Mark 947: A Life Shaped by God, Gender and Force of Will
Addams, Calpernia Sarah

Mark 947 chronicles one woman’s progress from spirit to flesh, a literal transubstantiation by force of will. Born a boy to loving but religious parents in the rural heartland of Tennessee, Calpernia Addams found her way on an unlighted path from forbidden dreams to fulfillment as a scholar, showgirl and eventually, as a woman.

Sultry stage siren by night, intellectual chameleon by day, she worked her way to the top of Nashville’s underground entertainment scene without ever succumbing to drugs, alcohol or bitterness, and through it all never lost her heart. When love walked into her new life in the form of a handsome young Army private, it seemed everything had at last come together. Then at the pinnacle of her career, as she was crowned Tennessee Entertainer of the Year in front of hundreds of adoring fans, her love was murdered in his sleep sixty miles away by bigoted fellow soldiers, sparking a national controversy that resonates still.

Whether ablaze in the dazzle of the spotlight or haunting the woods of Tennessee in flannel and pigtails, Calpernia lives her life with the humor and spirit of a woman who can face anything and still move forward with hope intact.

Publisher: Writers Club Press (December 2002)
ISBN-10: 0595263763
ISBN-13: 978-0595263769

  

Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them
Allen, Mariette Pathy

This is a pioneering book of photographs and interviews with crossdressers and their loved ones: wives, children, and other family members. The focus is on presenting crossdressers in daily life, in positive settings and relationships. The photographs sensitive, sometimes beautiful, and the text offers insight into the differences between sexual orientation and gender presentation. "Transformations" is suitable for schools and libraries.

Publisher: Dutton Adult; 1st ed edition (January 1, 1990)
ISBN-10: 052524820X
ISBN-13: 978-0525248200

The Gender Frontier
Allen, Mariette Pathy

From Booklist:
Persons whose gender self-perception differs from their anatomies have probably been around "forever," but burgeoning population, communications, individualism, and human rights during the past half-century have made them more visible, vocal, and various. Most of Allen's photographic subjects haven't undergone genital reconstruction, even when they have taken other steps such as altering facial hair and breast size. Most say they've gone as far as they want with physical changes. They now want to be respected as the persons they have become. Allen, who has photographed transgender persons for 20 years, shows them as they wish to be seen, which for some gender-reassigned persons includes nakedness (and, for one, images from penile-constructive surgery) as well as wearing everyday and special-occasion attire. Informative and more endearing than Allen or her subjects perhaps intended, the pictures are photojournalistic, not studio work, portraying the subjects at work and play, at home and in public. If the concluding biographical statements report plenty of pathos and worse, Allen's pictures demonstrate that such suffering lies in her subjects' pasts.

Publisher: Kehrer Verlag (December 1, 2003)
ISBN-10: 3936636044
ISBN-13: 978-3936636048

Sexual Metamorphosis
Ames. Jonathan
Non-fiction, collection of memiors

Publishers Weekly
It's a story that extends back far into human history: a boy or girl feels uncomfortable in his or her own gender-"trapped" in the body of the wrong sex-and life becomes an attempt to reconcile the dichotomy. But it's only in the last 75 years or so that, with the help of medical technologies, a third act has been possible for this narrative, one in which the story's hero has the opportunity to bridge the schism by actually changing his or her physical gender. And, as the stories in this remarkable anthology show, it's in this third act that the true difficulties begin. In his introduction, editor Ames argues that the shared narrative that runs through this anthology parallels that of the classic "bildungsroman," and it's true that the book is really a collection of coming-of-age stories. But it's the unique perspective of the storytellers, as well as Ames's editorial decisions that make these 15 memoirs (all excerpts) particularly engaging. The book covers such surprising subjects as a Bond girl, a Gulf War vet turned beauty queen and an amateur tennis champion while offering such prurient details as the gory particulars of the operations themselves and the first post-op sexual encounters. But it's the excerpts' most human moments-attempts to explain the transformation to young (and even grown) children, reactions of family, friends and strangers-as well as otherwise mundane situations (i.e., getting fitted for one's first suit as a man) that truly make the book a worthwhile cover-to-cover read. Being an anthology, the book is naturally uneven in sections, occasionally dull or repetitive but, in general, Ames makes great choices in his excerpts, and his introduction is good enough that one wishes he had inserted his own voice in the volume just a bit more.

Publisher: Vintage (April 12, 2005)
ISBN-10: 1400030145
ISBN-13: 978-1400030149

Living a Lie - A Transgendered Journey
Bishop, Jamey Lynn

"Living a Lie - A Transgendered Journey" is the first book on the topic to deal with the issue of Gender Identity Disorder from an internal viewpoint. In contrast to previous works written by psychologists who study the transgendered and offer their own rationalizations for the phenomenon of GID and those written by transsexuals who regurgitate the party line; this book redefines those erroneous concepts and corrects much misinformation on the transgender phenomenon.

Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1-4116-1373-2

Branded T
Blumenstein, Rosalyne

From an Amazon.com Reviewer
Rosalyne Blumenstein, whose gender identity dysphoria took her down a tumultuous path from drug-addicted sex worker at a Times Square peep show to her present-day psychotherapy practice, began her transition as a teenager. In her excellent and illuminating book, Branded T, she discusses the ramifications of growing up, painfully aware of another side of her that needed to be addressed. Rosalyne writes of an emotional "incongruity" so powerful that it carried her contradictory feelings even well beyond her transition. Rosalyne's gender dysphoric feelings produced a sense of great shame. As a child, the emotional pain she experienced drove her to escape to a fantasy world, where she would often remain in bed dreaming erotically of becoming the girl she already experienced herself to be. As a young child Rosalyne's parents seldom questioned or challenged her leanings toward femininity, but she vividly recalls a time in nursery school, where a trunk filled with dress-up clothing kindled a longing to be a bride. On the very day she put on a white lace dress, her brother and mother made a visit to the class. Rosalyne, seeing her family, ran under a table, a huge "sense of shame weighing her down." She states that she is uncertain about the mechanism that caused her to experience this "deep, ingrained sense of inappropriateness," and why, at such an early age, she felt the desire for feminine things. "The shame was embedded in me," she writes.

Before becoming drug-free, going to college, graduate school, and turning her life around, Rosalyne spent eleven years as a sex worker, using drugs and trying to conceal her TS past from the world. Experiencing violence, grief, degradation, and several suicide attempts, she was now at her wits end and ready to get out of the sex field and eventually free herself emotionally by coming out to the world as TS. Her experience with drugs and with her gender struggle led to non-profit counseling work with the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community, where ironically, she at first became even more closeted about her past, frightened about people finding out about her history-her internalized shame spawning a viscous cycle of her own transphopia.

Although Rosalyne passed as female, she noticed that most transsexuals who had transitioned, looked transsexual. The false sense of privilege she received in passing actually caused her to have more shame about being transsexual. Society had implanted a kind of self-hatred surrounding her own transsexuality. For many years after her transition, Rosalyne notes that her ability to relate to men as "beings," and not just economic or sexual entities, was one of her greatest challenges. Each time she met a man, her trauma about her transsexual past would resurface. Her own uncertainty and lack of self-esteem mirrored how society responds to a woman of TS experience. Even today she remarks that this wounding has never abated. The shame seemingly continues to be at work.

Publisher: Authorhouse (August 2003)
ISBN-10: 1410772411
ISBN-13: 978-1410772411

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us
Bornstein, Kate

From Kirkus Reviews
A thoughtful challenge to gender ideology that continually asks difficult questions about identity, orientation, and desire. Bornstein cleverly incorporates cultural criticism, dramatic writing, and autobiography to make her point that gender (which she distinguishes from sex) is a cultural rather than a natural phenomenon. The chapters range from ``fashion tips'' on her writing style to dialogue between herself and another about the ``nuts and bolts'' of the surgical process of a gender change (which she has undergone). Confronting transgenderism and transgendered people is not easy for many individuals, but Bornstein does it in a way that sparks debate without putting her audience on the defensive. She suggests that ``the culture may not simply be creating roles for naturally-gendered people, the culture may in fact be creating the gendered people.'' Her discussion of the ``parts'' of gender is based on respected sources and includes analyses of gender assignment, identity, and roles. Things get mixed up, according to Bornstein, because ``sexual orientation/preference is based in this culture solely on the gender of one's partner of choice,'' in effect confusing orientation and preference. Seeing queer theater as a place in which gender ambiguity and fluidity can and should be explored, she includes in the book her play, Hidden: A Gender. Bornstein uses the term ``gender defenders'' to describe those who work hard to maintain the current rigid system of gender, and she claims that her ``people'' (i.e., the transgendered) are just beginning to challenge the system and to demand acceptance and understanding. Bornstein's witty style, personal approach, and frankness open doors to questioning gender assumptions and boundaries.

New York: Routledge, 1994
ISBN-10: 0679757015
ISBN-13: 978-0679757016

She’s Not There
Boylan, Jennifer Finney

From Booklist
Boylan, English professor and author of the critically acclaimed novels The Constellations (1994), The Planets (1991), and Getting In (1998), began life as a male named James Boylan. In this autobiography, she details her lifelong struggle with her burgeoning femaleness and the path she followed to become a female, both physically and mentally. For 40 years, the author lived as a man, seemingly happy and even marrying a woman and fathering two children. At a certain point, though, she realized that she couldn't suppress her desire to live as a female and so eventually went through all the steps to become female, including sexual reassignment surgery. There is something troubling about Boylan's lighthearted tone, and while she hints at it, there is no really clear depiction of the havoc this transition must have wreaked on her married life (Boylan's wife was clearly devastated) and on her children (who at times refer to her as boygirl or maddy). But Boylan's well-written and informative book is a worthy contribution to the body of work on this subject. Kathleen Hughes

Broadway Books, N.Y. 2003
ISBN-10: 0767914295
ISBN-13: 978-0767914291

The Woman I Was Not Born to Be: A Transsexual Journey
Brevard, Aleshia.

From Publishers Weekly
These days, it is understood that sometimes boys will be girls; in Alfred Brevard Crenshaw's case, he wanted to be a woman, and what a woman! Born in 1937 to a genteel Tennessee family, Crenshaw knew that he was different from an early age. In his early 20s, he fled to San Francisco, where he became a female impersonator and a hit, under the name Lee Shaw, at Finocchio's, the world-famous nightclub featuring top-line drag entertainment. But by the early 1960s, simply dressing up wasn't enough; Shaw wanted to undergo surgery to become a woman. His desire was so great that, even before he underwent the brand-new technique of transsexual surgery, he castrated himself (with the help of a friend) in his own kitchen to shut down his body's production of testosterone. After seeking safer, medical solutions to his gender dysphoria (namely, 11 hours of surgery), Lee emerged as Aleshia BrevardAa well-built knockout. Pursuing a career in entertainment, Aleshia became a burlesque queen, a Playboy bunny and a B-movie star, playing the lead against Don Knotts in The Love God. Brevard's story adds an entertaining curve to the growing body of literature Aacademic, scientific, theoretical and literary. Aon transgender experience, without the self-pity or sentimentality found in many such memoirs. 17 photos. (Mar. 26) Forecast: Written in a gossipy style reminiscent of 1950s movie-star autobiographies (which, at heart, it is), this book could break out beyond the publisher's more usual academic readership to lovers of celebrity tell-alls and B-movies.

Philadelphia: Temple Univ Press, 01
ISBN-10: 1566398401
ISBN-13: 978-1566398404

Canary: The Story of a Transsexual
Conn, Canary

From an Amazon.com Reviewer
It's been over 20 years since I found this book in our local library and read it. And I still remember the feel of the story, the inviting conversational tone, and the minds-eye pictures of 1970's life in LA candidly painted with the words of such a sensitive and introspective individual. Never mind the fact that Canary provides an intimate look and understanding of the life and struggles of a transsexual--this is a story for any young person's life, full with hopes, fears, and the quest for personal growth and understanding. Telling of scary and often hysterical misadventures, unusual perspectives, and vividly life-like portraits of people she knew, loved, or met along the way, Canary's story is also a fun and cozy one to read. The outward goal throughout the book is to resolve personal gender issues, but the character development that occurs during this quest is what it's really all about. Kind of like life, you know? Anyway I recommend the book highly, if you can find it. And I have often wondered over the years where Canary Conn went and how she, the person, is doing. Her book left me wanting more. But that too is life.

Los Angeles: Nash, 1974
ISBN-10: 084021345X
ISBN-13: 978-0840213457

My Story
Cossey, Caroline

From an Amazon.com Reviewer
Cossey did a very good job of writing with this book and the book I Am Woman book that preceded. However, while the books probably do a lot to help those with chromosomal abnormalities they do a great disservice to the gender dysphoric community.

Cossey has a chromosome condition that most desiring to change genders do not have. The books written by Cossey have dazzled some people to the point that they look up to her as a role model for transsexuality and the lines between a genuine physical condition like Cossey’s and a mental condition (gender dysphoria)get blurred.

Years ago I too was inspired and blinded by Cossey’s book and got railroaded into a sex-change operation that turned out not to be right for me and it was all allowed to happen because the medical community also is blinded and proper Standards of Care are not in operation. That’s how I was able to slip through the cracks. I am only one of many who have found out that we are non-transsexual gender dysphorics and can heal our gender dysphoria if we are honest and open about our lives and commit to psychotherapy.

London: Faber and Faber, 1991
ISBN-10: 0571129099
ISBN-13: 978-0571129096

Roberta Cowell's Story
Cowell, Roberta Elizabeth

London: W. Heinemann, 1954
ASIN: B0007IXXKE

April Ashley's Odyssey
Fallowell, Duncan and April Ashley

From an Amazon.com Reviewer
Miss Ashley's Odyssey is a voyage indeed. Told with frankness, humor, wit, and a total lack of self pity, April Ashley started out life as a boy in Liverpool and became famous as Britain's most glamorous sex change. It took courage and determination, and after I read this wonderful book I felt, well, if April Ashley can get through life then so can the rest of us.

In these pages, the book is beautifully written, you will meet anyone who was anybody in the haute bohemian world of the swinging 60's. You will meet such diverse characters as Lady Diana Cooper, Little Gloria from Leeds, Viva King, Sarah Churchill, various titled folk and other folk who live by their wits and their talents. Thankfully Miss Ashley is not a snob and will chat to anyone, and the resulting narrative has such wit and style, it is almost an object lesson in how to present a life lived to the full.

This wonderful book reminds of Misia Sert's memoirs, and Daphne Fielding's Mercury Presides not forgetting Lady Diana Cooper's autobiographies. It has the same laugh-out-loud humor of Helene Hanff's Underfoot in Show Business.

London: Cape, 1982
ISBN-10: 0224018493
ISBN-13: 978-0224018494

Being Different: The Autobiography of Jane Fry
Fry, Jane and Robert Bogdan

New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1974.

Just Julia: The Story of an Extraordinary Woman
Grant, Julia

In 1981 George Roberts underwent a sex-change operation and became Julia Grant, but after emergency treatment things started to go drastically wrong. Beginning with a traumatic childhood of abuse, prostitution and crime, culminating in a series of prison sentences, and then following the futile attempts to come to terms with a male body, this book goes beyond the New English Library publication "George and Julia", and recounts what happened after the unsuccessful operation. Julia tells how her theatrical career took off, and then was destroyed; how she left Britain for Amsterdam; and how she finally returned to the stage in a cabaret act, "The Bitch is Back". The book highlights the difficulties faced by transsexuals in Britain, and includes lists of useful addresses and help-lines.

London: Boxtree, 1994
ISBN-10: 1852834811
ISBN-13: 978-1852834814

Journal Of A Sex Change, Passage Through Trinidad
Griggs, Claudine

Book Description
Updated with a new foreword by Judith Halberstam, Griggs' book was originally published as Passage through Trinidad in 1996. Journal of a Sex Change provides an intimate look at the compelling journey from male to female. Griggs provides us with an inside perspective on one of the most private and complicated transformations possible. She recounts her sex change process in compelling detail, from the emotional decision to pursue the surgery, to the procedure itself, to the long and painful recovery process. How did Griggs' decision affect personal relationships, family life and work? What was it like in the first few months after the operation? What is it like for her now to experience the world as a transformed woman? Thoughtful and courageous, Griggs chronicles a journey that not only changed her physiology, but her life.

Publisher: Berg Publishers (December 23, 2004)
ISBN-10: 1845200233
ISBN-13: 978-1845200237

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography
Jorgensen, Christine

This handsome reprint of Jorgensen's 1967 memoir makes it abundantly clear how moments of grace can descend on even the most ordinary of lives. When ex-G.I. George Jorgensen went to Copenhagen in the early 1950s to consult experts in sexual deviance, he was afraid they'd simply proclaim him a fairy. A full battery of hormonal and psychological tests revealed that, while he was drawn to men, he was no garden-variety homophile; he was a lady. Keeping the secret from his family, Jorgensen endured a groundbreaking series of operations, finally emerging in November 1952 as a delicately beautiful young woman. "I merely wanted to correct what I considered a misjudgment of Nature," wrote Jorgensen, who died in 1989. No one seeing the photographs included here (many of them new to this edition) can doubt the success of Jorgensen's transformation or wonder too long at the fascination she engendered back home, where a newspaper bought her story for $20,000 and she was proclaimed New York City's Woman of the Year. A stage and screen career soon followed. As Susan Stryker points out in a new introduction, Jorgensen offers a somewhat flattering and selectively abridged account of herself in the autobiography, but no more so than any plucky girl smiling her way through what must have been, at times, a harrowing and lonely journey, but one that she conducted with remarkable dignity. --Regina Marler y
  
New York: Paul S. Erisksson, 1967.

He's My Daughter
Langley, Lynda
Non-Fiction

A shocking phone call from their distraught daughter-in-law was how Lynda and Richard Langley learnt that their son had started his transition from a man to a woman.

The mad rush to their son's hospital bedside, anguish and fear for his physical health, shock from the nature of his injury, and the dread of the challenges to be faced in the coming months and years...
Lynda's account of how she adjusted to the reality that her eldest son had decided to physically become a woman is the story of a family. Tears and laughter, support and withdrawal, accompany Toni - now the eldest daughter - as she maps out her new life.

And with her all the time is Lynda, her mother. Helping to select her wardrobe, guiding her in the subtleties of speech and behaviour, and supporting her, especially in the early stages of her new life as a woman.

ISBN: 0957873557
Publisher: Indra Publishing

Stephanie: A Girl in a Million
Lloyd, Stephanie Anne Lloyd with Sandra Sedgbeer.

Stephanie Ann Lloyd was born Keith Michael Hull in 1946. He married and fathered three children, but after years of marriage, his growing conviction that he should have been born a woman drove him to attempted suicide. He then decided to become Stephanie. It cost him his wife, his children, his friends and his job as a company executive. Abandoned and unemployable, Stephanie spent a long period as a prostitute before earning enough to set herself up in business. Now remarried, she is a stepmother and runs a successful group of companies catering for transvestites and transsexuals. Stephanie's story is a tribute to her courage and determination, as well as an insight into the phenomenon of living as both a man and a woman. Stephanie Ann Lloyd is married to her business partner David Booth. They own Mapleleaf Holdings, which inludes three shops called Transformation, a gender clinic, a mail order company and an introduction agency. She has appeared many times on television and in newspapers. Sandra Sedgbeer works in advertising and is a freelance writer. She is the author of "The Sensuous Slimmer", "The Single Parent Survival Guide", and "Sexual Power".

ISBN-10: 0852239270
ISBN-13: 978-0852239278
London: Ebury Press, 1991

Crossing: A Memoir
McCloskey, Deirdre N.

From Publishers Weekly
Transsexuality has fascinated mainstream readers since 1953, when former U.S. serviceman George Jorgensen went to Sweden and, to banner headlines, returned as Christine. Since then, there has been a string of notable memoirs of gender crossing, including Geoff Brown's sincere I Want What I Want (1966), Jan Morris's meditative Conundrum (1974) and Holly Woodlawn's campy A Low Life in High Heels (1994). McCloskey's own odyssey from Donald to Deirdre is closest to noted journalist Morris's, in that it charts the life change of a highly regarded public figure McCloskey is a world-famous conservative economist who finds fulfillment as a woman after four decades of living as a man. McCloskey forthrightly describes her upper-middle-class youth in Boston, her early and lifelong interest in cross-dressing, her education and eventual success as an academic and her marriage and children. In her late 40s, McCloskey decided that she was not simply a heterosexual cross-dresser but a transsexual and decided to undergo a series of operations to become an anatomical woman. Her memoir effectively details the pain involved: a bitter divorce, insurance companies' refusal to cover surgeries and her sister's repeated attempts to block the process legally. McCloskey's proclivity to jump around in time, her tendency to disrupt the flow of her story with social and political digressions and the constant placing of additional thoughts and ideas in bold text throughout the narrative distract from her story but her courage nevertheless shines through.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999
ISBN-10: 0226556697
ISBN-13: 978-0226556697

Conundrum
Morris, Jan

From an Amazon.com Reviewer
This is an intriguing memoir, beautifully written by an author who has written numerous other non-fiction books. Jan Morris, formerly known as James Morris, was the correspondent for the London Times assigned to cover England's historic summit of Everest. The author actually accompanied the expedition to the Himalayas and did on site dispatches of the historic event. It would be as James Morris that she would write the wonderful book, "Coronation Everest", which chronicles the events leading to the historic summit of Everest by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on the eve of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The author would eventually become a celebrated writer of many travel books, journeying the world over.

This very personal book is an autobiographical narrative of the author's own gender dysphoria, as she, a biological male at birth, had always felt that she had been born into the wrong body. Elegantly written, it is not a book for those who are seeking tabloid sensationalism. Rather, it is, at times, somewhat anachronistic in feel, as it was written by someone who lived through a time when actual gender changes were still in the nascent stages. Passing historical references are made to those transsexuals who paved the way for others.

The author's account of her early life is fascinating, as much of it was spent in traditional male pursuits of the time. A stint in the army as a member of the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, years as a well-known foreign correspondent, as well as husband and father, were all roles in which the author found some satisfaction but never total fulfillment, as her gender dysphoria continually intruded upon her happiness, a dark cloud hovering over all that she did and all that she was.
The author's recollection of her lifelong, personal conundrum over gender is graced with self-deprecating wit and humor. It is a first rate autobiographical account of the author's journey across the shivering sands of gender dysphoria. Born in 1927, the author, with the support of Elizabeth, her wife and best friend, crossed the gender frontier at the age of forty five, after having spent thirty-five years as a male and ten additional years in androgynous transition as a hormonal chimera.

It was with her surgery in a clinic in Casablanca in 1972 that the author felt that she finally was able to live her life as she was meant to live it. Her account of her surgery, however, is enough to make one take pause at the sheer desperation to reconcile one's inner self with one's outer self. Still, notwithstanding the seemingly primitive approach of the clinic to such a complex surgery, James Morris crossed the gender frontier and surgically metamorphosed into the woman that she had always felt herself to be, surmounting the last hurdle to self-realization. Thus, Jan Morris was born.

This is an extremely literate account of a very personal journey by a gender dysphoric individual. It is a beautifully realized book that is sure to become a classic in its genre. Bravo!

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974.
Publisher: Faber and Faber; New Ed edition (1 April 2002)
ISBN-10: 0571209467
ISBN-13: 978-0571209460

Wrapped in Blue
Rose, Donna

From an Amazon.com Reviewer
I've read and enjoyed quite a number of TS and transition-related books, and this is my favorite. While Donna Rose is not the polished, professional, and humorous writer that Jenny Boylan is, her story somehow comes across as more down-to-earth and heartfelt than Boylan's She's Not There in many respects. She's Not There is to a large extent All About Jenny, whereas Wrapped in Blue, while certainly about Donna's life and transition, is also about All of Us, and offers many insights of a broad nature on transgenderism and transition, which have helped me understand myself better. Highly recommended for all transgendered folk and those interested in them.

Living Legacy Press, Scottsdale, Az. 2006
ISBN-10: 0972955305
ISBN-13: 978-0972955300

How To Change Your Sex: A Lighthearted Look at the Hardest Thing You'll Ever Do
Rose, Lannie

Lannie Rose changed her sex and now she explains how you can too! How To Change Your Sex: A Lighthearted Look at the Hardest Thing You'll Ever Do is an amusing and practical guide to everything you need to know for your sex change, from how to tell if you are transsexual, through venturing out in public in your new gender presentation (including which restroom to use!), to hormones and surgeries, to what to expect afterwards. Whether you are seriously considering changing your own sex, or if you have a friend or loved one who is going through the process, or even if you are just curious, you are bound to be entertained and informed by this handy little book.

Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1-4116-3956-1

Second Serve: The Renée Richards Story
Richards, Renée, with John Ames

From an Amazon.com Reviewer
This is another intriguing story in the evolving history of transgender narratives. Here, the individual with the gender dysphoria was a noted eye surgeon with the financial resources necessary to achieve her goal. Still, her resources and did not prevent the inner turmoil and trauma that she underwent during a journey that took her from being Richard Raskin to Renee Richards. It was a journey that was, at times, to be marked by a curious ambivalence.

In reading her story, I would sometimes wonder whether it was gender dysphoria that was at the root of her unhappiness with herself or the sexual abuse that she suffered at the hands of her mother and sister during her childhood. Having read the accounts of many other gender dysphoric individuals who have surgically changed their outer selves to conform to their inner selves, I never doubted their sincerity or reasons for doing so.

In Ms. Richards' case, however, I found myself questioning the reasons for her gender change, as they rang hollow. Instead, it sounded as if she had other issues with which to contend that may have been the cause of her unhappiness. This is why I am not surprised to have recently read that she herself has apparently questioned her decision to undergo a surgical gender change and has evidently had regrets about her decision to surgically transition from male to female.

Still, Ms. Richards has led a fascinating, though utterly narcissistic, life that makes for interesting reading. A well-respected ophthalmologist, she is still in practice today at the age of seventy.

New York: Stein and Day, 1983
ISBN-10: 0972955305
ISBN-13: 978-0972955300

"Don Becomes Angela."
Rockett, Eve

Chantelaine Nov. 1993: 107-109

Man Into Woman: A Transsexual Autobiography
Simmons, Dawn Langley

The adoptive daughter of Margaret Rutherford, Dawn Langley Simmons began her life as the illegitimate son of Vita Sackville-West's chauffeur. As if that potent mix was not enough, after one of the first sex-change operations in America, she married her black chauffeur in Charleston, South Carolina. It is a measure of the ascending scale of prejudice that, of all her transgressions, it was her crossing of the racial divide that most shocked her Southern neighbors.

Gordon Langley Hall, as she was then known, was born in Sussex in 1937, the illegitimate child of Jack Cropper, Sackville-West's chauffeur, and Marjorie Hall Ticehurst (the couple subsequently married). Although she was raised by her half-Spanish grandmother, Nelly Hall Ticehurst, she spent her holidays at Sissinghurst, where her childhood playmate was the writer Nigel Nicolson: "We called him `Dinky'," Nicolson recalls, "and I always think of him that way." "If Vita Sackville-West is smiling benignly in heaven at what happened to me, she has a perfect right to do so, for I was a real live Orlando . . ."

Her mother was only 16 when she gave birth to Simmons, in the face of fierce family opposition: her 18-year-old brother was said to have kicked her in the stomach, "which she always believed had something to do with my subsequent sexual condition.”

London: Icon Books, 1970
ISBN-10: 0251150658
ISBN-13: 978-0251150655

I Am a Woman
Tula (aka Caroline Cossey)

Caroline "Tula" Cossey (born August 31, 1954, in Brooke, Norfolk), is an English model. Born Barry Kenneth Cossey, she is one of the world's most famous transsexual people and the first to ever pose for Playboy. Since being "outed" by News of the World, a British tabloid, Cossey has fought for her right to legally marry a man and to be recognized by the law as a woman.

Cossey started hormone therapy and began living as a woman full time at 17 years old. She was often mistaken as female even before transition; Cossey has stated that this is because she has XXY chromosomes, a condition called Klinefelter's syndrome. Soon after beginning transition, Cossey began a career as a showgirl and topless dancer, working in nightclubs in London, Paris and Rome. After legally changing her name and undergoing breast augmentation surgery, Cossey had sex reassignment surgery in 1974.

Cossey, in a white bikini, as she appeared briefly onscreen in For Your Eyes Only. After completing her transition, Cossey ventured into modeling. She was featured in fashion and print advertisements, achieving most of her success as a glamour model. In 1981, Cossey was cast as an extra in the movie For Your Eyes Only. Shortly after the film’s release, the tabloid News of the World revealed Cossey was a transsexual, briefly disrupting her modeling career. In 1982, Cossey responded by releasing I Am a Woman.

London: Sphere, 1982
ISBN-10: 0722105835
ISBN-13: 978-0722105832