willa

@gerridae.bsky.social

i'm using the words of humans to say what i want to know

have been casually assembling a bibliography of 20th century transfeminine life writing / memoirs. certainly not a complete list — if you know of any omissions plz lmk so that i can add them :)

pre-2000s transfeminine memoirs & life writing

* Daniel Paul Schreber, Memoirs of My Nervous Illness (1903)
* Jennie June, Autobiography of an Androgyne (1918)
* Jennie June, The Female Impersonators (1922)
* Lili Elbe, Man into Woman (1933)
* Tamara Reese, “Reborn”: A Factual Life Story of a Transition from Male to Female (1955)
* Hedy Jo Star, I Changed My Sex (1963)
* Christine Jorgensen, A Personal Autobiography (1967)
* Geoff Brown, I Want What I Want … To Be a Woman (1971, published as a novel)
* Dianna, Behold, I am a Woman (1972)
* Jan Morris, conundrum (1974)
* Being Different: The Autobiography of Jane Fry (1974)
* Canary Conn, Canary: The Story of a Transsexual (1974)
* Nancy Hunt, Mirror Image: The Odyssey of a Male-to-Female Transsexual (1978)
* Renee Richards, second serve (1981)
* Tula, I am a Woman (1982)
* Angela Douglas, Triple Jeopardy (1983)
* Ashley April (w Duncan Fallowell) April Ashley's Odyssey (1983)
* Inge Stephens, Alain, transsexuelle (1983, in french)
* Stephanie Castle, Feelings: a transsexual's explanation of a baffling condition (1992)
* Angela Douglas, Hollywoods Obsession (1992)
* Tula, My Story (1992)
* Julia Grant, Just Julia: The Story of an Extraordinary Woman (1994)
* Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw (1995)
* Jayne County, Man Enough to Be a Woman (1995)
* Mirrors: Portrait of a Lesbian Transsexual - Beth Elliot and Geri Nettic (1996)
* Bambi Lake, The Unsinkable Bambi Lake (1996)
* Claudine Griggs, Passage through Trinidad: journal of a surgical sex change (1996)
* Jennifer Spry, Orlando's sleep: an autobiography of gender (1997)
* Deirdre McCloskey, Crossing: A Memoir (1999)

also funny bit about terfs' "nostalgia for the Bad Old Days of women's music" when Stone is discussing her time as a recording engineer at Olivia Records

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interesting point in a 1995 interview where Sandy Stone suggests that the rise of transphobia might be understood less as a reaction to the public/legislative “success” of transsexuals than as a kind of economic opportunism born of the market established by the institutionalization of queer theory

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