From childhood to adolescence, these titles highlight the experiences of LGBTQIA+ authors through personal narratives. Some titles discuss the challenges of navigating rigidly heteronormative cultures, while others provide insight into the unbridled joy of becoming oneself to the fullest extent.
Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman by
Abby Chava Stein was raised in a Hasidic Jewish community in Brooklyn, profoundly isolated in a culture that lives according to the laws and practices of an eighteenth-century Eastern European enclave, speaking only Yiddish and Hebrew and shunning modern life. Stein was born as the first son in a rabbinical dynastic family, poised to become a leader of the next generation of Hasidic Jews. But Stein felt certain at a young age that she was a girl. Without access to TV or the internet and never taught English, she suppressed her desire for a new body while looking for answers wherever she could find them, from forbidden religious texts to smuggled secular examinations of faith. Finally, she orchestrated a personal exodus from ultra-Orthodox manhood into mainstream femininity-a radical choice that forced her to leave her home, her family and her way of life.
Transforming: The Bible and the Lives of Transgender Christians by
In 2014, Timemagazine announced that America had reached "the transgender tipping point," suggesting that transgender issues would become the next civil rights frontier.Years later, many people--even many LGBTQIA+ allies--still lack understanding of gender identity and the transgender experience. Into this void, trans biblical scholar Austen Hartke brings a biblically based, educational, and affirming resource to shed light and wisdom on gender expansiveness and Christian theology. This new edition offers updated terminology and statistics, plus new materials for congregational study, preaching, and pastoral care. Transformingdeftly weaves ancient and modern stories that will change the way readers think about gender, the Bible, and the faith to which Jesus calls us. Hartke helps readers visualize a more inclusive Christianity, equipping them with the language, understanding, confidence, and tools to change both the church and the world.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Christians: Queer Christians, Authentic Selves by
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Christians details the processes through which LGBT Christians resolve the fraught tensions between their religious, sexual and gendered identities, and examines the associated changes to their religious practice in the pursuit of "authenticity." The book moves between richly described first-person accounts and clear theoretical analysis, contextualising the disucssion within contemporary theories of religion and same-sex attraction. Through careful qualitative research with LGBT Christians in the Australian Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), and the Uniting Church, Bronwyn Fielder and Douglas Ezzy show that although painful self-questioning and struggle is experienced by some LGBT Christians, many people ultimately find a resolution and a sense of peace with their sexual identity as LGBT Christians. The pursuit of authenticity is shown to be driven by participants' essentialist understanding of sexuality and gender, and the centrality of religiosity to their sense of self. Offering insight into how participants transform their relationships, emotions, beliefs, and ritual practices in order to make this authentic life possible, this study is an important contribution to the field of religion and sexuality.
Out of the Ordinary: A Life of Gender and Spiritual Transitions by
Now available for the first time--more than 50 years after it was written--is the memoir of Michael Dillon/Lobzang Jivaka (1915-62), the British doctor and Buddhist monastic novice chiefly known to scholars of sex, gender, and sexuality for his pioneering transition from female to male between 1939 and 1949, and for his groundbreaking 1946 book Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology. Here at last is Dillon/Jivaka's extraordinary life story told in his own words. Out of the Ordinary captures Dillon/Jivaka's various journeys--to Oxford, into medicine, across the world by ship--within the major narratives of his gender and religious journeys. Moving chronologically, Dillon/Jivaka begins with his childhood in Folkestone, England, where he was raised by his spinster aunts, and tells of his days at Oxford immersed in theology, classics, and rowing. He recounts his hormonal transition while working as an auto mechanic and fire watcher during World War II and his surgical transition under Sir Harold Gillies while Dillon himself attended medical school. He details his worldwide travel as a ship's surgeon in the British Merchant Navy with extensive commentary on his interactions with colonial and postcolonial subjects, followed by his "outing" by the British press while he was serving aboard The City of Bath. Out of the Ordinary is not only a salient record of an early sex transition but also a unique account of religious conversion in the mid-twentieth century. Dillon/Jivaka chronicles his gradual shift from Anglican Christianity to the esoteric spiritual systems of George Gurdjieff and Peter Ouspensky to Theravada and finally Mahayana Buddhism. He concludes his memoir with the contested circumstances of his Buddhist monastic ordination in India and Tibet. Ultimately, while Dillon/Jivaka died before becoming a monk, his novice ordination was significant: It made him the first white European man to be ordained in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Out of the Ordinary is a landmark publication that sets free a distinct voice from the history of the transgender movement.
Self-Made Woman: A Memoir by
Denise Chanterelle DuBois's transformation into a woman wasn't easy. Born as a boy into a working-class Polish American Milwaukee family, she faced daunting hurdles: a domineering father, a gritty 1960s neighborhood with no understanding of gender nonconformity, trouble in school, and a childhood so haunted by deprivation that neckbone soup was a staple. Terrified of revealing her inner self, DuBois lurched through alcoholism, drug dealing and addiction, car crashes, dangerous sex, and prison time. Dennis barreled from Wisconsin to California, Oregon, Canada, Costa Rica, New York, Bangkok, and Hawaii on a joyless ride. Defying all expectations, DuBois didn't crash and burn. Embracing her identity as a woman, she remade herself. Writing with resolute honesty and humor, she confronts both her past and her present to tell an American story of self-discovery.
Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place: A Transgender Memoir by
An unflinching and endearing memoir from LGBTQ+ advocate Jackson Bird about how he finally sorted things out and came out as a transgender man. When Jackson Bird was twenty-five, he came out as transgender to his friends, family, and anyone in the world with an internet connection. Assigned female at birth and raised as a girl, he often wondered if he should have been born a boy. Jackson didn't share this thought with anyone because he didn't think he could share it with anyone. Growing up in Texas in the 1990s, he had no transgender role models. He barely remembers meeting anyone who was openly gay, let alone being taught that transgender people existed outside of punchlines. In this "soulful and heartfelt coming-of-age story" (Jamia Wilson, director and publisher of the Feminist Press), Jackson chronicles the ups and downs of growing up gender-confused. Illuminated by journal entries spanning childhood to adolescence to today, he candidly recalls the challenges and loneliness he endured as he came to terms with both his gender and his bisexual identity. With warmth and wit, Jackson also recounts how he navigated the many obstacles and quirks of his transition--like figuring out how to have a chest binder delivered to his NYU dorm room and having an emotional breakdown at a Harry Potter fan convention. From his first shot of testosterone to his eventual top surgery, Jackson lets you in on every part of his journey--taking the time to explain trans terminology and little-known facts about gender and identity along the way. "A compassionate, tender-hearted, and accessible book for anyone who might need a hand to hold as they walk through their own transition or the transition of a loved one" (Austin Chant, author of Peter Darling), Sorted demonstrates the power and beauty in being yourself, even when you're not sure who "yourself" is.
Trans Like Me: A Journey for All of Us by
What does it mean to be transgender?
How do we discuss the subject?
In this eye-opening book, CN Lester, academic and activist, takes us on a journey through some of the most pressing issues concerning the trans debate: from pronouns to Caitlyn Jenner; from feminist and LGBTQ activists, to the rise in referrals for gender variant children - all by way of insightful and moving passages about the author's own experience. Trans Like Me shows us how to strive for authenticity in a world which often seeks to limit us by way of labels.
Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity by
An intimate portrait of a new generation of transmasculine individuals as they undergo gender transitions Award-winning sociologist Arlene Stein takes us into the lives of four strangers who find themselves together in a sun-drenched surgeon's office, having traveled to Florida from across the United States in order to masculinize their chests. Ben, Lucas, Parker, and Nadia wish to feel more comfortable in their bodies; three of them are also taking testosterone so that others recognize them as male. Following them over the course of a year, Stein shows how members of this young transgender generation, along with other gender dissidents, are refashioning their identities and challenging others' conceptions of who they are. During a time of conservative resurgence, they do so despite great personal costs. Transgender men comprise a large, growing proportion of the trans population, yet they remain largely invisible. In this powerful, timely, and eye-opening account, Stein draws from dozens of interviews with transgender people and their friends and families, as well as with activists and medical and psychological experts. Unbound documents the varied ways younger trans men see themselves and how they are changing our understanding of what it means to be male and female in America.
The Remarkable Rise of Transgender Rights by
While medical identification and treatment of gender dysphoria have existed for decades, the development of transgender as a "collective political identity" is a recent construct. Over the past twenty-five years, the transgender movement has gained statutory nondiscrimination protections at the state and local levels, hate crimes protections in a number of states, inclusion in a federal law against hate crimes, legal victories in the courts, and increasingly favorable policies in bureaucracies at all levels. It has achieved these victories despite the relatively small number of trans people and despite the widespread discrimination, poverty, and violence experienced by many in the transgender community. This is a remarkable achievement in a political system where public policy often favors those with important resources that the transgender community lacks: access, money, and voters. The Remarkable Rise of Transgender Rights explains the growth of the transgender rights movement despite its marginalized status within the current political opportunity structure.
Becoming a Visible Man by
At least two generations of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people have emerged since Becoming a Visible Man was first published in 2004, but the book remains a beloved resource for trans people and their allies. Since the first edition's publication, author Jamison Green's writings and advocacy among business and governmental organizations around the world have led to major changes in the fields of law, medicine, and social policy, and his (mostly invisible) work has had significant effects on trans people globally. This new edition captures the changes of the last two decades, while also imparting a message of self-acceptance and health. With profoundly personal and eminently practical threads, Green clarifies transgender experience for transgender people and their families, friends, and coworkers. Medical and mental health care providers, educators, business leaders, and advocates seeking information about transgender concerns can all gain from Green's integrative approach to the topic. This book candidly addresses emotional relationships that are affected by a transition, and brings refined integrity to the struggle to self-define, whether one undergoes a transition or chooses not to. Emphasizing the lives of transgender men--who are often overlooked--he elucidates the experience of masculinity in a way that is self-assured and inclusive of feminist values. Green's inspirational wisdom has informed and empowered thousands of readers. There is still no other book like Becoming a Visible Man in the transgender canon.
My Queer War by
A powerful story of sexual awakening during the Second World War, My Queer War, from the noted memoirist and critic James Lord tells the story of a young man's exposure to the terrors, dislocations, and horrors of armed conflict. In 1942, a timid, inexperienced twenty-one-year-old Lord reports to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to enlist in the U.S. Army. His career in the armed forces takes him to Nevada, California, Boston, England, and, eventually, France and Germany, where he witnesses firsthand the ravages of total war on Europe's land and on its people. Along the way he comes to terms with his own sexuality, experiences the thrill of first love and the chill of disillusionment with his fellow man, and in a moment of great rashness makes the acquaintance of the world's most renowned artist, who will show him the way to a new life. My Queer War is a rich and moving record of one man's maturation in the crucible of the greatest war the world has known. If his war is queer, it is because each man's experience is strange in its own way. His is a story of universal significance and appeal, told by a wry and eloquent observer of the world and of himself.
The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World's Queer Frontiers by
One of TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020. Longlisted for the 2021 Rathbones Folio Prize. "[Mark] Gevisser is clear-eyed and wise enough to have a sharp sense of how tough the struggle has been, and how hard it will be now for those who have not succeeded in finding shelter from prejudice." --Colm Tóibín, The Guardian A groundbreaking look at how the issues of sexuality and gender identity divide and unite the world today More than seven years in the making, Mark Gevisser's The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World's Queer Frontiers is an exploration of how the conversation around sexual orientation and gender identity has come to divide--and describe--the world in an entirely new way over the first two decades of the twenty-first century. No social movement has brought change so quickly and with such dramatically mixed results. While same-sex marriage and gender transition are celebrated in some parts of the world, laws are being strengthened to criminalize homosexuality and gender nonconformity in others. As new globalized queer identities are adopted by people across the world--thanks to the digital revolution--fresh culture wars have emerged. A new Pink Line, Gevisser argues, has been drawn across the globe, and he takes readers to its frontiers. Between sensitive and sometimes startling profiles of the queer folk he's encountered along the Pink Line, Gevisser offers sharp analytical chapters exploring identity politics, religion, gender ideology, capitalism, human rights, moral panics, geopolitics, and what he calls "the new transgender culture wars." His subjects include a Ugandan refugee in flight to Canada, a trans woman fighting for custody of her child in Moscow, a lesbian couple campaigning for marriage equality in Mexico, genderqueer high schoolers coming of age in Michigan, a gay Israeli-Palestinian couple searching for common ground, and a community of kothis--"women's hearts in men's bodies"--who run a temple in an Indian fishing village. What results is a moving and multifaceted picture of the world today, and the queer people defining it. Eye-opening, heartfelt, expertly researched, and compellingly narrated, The Pink Line is a monumental--and urgent--journey of unprecedented scope into twenty-first-century identity, seen through the border posts along the world's new LGBTQ+ frontiers.
First Person Queer: Who We Are (So Far) by
An anthology of first-person narratives on personal gay and lesbian experience that represents a snapshot of GLBTQ life at this moment in time. Well-known contributors include Kate Bornstein, Simon Sheppard, Sharon Bridgforth, Achy Obejas, Sky Gilbert, Tim Miller, Dave Miller, S. Bear Bergman and Ivan E. Coyote.
The Original Coming Out Stories by 
We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by
Samra Habib has spent most of her life searching for the safety to be herself. The men in her life wanted to police her, the women had only shown her the example of pious obedience, and her body was a problem to be solved. A triumphant memoir of forgiveness and family, both chosen and not, We Have Always Been Here is a rallying cry for anyone who has ever felt out of place and a testament to the power of fearlessly inhabiting one's truest self.
Midlife Queer: Autobiography of a Decade 1971-1981 by
"Spanning the years 1971 to 1981 - years that were crucial both to the evolution of the gay rights movement and to the author's own life - Midlife Queer examines a wide range of pivotal events in the decade. Duberman moves from the internecine battles in the academic world and within the budding gay rights movement to his own heart attack, sexual and romantic adventures, and search for fulfillment via a variety of unconventional venues and alternate therapies. Peppered with gossip, wit, and tart observations of the New York theater and literary worlds, Midlife Queer stands as both an intensely personal story and the record of an era."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The Unfinished Dollhouse: A Memoir of Gender and Identity by
The central metaphor of The Unfinished Dollhousetells the story: on Frankie's fourth birthday, her parents Michelle and Rob purchased a dollhouse kit. Michelle imagined the time she and her daughter would spend constructing the perfect dollhouse, a fantasy of domestic and familial happiness. But Frankie expressed no interest in such typically girlish pursuits because Frankie was transgendered. In the years to follow, Frankie's parents experienced an education in parenting a child transitioning from female to male, learning how to deal with Frankie and the rest of the world's reaction.
Ordinary Girls: A Memoir by
One of the Must-Read Books of 2019 According to O: The Oprah Magazine * Time * Bustle * Electric Literature * Publishers Weekly * The Millions * The Week * Good Housekeeping "There is more life packed on each page of Ordinary Girls than some lives hold in a lifetime." --Julia Alvarez In this searing memoir, Jaquira Díaz writes fiercely and eloquently of her challenging girlhood and triumphant coming of age. While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Rican culture, she couldn't find support for her burgeoning sexual identity. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico's history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be. Reminiscent of Tara Westover's Educated, Kiese Laymon's Heavy, Mary Karr's The Liars' Club, and Terese Marie Mailhot's Heart Berries, Jaquira Díaz's memoir provides a vivid portrait of a life lived in (and beyond) the borders of Puerto Rico and its complicated history--and reads as electrically as a novel.
A Two-Spirit Journey: The Autobiography of a Lesbian Ojibwa-Cree Elder by
A compelling, harrowing, but ultimately uplifting story of resilience and self-discovery."A Two-Spirit Journey" is Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community riven by poverty and alcoholism, Chacaby's story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism. As a child, Chacaby learned spiritual and cultural traditions from her Cree grandmother and trapping, hunting, and bush survival skills from her Ojibwa stepfather. She also suffered physical and sexual abuse by different adults, and in her teen years became alcoholic herself. At twenty, Chacaby moved to Thunder Bay with her children to escape an abusive marriage. Abuse, compounded by racism, continued, but Chacaby found supports to help herself and others. Over the following decades, she achieved sobriety; trained and worked as an alcoholism counsellor; raised her children and fostered many others; learned to live with visual impairment; and came out as a lesbian. In 2013, Chacaby led the first gay pride parade in Thunder Bay.Ma-Nee Chacaby has emerged from hardship grounded in faith, compassion, humour, and resilience. Her memoir provides unprecedented insights into the challenges still faced by many Indigenous people.
Feels Right: Black Queer Women and the Politics of Partying in Chicago by
In Feels Right Kemi Adeyemi presents an ethnography of how black queer women in Chicago use dance to assert their physical and affective rights to the city. Adeyemi stages the book in queer dance parties in gentrifying neighborhoods, where good feelings are good business. But feeling good is elusive for black queer women whose nightlives are undercut by white people, heterosexuality, neoliberal capitalism, burnout, and other buzzkills. Adeyemi documents how black queer women respond to these conditions: how they destroy DJ booths, argue with one another, dance slowly, and stop partying altogether. Their practices complicate our expectations that life at night, on the queer dance floor, or among black queer community simply feels good. Adeyemi's framework of "feeling right" instead offers a closer, kinesthetic look at how black queer women adroitly manage feeling itself as a complex right they should be afforded in cities that violently structure their movements and energies. What emerges in Feels Right is a sensorial portrait of the critical, black queer geographies and collectivities that emerge in social dance settings and in the broader neoliberal city. Duke University Press Scholars of Color First Book Award recipient
Living Queer History: Remembrance and Belonging in a Southern City by
Queer history is a living practice. Talk to any group of LGBTQ people today, and they will not agree on what story should be told. Many people desire to celebrate the past by erecting plaques and painting rainbow crosswalks, but queer and trans people in the twenty-first century need more than just symbols--they need access to power, justice for marginalized people, spaces of belonging. Approaching the past through a lens of queer and trans survival and world-building transforms history itself into a tool for imagining and realizing a better future. Living Queer History tells the story of an LGBTQ community in Roanoke, Virginia, a small city on the edge of Appalachia. Interweaving &8239;historical analysis, theory, and memoir, Gregory Samantha Rosenthal tells the story of their own journey--coming out and transitioning as a transgender woman--in the midst of working on a community-based history project that documented a multigenerational southern LGBTQ community. Based on over forty interviews with LGBTQ elders, Living Queer History explores how queer people today think about the past and how history lives on in the present.
Straight Expectations: The Story of a Family in Transition by
Ever since they were young, Peggy Cryden noticed her children's gender expression did not correspond with society's expectations of their biological gender. In this moving and honest memoir, Peggy details the experiences and challenges of raising both a gay son and a gay, transgender son and shares her family's journey of adversity and growth, which has helped inform her work as a psychotherapist. Beginning with her own unconventional upbringing and personal relationships, the second half of the book follows her children from birth to adulthood and through their numerous experiences including coming out, depression, hate crime, relationships, school and various aspects to do with transitioning (legal, physical, medical, social) as well as their appearances in the media as a family. This book is insightful, charming and thought-provoking, and through levity and humour, offers a positive approach to parenting outside of convention.
Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity by
What happens when your gender doesn't fit neatly into the categories of male or female? Even mundane interactions like filling out a form or using a public bathroom can be a struggle when these designations prove inadequate. In this groundbreaking book, thirty authors highlight how our experiences are shaped by a deeply entrenched gender binary. The powerful first-person narratives of this collection show us a world where gender exists along a spectrum, a web, a multidimensional space. Nuanced storytellers break away from mainstream portrayals of gender diversity, cutting across lines of age, race, ethnicity, ability, class, religion, family, and relationships. From Suzi, who wonders whether she'll ever "feel" like a woman after living fifty years as a man, to Aubri, who grew up in a cash-strapped fundamentalist household, to Sand, who must reconcile the dual roles of trans advocate and therapist, the writers' conceptions of gender are inextricably intertwined with broader systemic issues. Labeled gender outlaws, gender rebels, genderqueer, or simply human, the voices in Nonbinary illustrate what life could be if we allowed the rigid categories of "man" and "woman" to loosen and bend. They speak to everyone who has questioned gender or has paused to wonder, What does it mean to be a man or a woman--and why do we care so much?
Bordered Lives: Transgender Portraits from Mexico by
A richly evocative collection of photographs by internationally renowned photographer Kike Arnal, Bordered Lives seeks to push back against the transphobic caricatures that have perpetuated discrimination against the transgender community in Mexico. In the highly personal profiles that make up Bordered Lives, including the first transgender couple to be married in Mexico and one of the country's most high-profile transgender entertainers, Arnal looks at seven individuals in and around Mexico City. Moving in its honesty, this book challenges many notions of sexuality.
Trans Love: An Anthology of Transgender and Non-Binary Voices by
A groundbreaking anthology of writing on the topic of love, written by trans and non-binary people who share their thoughts, feelings, and experiences of love in all its guises. The collection spans familial, romantic, spiritual, and self-love as well as friendships and ally love, to provide a broad and honest understanding of how trans people navigate love and relationships, and what love means to them. Reclaiming what love means to trans people, this book provokes conversations that are not reflected in what is presently written, moving the narrative around trans identities away from sensationalism. At once intimate and radical, and both humorous and poignant, this book is for anyone who has loved, who is in love, and who is looking for love.
Becoming a Malaysian Trans Man: Gender, Society, Body and Faith by
This book explores the fluid, mutable and contingent ways in which transgender men in Malaysia construct their subjectivities. Against the dearth of academic resources on Malaysian trans men, this ground-breaking monograph is rooted in the lived experiences of Malaysian trans men whose vicissitudes have mostly been hidden, silenced and overlooked. Comprising diverse age groups, ethnicities, socio-economic status, educational backgrounds and religious persuasions, these trans men reveal how they navigate life in a country with secular and religious laws that criminalise their embodiments, and the strategies they deploy to achieve self-determination and self-actualisation despite being perceived as aberrant and sinful. This book demonstrates how negotiations with constitutive elements such as gender identity, social interaction, citizenship, legality, bodily struggle, medical transitioning and personal spiritual validation condition the becomings of Malaysian trans men.
Trans Voices: Becoming Who You Are by