This site is the most comprehensive on the web devoted to trans history and biography. Well over 1400 persons worthy of note, both famous and obscure, are discussed in detail, and many more are mentioned in passing.

There is a detailed Index arranged by vocation, doctor, activist group etc. There is also a Place Index arranged by City etc. This is still evolving.

In addition to this most articles have one or more labels at the bottom. Click one to go to similar persons. There is a full list of labels at the bottom of the right-hand sidebar. There is also a search box at the top left. Enjoy exploring!

27 December 2019

2019 trans obituaries

Brenda Lana Smith (1933 – 2019) Honorary Danish Consul in Bermuda. Christine Jorgensen’s housemate until her death. Active in PFC. Campaigned against lack of gay and trans rights in Bermuda.

Jackie Shane (1940 – 2019) musician who had a hit in Toronto, 1962 with “Any Other Way”. She was then androgynous. She completed transition in old age.

Gayle Sherman (1940 – 2019) Jewel Box Review, 82 Club, post-op stripper, cosmetologist.


Bebe Scarpinato (1951 – 2019) teacher, activist in GAA, STAR, QLF, on the originating board of the National Gay Task Force and was active in planning the fourth Christopher Street Liberation Day (which later became the New York Pride March), editor of Drag Magazine.

Julia Grant (1954 – 2019) protagonist of the pioneering documentary A Change of Sex, 1979, author of two autobiographies, bar owner, activist.

Phaedra Kelly (1955 – 2019) cofounder of the Transconscient Arts Movement, founder of the International Gender Transient Affinity. Featured in Richard Ekins’ books.

Jamie Lee Hamilton (1955 – 2019) Vancouver activist, first trans person in Canada to run for public office, ran a non-profit centre for sex workers, and agitated to bring attention to the missing women in the period before the arrest of serial killer Robert Pickton.

Penny Whetton (1958 – 2019) climate scientist, Melbourne. a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report, and of the Fourth Assessment Report which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Julie Berman (1968 – 2019) Toronto activist who raised awareness about violence against trans women, herself murdered.

Nikki Arguz Loyd (1975 – 2019) A trans activist since adolescence. Her second husband, a firefighter, died on the job in 2010, and his family and first wife litigated to deny her widow’s benefits. This was reversed in 2015.


Miriam Rivera  (1981 – 2019) featured in UK and Australian reality shows in 2004. Found dead in apartment in Mexico.


Rajathi (1981 -2019) priestess murdered and beheaded while attending at her temple in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu.


Genilson José da Silva (1984 – 2019) bar owner Jardim Marisa, Campo Belo, Brazil, murdered and mutilated by a trick.

Camila Díaz Córdova (1990 –2019) San Salvador. Fled from transphobic violence to US, but was deported back, and then murdered.

Jade Camila Diaz (199? – 2019) was creating a transgender women's collective in San Francisco Gotera, the provincial capital of Morazán state. She had also worked on forced displacement and migration issues, which particularly affect the trans community. Murdered.

Santiago Carbajal (199? – 2019) Honduran television personality murdered.

Jordan Cofer (1997 – 2019). Cofer’s brother, Connor Betts, did a mass shooting at a nightclub in Dayton, Ohio, and Jordan was the first victim of 9 – also 13 were wounded.  Betts was quickly shot dead by police.

Britany Sanchez Zárate (1999 – 2019) had just been crowned Princess of the Carnival of Minatitlán, Veracruz when two men fatally shot her.

Murder Count

Murders in the 12 months up to the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Transrespect.

There were 331 recorded deaths this last year – plus many more nor reported, especially in countries were transgender is not recognized. This is slightly less bad than the 369 reported in 2018, but still a serious jump from the 270 in 2017.

As usual the most murders were recorded in Brazil (130), Mexico (63), the United States (30).

15 December 2019

Books on Gender Variance in 2019

$£¥ €=Excessively overpriced books. 
  • Miriam J Abelson. Men in Place: Trans Masculinity, Race, and Sexuality in America. University of Minnesota Press, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Michel J Boucher. Transgender Representation and the Politics of the Real in the United States. Routledge, 2019.
  • Stephanie Castle. Feelings: A Transsexual's Explanation of a Baffling Condition. Kindle, 2019. A re-issue of the book from 1992 by the Vancouver activist.
  • Jian Neo Chen. Trans Exploits: Trans of Color Cultures and Technologies in Movement. Duke University Press, 2019.
  • Maria Cook. Gender Identity: Beyond Pronouns and Bathrooms. Nomad Press, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Katherine Crawford-Lackey & Megan E Springate (eds). Identities and Place: Changing Labels and Intersectional Communities of LGBTQ and Two-Spirit People in the United States. Berghahn Books, 2019.
  • Jules Joanne Gleeson & Elle O’Rourke (eds) Transgender Marxism. Pluto Press, 2019.
  • Ardel Haefele-Thomas. Introduction to Transgender Studies. Harrington Park Press, 2019.
  • Addison Hernández. Autoconcepto y concepción de masculinidad y feminidad en Drag Queens: Un estudio de casos en profundidad.  Editorial Académica Española, 2019.
  • Amos Mac. Original Plumbing: The Best of Ten Years of Trans Male Culture. Amethyst Editions, 2019.
  • Sarah McBride. Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality. Three Rivers Press, 2019.
  • Eva A Mendes & Meredith R Maroney. Gender Identity, Sexuality and Autism: Voices from Across the Spectrum. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Ruth Pearce et al (eds). The Emergence of Trans: Cultures, Politics and Everyday Lives. Routledge, 2019.
  • Juno Roche. Trans power. Jessica Kingsley, 2019. Newsarticle.
  • Peter W Schulze. Los transgéneros tango, samba y ranchera: (re)configuraciones mediáticas y culturales. Vervuert Verlagsges, 2019.
  • Arlene Stein. Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity. Vintage, 2019.
  • Rachel Anne Williams. Transgressive: A Trans Woman on Gender, Feminism and Politics. Jessica Lingsley Publishers, 2019.

Jargon & Language


  • Morgan Lev Edward Holleb. The A-Z of Gender and Sexuality: From Ace to Ze. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Douglas Robinson. Transgender, Translation, Translingual Address. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.
  • Eris Young. They/Them/Their: A Guide to Nonbinary and Genderqueer Identities. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.

Religious


  • James K Beilby & Paul Rhodes (eds). Understanding Transgender Identities: Four Views. Baker Academic, 2019.
  • Mike Jolls. Living Life Between Two Worlds: The Story of A Transsexual Experience, the truth God revealed about it, and how He brought me out of it. Christian Faith Publishing, Inc, 2019.
  • Kevin Manders & Elizabeth Marston (eds). Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices. North Atlantic Books, 2019.

Legal, Imprisonment & Surveillance


  • Toby Beauchamp. Going Stealth: Transgender Politics and US Surveillance Practices. Duke University Press, 2019.
  • Persson Perry Baumgartinger. Die staatliche Regulierung von Trans: Der Transsexuellen-Erlass in Österreich (1980-2010). Eine Dispositivgeschichte. Taschenbuch, 2019.
  • Marty Erickson. Transgender Rights. Brightpoint Press, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Mia Fischer. Terrorizing Gender: Transgender Visibility and the Surveillance Practices of the U.S. Security State. University of Nebraska Press, 2019.,
  • Christopher Hutton.  The Tyranny of Ordinary Meaning: Corbett v Corbett and the Invention of Legal Sex. Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Susan Gluck Mezey. Transgender Rights: From Obama to Trump. Routledge, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Damian A Gonzalez Salzberg.  Sexuality and Transsexuality Under the European Convention on Human Rights: A Queer Reading of Human Rights Law. Hart Pub Ltd, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Alex Sharpe. Sexual Intimacy and Gender Identity 'Fraud': Reframing the Legal and Ethical Debate. Routledge, 2019.

Health and Medical

  • $£¥ € Dana Bevan. Transgender Health and Medicine: History, Practice, Research, and the Future. Praeger, 2019.
  • Daphna Joel & Luba Vikhanski. Gender Mosaic: Beyond the myth of the male and female brain. Endeavour, 2019.

Arts


  • Martin Aston. Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache: How Music Came Out. BackBeat, 2017.
  • Rebecca Bell-Metereau. Transgender Cinema. Rutgers University Press, 2019.
  • Darryl W Bullock. David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music. Harry N Abrams, 2019.
  • Jian Neo Chen. Trans Exploits: Trans of Color Cultures and Technologies in Movement. Duke University Press, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Simone Chess. Male-to-Female Crossdressing in Early Modern English Literature: Gender, Performance, and Queer Relations. Routledge, 2019.
  • Valérie Clayman. I'm Supposed to Relate to This? A Trans Woman on Issues of Identification with Trans Moving Images. AnteBody Press, 2016. As Clayman’s life progressed, she found that characters she initially accepted as being trans looked less and less so.
  • $£¥ €=Heather Duerre Humann. Gender Bending Detective Fiction: A Critical Analysis of Selected Works. McFarland Publishing, 2017.
  • Quinlan Miller. Camp TV: Trans Gender Queer Sitcom History. Duke University Press, 2019.
  • Tomás Pérez Niño y José Luis Mena. El cine transgénero. Los 100 mejores títulos. Cacitel, SL, 2018.
  • Jonathan Weinberg. Art after Stonewall, 1969-1989. Rizzoli Electa, 2019.

Photography

  • Dunia Miralles & Olivier G Fatton. Coco. Edition Patrick Frey, 2019.

Sports

  • Kristen Worley & Johanna Schneller. Woman Enough: How a Boy Became a Woman and Changed the World of Sport. Random House, 2019.
  • Joanna Harper. Sporting Gender: The History, Science, and Stories of Transgender and Intersex Athletes. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2019.
  • Narrick Hugo Melonio & Thomaz D. Abdalla Siqueira. O Transgênero no Esporte. Kindle, 2019.

Guidebooks

  • Finn V Gratton. Supporting Transgender Autistic Youth and Adults: A Guide for Professionals and Families. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Sam Hope. Person-Centred Counselling for Trans and Gender Diverse People: A Practical Guide. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Adrienne J. Transgender 101: a Guide to Coping with Gender Dysphoria. 2019.
  • Gary J Jacobson, Jan C Niemira & Karalyn J Violeta (eds). Sex, Sexuality, and Trans Identities: Clinical Guidance for Psychotherapists and Counselors. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Sally Jo. How to Pass as a Girl: A Guide for Cross-Dressers. Kindle, 2019
  • Tiffany Jones. Improving Services for Transgender and Gender Variant Youth: Research, Policy and Practice for Health and Social Care Professionals. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Jennie Kermode. Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary People with Disabilities or Illnesses: A Good Practice Guide for Health and Care Provision. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • S.J. Langer. Theorizing Transgender Identity for Clinical Practice: A New Model for Understanding Gender. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Matson Lawrence & Stephenie Mckendry. Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Students and Staff in Further and Higher Education: Practical Advice for Colleges and Universities. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Julie Nicholson et al. Supporting Gender Diversity in Early Childhood Classrooms: A Practical Guide. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Denise O’Doherty. Prosperando a través de la transición: Autocuidado para padres de niños transgénero. 2019.
  • Sally Rymer & Valentina Cartei. Working with Trans Survivors of Sexual Violence: A Guide for Professionals. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Brynn Tannehill. Everything You Wanted to Know About Trans * But Were Afraid to Ask. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018. Newsarticle.
  • Madison-Amy Webb. A Reflective Guide to Gender Identity Counselling. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.

Couples & Family

  • Amanda Jetté Knox. Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family. Viking, 2019. The authors child and spouse both transitioned.
  • Mimi Lemay. What We Will Become: A Mother, a Son, and a Journey of Transformation. Houghton Mifflin, 2019.
  • ++Rick Prashaw. Soar, Adam, Soar.  Dundurn, 2019.   A father celebrates the life of his trans son who drowned during an epileptic fit.

AutoBiography

  • Céline Audebeau. Du masculin au féminin, mon parcours singulier. Editions KAWA, 2019.
  • Freiya Benson (ed). Trans Love: An Anthology of Transgender and Non-Binary Voices.  Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019.
  • Jackson Bird. Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place (A Transgender Memoir). Tiller Press, 2019.
  • Joanne Borden. The Transgender Monologues: Gender, Sexuality, and LGBT Life. 2019.
  • Clarisse. Homme un jour, femme toujours - Les tribulations d'une femme transgenre. La boite à pandore, 2019.
  • Lucky & Wolsey Bradley. Accidentally Gay: The True Love Story When a Wife Becomes a Husband. Riverdale Avenue Books, 2019.
  • Katherine Cummings. The Live and Loves of a Transgendered Lesbian Librarian : and other essays, stories and verses. Beaujon Press, 2019.
  • A J D. Transition: Opinionated Transsexual's Views of the Gender Journey Shared with Transgender Youth. 2019.
  • Monica F Helms. More Than Just a Flag. MB Books, 2019.
  • Rock Holliwood. Trixy Long: A Transgender Memoir. Kindle, 2019.
  • Anne L Koch. It Never Goes Away: Gender Transition at a Mature Age. Rutgers University Press, 2019.
  • Sabina Kocherhans. Vom Slumgirl zur Botschafterin: One Voice - One Heart – Transgender. Basic Erfolgsmanagement, 2019.
  • Landa Mabenge. Becoming Him: A Trans Memoir of Triumph. Jacana Media, 2019.
  • Benjamin MacEllen. A Cut Closer to Whole. Kindle, 2019.
  • João W. Nery. Velhice transviada: Memórias e reflexões. Objetiva; Edição, 2019.
  • Rick & Adam Prashaw. Soar, Adam, Soar. Dundurn, 2019.
  • Lorimer Shenher.  This One Looks Like a Boy: My Gender Journey to Life as a Man. Greystone Books, 2019.  Vancouver police officer - see also under Written by a trans person.
  • Abby Stein. Becoming Eve: My Journey from Ultra-Orthodox Rabbi to Transgender Woman. Seal Press, 2019.
  • Margot Wilson & Aaron Devor (eds). Glimmerings: Trans Elders Tell Their Stories. Castle Carrington Publishing, 2019.

Doctor Autobiography

  • Donald R Laub. Second Lives, Second Chances: A Surgeon's Stories of Transformation. ECW Press, 2019.

Biography


  • Chris Coffman. Gertrude Stein’s Transmasculinity, Edinburgh University Press, 2018.
  • Gérard de Cortanze. Femme qui court: Violette Morris, la scandaleuse. Albin Michel Littérature, 2019.
  • John Hemingway. Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir. 2019. By Gloria’s son.
  • Lida Maxwell. Insurgent Truth: Chelsea Manning and the Politics of Outsider Truth-Telling. Oxford University Press, 2019.
  • Michael Pick. Norman Hartnell: The Biography. Zuleika, 2019. 
  • Angela Steidele, translated from German by Katy Derbyshire. Gentleman Jack: A biography of Anne Lister, Regency Landowner, Seducer and Secret Diarist. Serpent’s Tail, 2018. Review. Review.
  • Margot E Wilson. Girl in the Dream: Stephanie (Sydney) Castle Heal, A Transgender Life. Transgender Publishing, 2018.

Trans/GLBT history


  • Simon Avery & Katherine M Graham (eds). Sex, Time and Place: Queer Histories of London, c.1850 to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
  • Jason Baumann (ed). The Stonewall Reader.  The New York Public Library & Penguin Books, 2019. Review .
  • Steven F Dansky. Hot August Night/1970: The Forgotten LGBT Riot. Blurb, 2019. Online.
  • $£¥ € Jessica Hinchy. Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c.1850-1900. Cambridge University Press, 2019.
  • David Kohl. A Curious and Peculiar People: A history of the GLBTQ Communuity and the Metropolitan Community Church. CreateSpace, 2019.
  • Jenny Latreille. Trans en France: Histoire des personnes trans en France et ailleurs d'autrefois à nos jours.2018.
  • Russ Lopez. The Hub of the Gay Universe: An LGBTQ History of Boston, Provincetown, and Beyond. Shawmut Peninsula Press, 2019.
  • Elizabeth Otto. Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics. The MIT Press, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Don Romesburg (ed). The Routledge History of Queer America. Routledge, 2019.
  • Hugh Ryan. When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History. St Martin’s Press. 2019.
  • Kerry Segrave. ‘Masquerading in Male Attire”: Women Passing as Men in America, 1844-1920. McFarland Publishing, 2018.
  • Richard Schneider Jr (ed). In Search of Stonewall: The Riots at 50, The Gay & Lesbian Review at 25, Best Essays 1994-2018. G&LR Books, 2019. Review.
  • Howard Philips Smith & Frank Perez. Southern Decadence in New Orleans. LSU Press, 2018.
  • The New York Times (ed). Transgender Activists and Celebrities. New York Times Edu Pub, 2018.

Other Cultures


  • Aren Z Aizura. Mobile Subjects: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment. Duke University Press, 2018.
  • Mathieu Boisvert. Les hijras : Portraits socioreligieux d'une communauté transgenre sud-asiatique. PU Montréal, 2019.
  • Franck Poupart & Jean-Pascal Huvé. Ladyboys of Thailand, un Hommage à la Féminité, a Tribute to the Feminine. UV Productions, 2018.
  • Dante X. Transsexuals and Katoys in Thailand. Kindle, 2019.


Written by a trans person


  • Lorimer Shenher.  That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away. Greystone Books, 2015.  The Robert Picton case by a detective who later transitions – see also in Autobiography.

Fiction


  • Stephanie Castle. Far Side of the Moon: A Novel About the Life of a Child Transsexual.  Castle Carrington Publishing, 2019.
  • Hafren Evan. Learning to Roar. 2019.


Transphobic


  • Janice Atkinson. What Women Want versus The gender, transgender and cultural wars of the West. Aspekt Publisher, 2019.
  • $£¥ € Heather Brunskell-Evans & Michele Moore (eds). Inventing Transgender Children and Young People. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019. 
  • Alex P Serritella. Transgenda - Abuse and Regret in the Sex-Change Industry. Bookstand Publishing, 2016.
  • Stephen Stacey. Sexual Political Correctness: Can Our Nations De-Transition from Harmful, Transgender Legislation? Kindle, 2019.

Announced for 2020


  • Noah Adam & Bridget Liang. Trans and Autistic: Stories from Life at the Intersection. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020.
  • $£¥ € Conrad Alexandrowicz. Acting Queer: Gender Dissidence and the Subversion of Realism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
  • Samantha Allen. Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States. Back Bay Books, 2010.
  • Alex Bakker, Rainer Herrn, Michael Thomas Taylor & Annette F Timm. Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories. University of Calgary Press, 2020.
  • Anne Balay. Semi Queer: Inside the World of Gay, Trans, and Black Truck Drivers. University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
  • Dennis Baron. What's Your Pronoun?: Beyond He and She. Liveright, 2020.
  • $£¥ € Lauren Bonati. Transgender Dermatology,An Issue of Dermatologic Clinics. Elsevier, 2020.
  • Jennifer Boylan. Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs. Celadon Books, 2020.
  • Brian Bradley. Outrageous Misfits: Female Impersonator Craig Russell and His Wife, Lori Russell Eadie. Dundurn, 2020.
  • Heather Bryant. My Trans Parent: A User Guide for When Your Parent Transitions. Jessica Kingsley, 2020.
  • Peter Bussian. Trans New York: Photos and Stories of Transgender New Yorkers. Apollo Publishers, 2020.
  • $£¥ € B Camminga. Transgender Refugees and the Imagined South Africa: Bodies Over Borders and Borders Over Bodies. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
  • P. Carl. Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition. Simin & Schuster, 2020.
  • Daniel Shank Cruz. Queering Mennonite Literature: Archives, Activism, and the Search for Community. Penn State University Press, 2010.
  • Christina Beardsley & Chris Dowd. Trans Affirming Churches: How to Celebrate Gender-Variant People and Their Loved Ones. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020.
  • Heidi Dalzell & Kayti Protos. A Clinician's Guide to Gender Identity and Body Image: Practical Support for Working with Transgender and Gender-Expansive Clients. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020.
  • Jo Ivester. Once a Girl, Always a Boy: A Family Memoir of a Transgender Journey. She Writes Press, 2020.
  • Selenis Leyva & Marizol Leyva. My Sister: How One Sibling's Transition Changed Us Both. Bold Tpe Books, 2020.
  • Jen Manion. Female Husbands: A Trans History. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
  • $£¥ € Daniel Marshall. Queer Youth Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
  • Rachel Mesch. Before Trans: Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth-Century France. Stanford University Press, 2020.
  • $£¥ € Adam M Messinger & Xavier L Guadalupe-Diaz. Transgender Intimate Partner Violence: A Comprehensive Introduction. New York University Press, 2020.
  • Matthew Mills & Gillie Stoneham. Voice and Communication Therapy with Trans and Non-Binary People: Sharing the Clinical Space. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020.
  • · $£¥ € Dmitriy Nikolavsky & Stephen Blakely. Urological Care for the Transgender Patient: A Comprehensive Guide. Springer, 2020.
  • Jay Kyle Petersen & Christina M Laukaitis. A Comprehensive Guide to Intersex. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020.
  • $£¥ € Barry Reay. Trans America: A Counter-History. Polity, 2020.
  • Robyn Ryle. Throw Like a Girl, Cheer Like a Boy: The Evolution of Gender, Identity, and Race in Sports. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020.
  • Rob Sanders. The Fighting Infantryman: The Story of Albert D. J. Cashier, Transgender Civil War Soldier. Little bee books, 2020.
  • Troy R Saxby. Pauli Murray: A Personal and Political Life. University of North Carolina, 2020.
  • Abigail Shrier. Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. Regnery Publishing, 2020.
  • Jespa Smith. Non-Binary Lives: An Anthology of Intersecting Identities. Jessica Kingsley Publsihers, 2010.
  • Maxfield Sparrow. Spectrums: Autistic Transgender People in Their Own Words. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020.
  • Hida Viloria & Maria Nieto. The Spectrum of Sex: The Science of Male, Female, and Intersex. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2020.
  • Emerson Whitney. Heaven. McSweeneys Books, 2020.
  • Mark Yarhouse & Julia Sadusky. Emerging Gender Identities. Brazos Press, 2020.

Announced for 2021


  • $£¥ € Linda W Brakel. The Trans Phenomenon and the Nature of Self: Moore's Paradox? More Paradoxes! De Gruyter, 2021.
  • $£¥ € Lopamudra Sengupta. Human Rights of the Third Gender in India: Beyond the Binary. Routledge India, 2021.
  • Dashka Slater. The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives. Square Fish, 2021.

11 December 2019

Éve-Claudine Lorétan (Coco) (1969 – 1998) model, housekeeper

​Lorétan was raised in Thun, south of Bern. She was taking black-market hormones from the age of 13. Her elder sister had been raped at age 13, and afterwards turned to drugs and died at a young age.

After high school, Lorétan trained as a model. At age 20 she took the name Éve-Claudine and Coco as a professional name. She met 32-year-old photographer Olivier Fatton in a sauna in Bern in November 1989, and they instantly fell in love.  She asked him to document her transition.

Her surgery was further video-documented by film-maker Paul Riniker. However there was an error, and more  surgery was required. The day her friends took her home from the hospital, she did cocaine to deal with the pain, and also insisted on performing that night. On stage she tore out her IV, howled and bled.

Riniker’s film Traum Frau Coco was shown on Swiss television in 1991 and watched by over 660,000 on the first broadcast. This made Coco famous in Switzerland, and sporadically she was in the news over the next few years, but she had to work as a housekeeper at a mental hospital in order make a living.

She also suffered from osteoporosis and depression. Doctors prescribed morphine, but that led to addiction.  She did model for the Bernese fashion designer Marianne Alvoni, and for a while was working at a sex salon in Thun, but was too well known.

In 1997 the manuscript of her autobiography was stolen. She made several suicide attempts, and so died at age 29.

In 2018, Coco’s life was made into a musical, Ein Transgendermusical by author Alexander Seibt and composer Markus Schönholzer. A male was cast for pre-transition and a female for her later years.

In 2019, Fatton published his photographs of Coco.



  • Paul Riniker (dir) Traum Frau Coco. With Coco. Switzerland, 56 mins 1991.
  • Miss Rosen. “Candid Photographs of 1980s Trans Trailblazer and Model, Coco”. AnOther Mag, March 01, 2019. Online.
  • Miss Rosen. “The Majesty and Tragedy of a Trans Radical Gone Too Soon”. Feature Shoot, May 2, 2019. Online.
  • Dunia Miralles & Olivier G Fatton. Coco. Edition Patrick Frey, 2019.
  • Dunia Miralles. “Olivier et Coco: Art, amour, passion et tragédie”.  Des Avenues et des fleurs, 21 février 2019. Online.


07 December 2019

Adrian Angelico (1982 - ) opera singer

Adrian, an indigenous Sami, was raised with the name Angelica Voje in Tromsø, in northern Norway. Voje studied opera singing in Norway and Denmark, at the International Opera Studio in Zurich, the Royal College of Music and the Benjamin Britten International Opera School in the UK.

Voje, a mezzo-soprano, gained two special prizes at the 2009 Queen Sonja International Music Competition, and made a debut at the Bregenze Festival in July 2010. Major roles were as Carmen at Opera Trondheim and the title role in Handel’s Taseo. Concert appearances included Peer Gynt with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Beethoven’s Symphony no.9 with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.

In July 2016 Norwegian law permitted those 16 or over to change legal gender without diagnosis or medical treatment. Voje changed his name to Adrian Angelico, obtained top surgery and a new passport. However he did not take testosterone because it would affect his voice. He remained androphilic. “Some might think it was easier for me to be a woman and a heterosexual, because it is less sensational, but it is not. It is easier for me to be authentic.”

In March 2017 Adrian made his first transition performance in Ariadne auf Naxos with the Nordnorsk opera and symphony orchestra. Opera houses across Europe which had booked a female mezzo-soprano had been informed that a man was coming instead.

He has been working since. He specialises in ‘trouser roles’, male roles requiring a soprano or falsetto voice, initially played by castrati, and later by women. A male mezzo-soprano is ideal to be cast thus. Adrian also accepts female roles which he plays in drag.

  • “Angelica Voje Mezzo-Soprano”. Royal Opera House, Online.
  • “Angelica ble til Adrian: – Sjelen min har alltid vært gutt”. NRK, 18.mars 2017. Online  Translation.
Everybody.Wiki   adrianangelico.com   StellisPolaris





05 December 2019

Lucia Lucas (1981 – ) opera singer

Lucas, from Sacramento studied voice and horn at California State University, Sacramento, and did graduate work at the Chicago College of Performing Arts. Lucas married a woman, a fellow opera singer, a contralto, in 2009, and also that year they moved to Germany.

Lucas was then being billed as Lucas Harbour.  Harbour sang at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Teatro Regio Torino in 2009-10, spent the following season in Heidelberg, then moved with artistic director Peter Spuhler to Karlsruhe and stayed through 2015-16. At first the roles were small, but some were led by famous conductors, including Wagner’s Tannhäuser with Semyon Bychkov in Italy.

In 2013 Lucas announced that she would transition, would be Lucia Lucas. Lucia had surgical completion in 2016. That year she sang the four villains in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffman at Opernhaus Wuppertal, a staging that had her start as female for Lindorf, become male for Coppélius, then switch back – and that went down very well.

Lucia, being primarily a baritone, continued to sing male parts: “It would be great if I could just take estrogen and wake up and sing Brünnhilde. It doesn’t work like that.”

In April 2019 Lucas played the title role in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Tulsa Opera - the first female baritone to sing the part. In late 2019 it was announced that she has been cast in the part 'Public Opinion' in Orpheus in the Underworld with the English National Opera.



*not Lucie Lucas, the French actress


  • Ronald Blum. “Transgender Opera Singer Lucia Lucas Makes US Debut In ‘Don Giovanni’ “. HuffPost, 05/02/2019. Online.
  • Michael Cooper. “Transgender Opera Singers Find Their Voices”. New York Times, July 11, 2019. Online.

02 December 2019

Barbara Buick (1928 - ?) performer, factory worker

Buick was the child of Colonel and Madame Gaston Joly of Paris. At the end of the Second World War the child went with the parents to Bad Ems, Germany as part of the army of occupation, but then returned to Paris alone to pursue a theatrical career. A manager commented on her beauty and delicacy of features and suggested working as a female impersonator. She  was pleased with the observation and took the name Barbara Buick.

She was working at Le Carrousel in 1949 when the Prefecture of Police banned, temporarily as it turned out, wigs, fake breasts, high heels and dresses. The artists of course circumvented this by growing their own hair, taking hormones and wearing flat heels with feminine trousers. In all Buick stayed ten years at Le Carrousel, often working alongside lesbian singer Suzy Solidor. In the late 1950s she went for surgical confirmation from Dr Burou in Casablanca.

By this time her father, Colonel Joly had left his wife and disowned his daughter. While holidaying with her mother in Avignon, Barbara met Monsieur H, a French aristocrat. She told him of her past, and he was in shock, but he came round and still wanted to marry her. However she ran into problems trying to get her birth certificate re-issued.  In the early 1960s Barbara was sufficiently well known that she was featured in the English-language press as an epitome of a trans woman.

Later she  worked in the factory where her mother worked. This went well until a serious accident put her in hospital with first and second degree burns. After a month in hospital, Barbara returned to the factory and was summoned to see the boss – who had not visited her in hospital even once. He had become aware of the gender on her official papers. While the authorities had also become aware of her situation, they had decided on discretion and not interfered. The employer decided differently, and she was dismissed.

Barbara published her autobiography in 1971. Afterwards she disappeared from public view.

  • “Sex-Change Girl Barbara Plans Gretna Wedding”. The News of the World, 13 August 1961. Online.
  • Arnold Wells. “Exclusive! MD Reveals The Fourth Sex! Not Male, Not Female, And Not Homosexual”. The National Insider, 5, 3, July 19, 1964. Online.
  •  Barbara Buick. L’Eiquette. La Jeune Parque, 1971.
  • Annette Runte. Biographische Operationen: Diskurse der Transsexualität. Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1996: 22, 114f., 117, 128f., 218, 239, 242,275,294,314,444,450,479,490,492,495, 502,553,619.
  • Maxime Foester. Histoire des transsexuels en France. H&O éditions, 2006: 86, 92, 93.