - Turning Inside Out

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