Books on Gender Variance in 2025 - Part 1: (auto) biographies and histories

 

AutoBiography

• Jean-Sebastien Busque. Gender Bilingual: Translating Life for Men and Women. Editions RESONANCE Publisher, 2025.

• Edward-Jeanne Cerdan. L'indompté - Confidences tendres et authentiques d'un homme transgenre. Good Mood Dealer, 2024.

• Jay Defazio. You Only Live Twice: A Memoir in Two Genders. Pride & Joy, 2025.

• Tommy Dorfman. Maybe This Will Save Me: A Memoir of Art, Addiction and Transformation. Hanover Square Press, 2025.

• 
  Ken Etherton. The Day My Life Made Sense: I am not what I appear to be. 2025.

• Mallery GenX. BECOMING HER: Transitioning After Forty. Kindle, 2025.

• Olivia Gosselin. Le Chemin: Parcours d’une femme autiste, musulmane et transgenre : récit d’une renaissance. 2025.

• Debra Hopkins. This Journey Called Life: A Transgender Woman’s Story of Faith, Survival, and Hope. 2025.

• G L. Lola, jeune femme transgenre. Kindle, 2025.

• Dylan Mulvaney. Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer. Sphere, 2025.

• Imogen Reid. Accept Yourself Or Die: From Mormon Missionary To Trans Punk. Sheer Spite, 2025.

• Oliver Radclyffe. Frighten the Horses: A Memoir of Transition. Grove Press, 2024.

• Daniela Requena. Mamá, soy mujer: Diario de una chica trans. Editorial Planeta, 2022.

• Kat Rogue. Crossdresser: Growing Up Trans In The 1990s And 2000s. Sheer Spite, 2025.

• Léon Salin. D'un monde à l'autre: Une histoire de transition de genre. Leduc Societe, 2025.

Essays

• Vivian Blaxell. Worthy of the Event: An Essay. LittlePuss Press, 2025.

• Jennifer Finney Boylan. Cleavage: Men, Women, and the Space Between Us. Celadon, 2025.

Biographical sketches

• Sophia Aguilar. Queer Latine Heroes: 25 Changemakers from Latin America and the U.S. from History and Today. Jessica Kingsley, 2025.

• Ria Brodell. More Butch Heroes. MIT Press, 2025.

• Diamond Hester. Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Queer Histories. Pegasus Books, 2024.

• 
  Jim Wilke. Frontier Comrades: From the Fur Trade to the Ford Car. University of Nebraska Press, 2025.

Biography

• Juan Cadena. UNFOLDING: Stories of Queer Resilience, Faith, and the Work of Living. 2025,

• Deb Carson. Becoming FLO…A Mostly True Story. Pure Art Press, 2024.

• Jeff Copeland. Love You Madly, Holly Woodlawn. Feral House, 2025.

• Shiro Deng. Julie Lemieux: Canada's First Transgender Mayor. LGBTQ Books Canada, 2025.

• 
  Patricia Heuston. La Maupin: Sword, Stage, and Scandal in the Court of Louis XIV. Silverback Books, 2025.

• Muhammad Nawaz Khan 7 Saima Muhammad Nawaz. Shadows of Destiny: The Transgender Voices. 2025, (the story of Zayn who rises to become a civil servant)

• David Marshall. Marsha P. Johnson: The Woman Who Sparked a Revolution, How One Brave Soul Lit the Fire at Stonewall. 2025.

• David Marshall. Laverne Cox: The Trans Actress Who Broke Barriers. The role that shattered stereotypes and forced Hollywood to change. 2025.

• David Marshall. Sylvia Rivera: The Street Fighter for Trans Rights. The fearless activist who refused silence, and ignited a movement for equality. 2025.

• Tom Roberts & Jacqueline Kent. Bonjour, Mademoiselle!: April Ashley and the pursuit of a lovely life. Scribe Publications, 2025.

• Tormaline. Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson. Tiny Reparations Books, 2025.

• Taylor Walsh. SYLVIA RIVERA: A Revolutionary Life in the Fight for Trans Equality. 2025.

• Brenda Bradford Ward. Forty Years to Life: A Case Study. Genre Library, 2025.

• 
  Pan Wendt. Erica Rutherford: Her Lives and Works. Goose Lane Editions, 2025

• Paul Wise. Marsha P. Johnson Biography: Pay It No Mind and Keep Walking. 2015.

Changeback

• Rene Jax, Memoirs of the First Transgender Cop. Kindle, 2025.

• Sandra Mercado Rodríguez. La estafa del transgenerismo: Memorias de una destransición. Tierra de Nadie Editores. 2022.

Doctor & Allies Biography

• $£¥ € Daniel Brook. The Einstein of sex : Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, visionary of Weimar Berlin. W W Norton, 2025.

• $£¥ € Rainer Hernn. Der Liebe und dem Leid: Das Institut für Sexualwissenschaft 1919-1933. Suhrkamp, 2022.

• $£¥ € Brandy Schillace. The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story. W W Norton, 2025.

Spouse & Parent Autobiography

• Amber Donnelly. The Woman in My Husband's Place: A memoir of trauma, survival, and a life-altering choice. Kindle, 20205.

• Caroline Litman. Her Name is Alice. Mudlark, 2025.

• Cristina Olivetti. About Bliss: Fighting for My Trans Son's Life, Joy, and Fertility. Jessica Kingsley, 2025.

• Gemma Telford. Between: A Memoir on Gender Transition by a Mother and Her Trans Son. Trigger Publishing, 2025.

Trans/GLBT history

• Feras Alkabani. Richard Burton, T.E. Lawrence and the Culture of Homoerotic Desire: Orientalist Depictions of Arab Sexuality. I B Tauris, 2024.

• Lucy Cohen. A Transgender History: Discrimination, Movement, and Cultural Enrichment. 2025.

• 
  Pete Cossaboon. Beyond Binary: The Global Spectrum of Gender Through Time and Faith. 2025.

• Pete Cossaboom. We Were Always Here: Unsung Queer Heroes and the History They Made. 2025.

• Eli Erlick. Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History. Beacon Press, 2025.

• Jonah I Garde. Trans Geschichten der Moderne: »Geschlechtsumwandlung« im 20. Jahrhundert und ihre kolonialen Geister. transcript, 2025.

• Phaedra J Kelly. The Naked Gender Transient: An Origin and History of Intersex and Transgender . Austin Macauley, 2025.

• Amara Moira, João W. Nery, Márcia Rocha and Tarso Brant. Vidas Trans: A luta de transgêneros brasileiros em busca de seu espaço social. Idioma, 2022.

• $£¥ € Marina Montesano. Cross-dressing in the Middle Ages. Routledge, 2025.

• Caro De Robertis. So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color. Algonquin Books. 2025.

• Alicia Spencer-Hall & Blake Gutt (eds). Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. Routledge, 2023.

• James Thompson. Unbound Trans Voices: Cultural Reflections on Transgender Lives Around the World. 2025.

• Lucy Violet. HISTORY OF THE LGBT MOVEMENT: All the obstacles and struggles of the lgbt movement for the recognition of the fundamental rights of homosexuality. 2025.

Country Histories

• Julian Rhys Carter. Gay Today, Gone Tomorrow How We Fought for Our Rights—And Why We’re Still Not Safe: A History of LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Battles, Backlashes, and the Ongoing Fight for Freedom. 2025. (US)

• Tamara Chaplin. Becoming Lesbian: A Queer History of Modern France. University of Chicago Press, 2024.

• Richard Fleishman. Queering the Ton: The Hidden Rules of Queer Survival in Polite Society. 2025. (19th-century England)

• Anthony Delaney. Queer Enlightenments: A Hidden History of Lovers, Lawbreakers, and Homemakers. Doubleday, 2025.

• Anthony Delaney. Queer Georgians: A hidden history of lovers, lawbreakers and homemakers. Doubleday, 2025.

• Andrew Donnelly. Confederate Sympathies: Same-Sex Romance, Disunion, and Reunion in the Civil War Era. University of North Carolina Press, 2025.

• Ariane Fortin. Histoire des Personnes Transgenres: Chroniques Transgenres à Travers les Âges. 2023. (France)

• Michelle H S Ho. Emergent Genders: Living Otherwise in Tokyo's Pink Economies. Duke University Press, 2025.

• $£¥ € Wikke Jansen. Queer Mobilities in Indonesia: Religion, Activism, and Everyday Life. Liverpool University Press, 2025.

• Ximena Salazar Lostaunau. Mujeres trans en el Perú: historias de vida e identidad. Fondo Editorial Cayetano, 2023.

• J Daniel Luther. Queering Normativity and South Asian Public Culture: Wrong Readings Only. Palgrave Macmillan, 2025.

• $£¥ € James Martin. Sexual and Gender Minority History: A Counter-Narrative. Oxford University Press, 2025. (US centric)

• John Moliah. Silent Voices: Living as LGBT in Bangladesh. 2025.

• $£¥ € Liz Mount. 'New' Women: Trans Women, Hijras and the Remaking of Inequality in India. Cambridge University Press, 2025.

• Megg Rayara Gomes de Oliveira, Letícia Carolina Nascimento and Jaqueline Gomes de Jesu (eds). Epistemic Dissonance: The (R)existence of Black Travestis and Trans Women in Brazil. Amefrica Press, 2025.

• $£¥ € Dhishna Pannikot. Navigating Gender Identity in India: Social and Cultural Perspectives on Gender Sustainability. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2025.

• Justin Perez. Queer Emergent: Scandalous Stories from the Twilight of AIDS in Peru. Duke University Press, 2025.

• S K Raghuvanshi. The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 (Bare Acts by Allahabad Law Agency Book 18). Allahabad Law Agency, 2025, (Pakistan)

• Aaron B Retish. Gender in Modern Russia: 1850 to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

• Skriuwer. The Other Side of the Rainbow: A Critical History of the LGBT Movement. 2025. (US)

• Lilith Carol Romeiro da Silva. Ainda assim, eu Floresci: A historia real de uma mulher trans brasileira. 2025.

• $£¥ € Ahonaa Roy & Vasu Reddy. Transnational Contact Zones: Rethinking Gender and Sexuality in Africa and India. Routledge, 2025.

• $£¥ € Sheba Saeed. Transgender Identities: The Evolving Identity of Transwomen in Pakistan. Bloomsbury Academic, 2025.

• Yulia Yu Sakurazawa. People Loved by Gods, Despised by Humans: The Unknown World of Hijra, the Third Gender of India. 2025

• Mickaël Studnicki. Droites nationalistes et homosexualités en France. SUP, 2025.

• Gregory Williams. Love is the law: Cuba’s queer rights’ revolution. 2025.

• Alvin K Womg. Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong and the Sinophone. Duke University Press, 2025.

• $£¥ € Mirjam Zadoff & Karolina Kühn (eds). To Be Seen: Queer Lives 1900–1950. Hirmer Publishers, 2023. (queer lives in early twentieth-century Germany)

City and Province Histories

• Ivano Azzellino & Valentina Giacchetti. I ragazzi di Monte Caprino. Storie di identità di genere e orientamento sessuale. Tab edizioni, 2025. (Rome)

• Robert Fieseler. American Scare: Florida's Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives. Dutton, 2025.

• $£¥ € Mathais Foit. Queer Urbanisms in Wilhelmine and Weimar Germany: Of Towns and Villages. Palgrave, 2023.

• $£¥ € Charles H Ford & Jeffrey L Littlejohn. Queer Virginia: New Stories in the Old Dominion. University of Virginia Press, 2025.

• Rae Garringer. Country Queers: A Love Letter. Haymarket Books, 2024,

• Rae Garringer. To Belong Here: A New Generation of Queer, Trans, and Two-Spirit Appalachian Writers. University Press of Kentucky, 2025.

• Simon Goldhill. Queer Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 2025.

• Magnus Hirschfeld translated by Michael Lombardi-Nash. Annual of Sexual Intermediaries 23 Volumes (1916) Urania, 2025. (Berlin)

• John Van Hoesen. Insist That They Love You: Craig Rodwell and the Fight for Gay Pride. Aevo UTP, 2025. (New York)

• Peter Parker (ed). Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1945-59. Penguin, 2024.

• Peter Parker (ed). Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1960-67. Penguin, 2024.

• Julie Peakman. Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis. Reaktion Books, 2024.

• Megan Rohrer. San Francisco's Transgender District. Arcadia, 2025.

• Alexander Zinn. Maintöchter: Schwule, Lesben, Trans- und Intersexuelle in Frankfurt am Main 1933-1994. Wallstein Verlag, 2025.