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.

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Kalki Subramaniam - We Are Not The Others

Full title: "We Are Not The Others: Reflections of a Transgender Artivist" by Kalki Subramaniam.

"‘We Are Not The Others’ is a strikingly moving book that touches the heart of its readers, and takes them on a furious and empathetic journey into the personal lives of transgender people of India. It is a one-of-a-kind book from India’s renowned transgender rights activist Kalki Subramaniam who blatantly and honestly speaks about the joys, hopes, struggles, and despair of a transgender person, the author herself, and ferociously upholds her dignity and that of others like her."

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. The state has 100% literacy but has 0% tolerance when it comes to accepting transgender people and allowing them to live a dignified life. India still has a long way to go in recognizing transgender people’s rights. I believe it will happen for sure in the coming years."

Alana Portero and Others - Vidas Trans

Original title: "Vidas Trans" (Trans Lives) by Alana Portero, Arnau Macías, Cassandra Vera, Darío Gael Blanco, Atenea Bioque, Qamar B. Al-Khansa.

Trans people are one of the worst-treated groups in our society. In a country with a life expectancy of eighty-three years, we allow a social group, that of trans women, to be subjected to such a degree of violence that it barely reaches fifty. This data alone should alert the media, implement specific laws, and promote reparation measures. But none of that happens.

On the contrary, this group has to continue to endure very serious deficiencies in their medical treatment, constant institutional violence, unemployment that is close to eighty-five percent and humiliation by society. In this book, several trans people tell their experiences in different fields: work, the education system, social networks, family, marriage, media and the medical system. They speak in the first person of their experiences under the shadow of that violence, but also of their courage and their struggle.

Shon Faye - The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice

Full title: "The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice" by Shon Faye.

"Trans people in Britain today have become a culture war 'issue'. Despite making up less than 1% of the country's population, they are the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarised 'debate', which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and talk shows. This media frenzy conceals a simple fact: that we are having the wrong conversation, a conversation in which trans people themselves are reduced to a talking point and denied a meaningful voice.

In this powerful new book, Shon Faye reclaims the idea of the 'transgender issue' to uncover the reality of what it means to be trans in a transphobic society. In doing so, she provides a compelling, wide-ranging analysis of trans lives from youth to old age, exploring work, family, housing, healthcare, the prison system, and trans participation in the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities, in contemporary Britain and beyond."

Avarino Caracò - La Crisalide e le Lantane: Diario di un uomo...

Original title: "La Crisalide e le Lantane. Diario di un uomo cisgender" (The Chrysalis and the Lantanas: Diary of a cisgender man) by Avarino Caracò.

The book is an intimate journey of a cisgender photographer, motivated to know some individual and daily aspects of eleven people, five transgender MtF, five transgender FtM, and one non-binary, united only by the Sicilian territory in which they live, but profoundly different from each other.

In research that has no didactic purpose and even less of synthesis, Avarino Caracò tells the details of his meeting with these people without hiding the difficulties and the deep emotions that are triggered within the relationships that are created. Against every stereotype, against every morbidly sexualized vision of gender identity, the visual path of this book underlines the elements of everyday life, accompanying us towards a profound reflection on "normality" and existence. The book closes with an afterword by Cirus Rinaldi, associate professor of sociology at the Department of Cultures and Society of the University of Palermo, with a profound reflection on the concept of transition.

Rose Barkhimer - Triple Trans: One Woman's Journey to Freedom

Full title: "Triple Trans: One Woman's Journey to Freedom" by Rose Barkhimer.

"For me, Triple Trans means: 1) Transgender, the knowledge that one has been born with the incorrect physical body, 2) Transverse myelitis, a neurological affliction that was a catalyst in my decision to change gender, and 3) Transition, the process of change.

It is my hope that Triple Trans finds its way to at least one individual who is wrestling with the conundrum that is gender dysphoria and that my story helps them to understand their own journey."

Julieta Morales - Santa Carolina

Original title: "Santa Carolina" (Saint Caroline) by Julieta Morales.

Santa Carolina is the story of Carol Murcia, a Honduran trans woman who was forced to flee her country. During a sex work outing, one of her colleagues was brutally murdered by a man in a clear hate attack. The transfemicide of her friend was nothing more than the tip of the iceberg of sexist violence: from the homophobia of Honduran criminal organizations to the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, through the absence of the State.

Carol had to escape to Barcelona to avoid the same fate as her partner, requesting asylum for persecution based on gender identity. In Catalonia, her face papered the streets as the visible face of Pride 2018 while, behind the scenes, transphobia showed that it knew no borders. Europe had not fulfilled its homework either.

Toshio Meronek & Miss Major Griffin-Gracy - Miss Major Speaks

Full title: "Miss Major Speaks: Conversations with a Black Trans Revolutionary" by Toshio Meronek & Miss Major Griffin-Gracy.

"Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a transgender elder and activist who has survived Bellevue psychiatric hospital, Attica Prison, the HIV/AIDS crisis and a world that white supremacy has built. She has shared tips with other sex workers in the nascent drag ball scene of the late 1960s, and helped found one of America’s first needle exchange clinics from the back of her van."

"Miss Major Speaks is both document of her brilliant life–told with intimacy, warmth and an undeniable levity-and a roadmap for the challenges black, brown, queer and trans youth will face on the path to liberation today."

Colette Piat - Elles ... "les travestis": La verite sur les...

Original title: "Elles ... "les travestis": La verite sur les transsexuels" (They ... "the transvestites": The truth about transsexuals) by Colette Piat.

One evening, around midnight, on the edge of the Wood, Colette Piat broke down... Night beauties came to her rescue... After they left, she realized that they were not ordinary "women"... Because of this meeting, the author wanted to question the others, those who are called "transvestites". Marie-Andrée, feminized by Nazi doctors; Eva, a fifty-five-year-old worker, who has been receiving a reduced salary since her operation; Lucretia, chosen among several models for a publicity photograph of a mother; Chimène, enslaved by a companion "phallocrat"; Jeanne-Marie, seduced by the man of her dreams who turned out to be... A woman, all force us to question our ideas, demonstrating, by their very existence, the absurdity of prejudices affecting the feminine condition and homosexuality. Mutants? Afflicted women of a male sex? What is certain is that they are both sought on the sexual level and hunted by the Police, Justice, and the Administration. "You know what society means to us?" one of them asks; "It is a cage like that of Louis XI; You can't lie down, get up, or move, and yet you're alive... »

Jennie Kermode - Growing Older as a Trans and/or Non-Binary...

Full title: "Growing Older as a Trans and/or Non-Binary Person: A Support Guide" by Jennie Kermode.

"Drawing on the experiences of older trans people and those transitioning later in life, this is a definitive guide to ageing as a trans and/or non-binary person. It covers the key health concerns and social issues affecting older trans people, including care homes, pensions, inheritance and funeral planning, as well as hormone use and physical changes, isolation, and dementia.

Kermode also provides guidance for professionals looking to better meet the needs of these individuals and highlights the important factors that need to be considered at an institutional level to provide the best care for people across the gender spectrum."

Akwaeke Emezi - Tatlisu

"Tatlisu" is the Turkish 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."

Danielle Hopkins - Transitions

Full title: "Transitions" by Danielle Hopkins with the foreword by Juno Roche. I interviewed Juno in 2017.

"A visionary, moving and one-of-a-kind anthology of writing on what it means to be trans today and every day. From the daily bite of anxiety as you go to leave the house, to the freedom found swimming in the wild, through to moments of queer rage and joy and the peculiar timeslip of reliving your adolescence, the stories in this collection reveal the untold lived realities of trans people to help inform, inspire and unite. 

Spanning a range of topics such as gender dysphoria, transphobia, chest binding, gender reassignment surgery, coming out in later life, migration and love and relationships, these unique first-person accounts celebrate the beauty and diversity of being trans and will empower others on their journey. Showcasing eight new exciting trans writers, this extraordinary collection is a powerful and heartfelt love-letter to the trans community."

Julana Victoria Gleisenberg - Julana - Endlich Ich!

Original title: "Julana - Endlich Ich!: Mein Weg vom Jungen zum Mädchen" (Julana - Finally me!: My path from boy to girl) by Julana Victoria Gleisenberg.

The children's book was written by the 11-year-old trans girl Julana. Loving illustrations explain the topic in a child-friendly way. A small lexicon of terminology, written in child-friendly language, will complement the children's book.

Trans children are an integral part of our society. Unfortunately, they still have a hard time because their environment sometimes reacts negatively and with incomprehension to their special needs for self-determination. The children know in their innermost EXACTLY who they are, or who they are not. Your personal environment is often not willing to accept this knowledge. Conventions, prejudices, and old thought patterns stand in the way of deep understanding and acceptance. This often leads to devastating effects on the personality development of the children, or to mental disorders. Therefore, it is very important that our society finally wakes up and recognizes and understands the needs of trans children. An important function in this context is played by parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers, educators, and all persons who move in the environment of a child. The children's book can be used for work in school classes.

Kit Heyam - Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender

Full title: "Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender" by Kit Heyam.

"Today’s narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people’s lives."

"Before We Were Trans illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, trans historian and activist Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance. Before We Were Trans transports us from Renaissance Venice to seventeenth-century Angola, from Edo Japan to early America, and looks to the past to uncover new horizons for possible trans futures. "

Daniel María - Bisutería auténtica

Original title: "Bisutería auténtica" (Authentic costume jewellery) by Daniel María.

Authentic Jewelry is a chronicle of love for dissident and camp identities, personified in these eight stories by transvestites, transformistas, and trans women. A jewelry box with which the author pays tribute to those who have helped build his culture, imagination, and personality.

"That older transvestite looked at me and smiled at me. She winked. Her eyelid supported the universe. It's the closest thing to a blessing I've ever felt. A goddess. Yes. A revelation. The anointing of the sacred. The blessed oil of transvestites is an eye shadow. I knew that this older transvestite was a mother, a sister, and an inspiration. That my childhood had originated in her steps. Without knowing it, I made her a promise. Someday she would imagine her life and write it down. I've called her Gladis, the Blonde, Lola Jurado, Sarasa, Nancy, Cherilyn... I've dreamed her life in a thousand ways, at different stages, in different places."

Sherilyn Connelly - Beautiful Ghosts: A Queer Memoir of San...

Full title: "Beautiful Ghosts: A Queer Memoir of San Francisco" by Sherilyn Connelly.

"A Generation X transgender woman, Sherilyn Connelly came out of the closet in 1999. Her own identity still emerging, she had stumbled into a difficult, stifling relationship. Also, her employment at a tech company ceased when the dot-com bubble burst. It was a goth boy from Bolinas that first took her shopping for make-up, and the San Francisco goth scene became her respite. This wickedly eye-opening memoir reveals how Connelly dealt with a toxic partner and found her voice as a woman. A longtime cinephile, it tells how she became a writer, rekindled a love for cult films and horror conventions, and learned "the secret to becoming a star."

Camila Sosa Villada - O parque das irmãs magníficas

"O parque das irmãs magníficas" (The Park of the Magnificent Sisters) is the Portuguese language edition of "Las malas" (The Bad Girls) published in Argentina in 2019 by Camila Sosa Villada.

From the Argentine author Camila Sosa Villada, a book of love and affection: when we finish the last page, we want the whole world to read it too! When she arrived in the city of Córdoba to study at the university, Argentine author Camila Sosa Villada decided to go to Parque Sarmiento during the night. She was scared to death, thinking that the brutal verdict she had heard from her father could come to fruition at any moment: "One day they will knock on this door to warn me that they found you dead, thrown into a ditch." For him, this was the only possible destination for a boy who dressed as a woman.

Jillian Rae Celentano - Transitioning Later in Life

Full title: "Transitioning Later in Life" by Jillian Rae Celentano.

"This is my personal guide to help face who you are, accept who you are and love who you are, so you can watch your dreams and accomplishments flourish... If I can do it, you can do it too. Jillian Celentano lived most of her life not accepting who she was. Since beginning her transition at the age of 55, she has been able to live authentically as her true self. In this helpful and practical guide, she offers advice to other people who are transitioning later in life.

Drawing on her personal experiences, she explores topics such as coming out to children, spouses and family, coming out at work, finding your authentic voice, experimenting with style and clothing, and stepping out in public for the first time. She explains how to deal with clocking and discrimination, body dysphoria and the importance of maintaining your physical and mental health. With candour and warmth throughout, this book will support readers on their path to self-love, happiness and acceptance."

Victoria Volkova - Victoria: Mi camino hacia el amor propio

Original title: "Victoria: Mi camino hacia el amor propio" (Victoria: My Path to Self-Love) by Victoria Volkova.

"I can say that my biggest victory so far has been daring to be myself, and when I say myself I mean my crudest version, without editing, without filters and showing my most vulnerable side." Years before her success on social networks, Victoria Volkova faced complex situations: bullying, limitations, misunderstanding, and accusations of a society that looks at diversity, rejects trans people, and that limits us all.

It got to such a point that Victoria felt that being the way she was was wrong, which had underlined society to the point of exhaustion. After various internal and external struggles, Volkova reached her path to self-acceptance and self-love, although none of this was easy.

Josée Yvon - Travesties-kamikaze

Original title: "Travesties-kamikaze" (Transvestites-suicide bombers) by Josée Yvon.

What underlies the whole book is that you have to cross-dress to live: to cross-dress to survive, to exist; You can never be yourself, you always have to change your personality to live in a society. - Josée Yvon

"Francine thought of all her friends: the crossers, the killed, the abused, the stupid, the wonderful. These and a host of others are the facets that sparkle, the insects that swarm, caught in the gear of the margins, within transvesties-kamikaze."

"All the situations and characters described in this book are in no way part of fiction and any resemblance to living or dead people or real places is intended and written to represent them."

The fragments of stories, poems, and collages that make up Transvesties-kamikaze make it a charged, degenerate and powerful object. Reality appears in close-up, in pieces; The thread of events dissolves in the night and in alcohol, in rape and stabbings, drugs and medicines. For Francine, Gina, Brigitte, Jasmine, Josée Yvon's furious and pictorial narration is a den, a place pierced by "holes in the plaster that crumbles, but comfortable, warm, weird, attractive, perhaps a family". And she added, 'I'm a claim when I run out of gas.'

Larry Nuttbrock - Transgender Sex Work and Society

Full title: "Transgender Sex Work and Society" by Larry Nuttbrock.

"This is the only book that systematically examines transgender sex work in the United States and globally. Bringing together perspectives from a rich range of disciplines and experiences, it is an invaluable resource on issues related to commercial sex in the transgender community and in the lives of trans sex workers, including mental health, substance use, relationship dynamics, encounters with the criminal justice system, and opportunities and challenges in the realm of public health."

"The volume covers trans sex workers' interactions with health, social service, and mental-health agencies, featuring more than forty contributors from across the globe. Synthesizing introductions by the editor help organize and put into context a vast and scattered research and empirical literature. The book is essential for researchers, health practitioners, and policy analysts in the areas of sex-work research, HIV/AIDS, and LGBTQ/gender studies."

Ai Haruna - Haruna Ai fāsuto shashin-shū “I ♡ AI” Haruna ai...

Original title: "Haruna Ai fāsuto shashin-shū “I ♡ AI” Haruna ai no tsukurikata" - はるな愛ファースト写真集『I♡AI』はるな愛のつくり方 (Ai Haruna's first photo book "I♡AI" How to make Ai Haruna) by Ai Haruna (はるな 愛).

This is the fourth book of Ai Haruna; it is mainly a photobook. Born Kenji Onishi in 1972, she is a Japanese TV celebrity and actress, singer, businesswoman, beauty pageant queen, and transgender activist. Her childhood was a happy time but her family was poor. She has a younger brother.

At school, she was known for her musical talent, performing at different school and cultural events. When she was in junior high school, she was bullied because of her feminine manners, so she could hardly study and her grades were poor.

Manders Smith - A Year with Misty

Full title: "A Year with Misty" by Manders Smith.

"A true and poignant story of two "gurlz" who met and eventually fell in love. A rare thing in the transitory world of TVs where love takes a back window and everything is fueled by sex, parties, prostitution, alcohol, and drugs. They even had run-ins with the police.

It was a real roller coaster of a ride with so many emotional highs and lows, but they got there in the end.  They found a love that transcended sex, and as Misty said most gurlz would give their back teeth for a relationship like that. But life is fragile and Misty's husky voice became her biggest challenge.

Pavie Valsa - Štěstí ve dvaceti

"Štěstí ve dvaceti" is the Czech language edition of "Twenties and Happy: A complete guide to happiness in a little pocketbook" by Pavie Valsa.

"Twenties and Happy is a beautiful pocketbook designed to uplift and empower you so you can love and accept yourself just as you are. Every page carries a powerful message that will reconnect you back to your joy and unconditional love for self.

Author Pavie Valsa knows rejection and loneliness all too well. Having come out twice in one lifetime, once as gay and a second time as a trans woman, Pavie’s desire to show you how to love yourself at a soul level shines through every page as she lovingly guides you through simple steps to unlock the happiness and power that has lived inside all along."

Kim Harlow & Bettina Rheims - Kim

""I'll tell you... I'm not a woman", confesses Kim Harlow in this collaborative autobiography, a project with photographer Bettina Rheims. Kim was a model of Bettina Rheims in her book Modern Lovers and the central figure in Les Espionnes, and she was born a man. She died as a woman in Paris in 1992 from AIDS. This book is with Kim, but also by Kim. She had started writing about her life and why and how she decided to become a woman."

"Harlow was unable to finish her story. Her last lines are about a friend of hers who fell to AIDS. And it was that illness that cut short this work, her work. She entrusted those close to her to finish, fully aware that her days were numbered. We put together her notes, tape-recorded and written down. Not a word was crossed out in her chapters, written in a single, incisive outpouring."

Porpora Marcasciano - L'aurora delle trans cattive. Storie...

Original title: "L'aurora delle trans cattive. Storie, sguardi e vissuti della mia generazione transgender" (The dawn of bad trans women. Stories, looks and experiences of my transgender generation) by Porpora Marcasciano.

Spanning a period of about forty years and its profound socio-political changes, Porpora traces her trans genealogy by adding essential pieces to the historical reconstruction of a culture often relegated to the margins. And she does so as the protagonist of the collective path, still devoid of shared reading, of those who have consciously placed themselves in the border space between genres. With "visual" writing able to render in images what she has seen and experienced, Porpora accompanies us in a world populated by legendary trans women who have given life, form, scene, and screenplay to an experience in many ways closer to the spectacular or performative dimension than to that of real life, from which they were absolutely excluded.

Lesley Storm - It's About Time: Poems of an Uncertain Woman

Full title: "It's About Time: Poems of an Uncertain Woman" by Lesley Storm.

""I’m a woman. I support them. I’m bisexual. I support them. I’m a feminist. I support them. I endure regular abuse for being trans. I support them. I am called a “poof” by the unenlightened. I support them. My name is Lesley, and I'm a woman ― that is to say that I am human, just like you, and you like me. A meditation on the passing of time, a declaration that life, love and poetry are defined by time, are all about time and timing. Here are love poems, life poems, elegies, aubades, odes, existential solitude poems, prose poems, joyous poems of fleeting human pleasures, poems compassionate, sanguine and witty, poems delicate with vulnerability, urgent poems on survival over time."

Daniel Cerero & Nallely Méndez - Oaxaca Trans: Historias de vida

Original title: "Oaxaca Trans: Historias de vida" (Oaxaca Trans. Life stories) by Daniel Nizcub Vásquez Cerero and Nallely Guadalupe Tello Méndez.

The book includes the stories of Unice Dayami Méndez Ruiz, Ana Karen López Quintana, Jonathan Lavariega, José Leonardo Flores Ballinas, Jossiel Aran Bernardino Esteban, and Sarah Möbius.

Ana Karen, one of the participants, says that her story is also one of love, in which her male brothers and fathers see a sister or daughter they always wanted to have. For Ana Karen López Quintana, living her transsexuality has meant that, since childhood, pain, discrimination, violence, and crying have been her day to day. "It is a process that many people have gone through," says, evoking those yesterdays from a distance. Now she tries to see them as that which instead of killing her has made her strong. Never, she says, did she lower her guard in her struggle to want to be Ana Karen and not that person who is violated and discriminated against. That's what her story is about, one of the six that make up the book.

Jude Patton & Margot Wilson - TRANScestors Navigating...

Full title: "TRANScestors Navigating LGBTQ+ Aging, Illness and End of Life Decisions: Generations of Hope" by Jude Patton and Margot Wilson.

"This volume (and the ones that follow) have been in the works for some time. What finally emerges after many months of assiduous advertising, recruiting, editing, and organizing is a volume of intimate, nuanced, and heartfelt stories that reflect the wide diversity in the ways in which trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit people have come to recognize, signify, embody, and celebrate their difference as their authentic selves. Moreover, with an increasing emphasis on the experiences of trans youth, elders constitute a routinely overlooked, disregarded, and/or silenced segment of the community."

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