Transgender Nation by Gordene Olga MacKenzie "Brilliant vision and insight. Packed with information and insight, Transgender Nation challenges the rigid gender norms that victimize people who transgress them, while exposing the mechanism that creates the hate which gets turned against transgender people. Her illumination of the emerging transgender liberation movement is unparalleled and piercing, and the book remains as visionary today as it was when it was published. A 'must read' for anyone with an interest in transgender politics, it places the blame for the violent brutality inflicted on transsexuals, transgenderists and crossdressers squarely on the narrowness of our cultural gender ideals.

Call Me Kate: The Story of Katherine Marlowe, a Transexual by Nelson "A Powerful Story of Survival. Overcoming prejudice through childhood, ostracized by the Church, criticized by many for making a living as a female impersonator...An compelling story that begins when a male prostitute convinces a new client to be a madam of a call service and house, catering to the needs of a growing number of gay men. A story that concludes with a decision that is most courageous-to change sex and deal with all the obstacles that go along with it.

Trans Liberation : Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg 

(Excellent book where the author openly discusses her gender issues. She describes herself using many names - transgendered, masculine female, drag king, etc. Leslie discusses in detail what trans liberation is - the right to choose our gender. 

I recommend this book to anyone with gender issues or seeking to understand someone with gender issues)

"As someone who faces oppression, incomprehension, and violence every day on the basis of her appearance and the refusal to adhere to a rigid gender designation (Feinberg was once denied emergency medical treatment for endocarditis by a doctor who dismissed her angrily as 'a very troubled person'), Feinberg is in an excellent position to refute the shallow assumptions of the medical establishment and the mainstream media, as well as the more extreme views of the political and religious right. Most compelling are her arguments on the importance of a broad-based multi-issue coalition among gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people, an alliance that could easily extend to other progressive groups. Everyone who is under the gun of reaction and economic violence."

Transgender Warriors : Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman by Leslie Feinberg "Leslie Feinberg balances the immediate/personal with the historical/community in this (Marxist) analysis of trans issues. A remarkable book that is innovative in both its style and analysis of the issues from all angles - sociological/political/cultural/historical."

Sex Changes : The Politics of Transgenderism by Pat Califia "Great, honest, generous book. I found the book well written, accurate, and eye-opening, and it's the ideal book for a gender crosser to put in the hands of her gay and lesbian friends--or enemies. The hostility that a minority of readers feel towards it is hard to understand. Most people, like me, love it. "Sex Changes" is the best book on TG to date. Pat Califia's "Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism" is a bold step forward towards the right to self-indentify, of not just trans folks, but af all persons. I'm astounded that some reviewers came away with an impression that Califia felt transexuals should not exist, or should not pursue surgery. She merely states many of the potential hazards of taking that big step. As a preoperative transexual woman, who has every intention of having GSR, I want all the information available, not just the info I want to hear. But I also felt that she was under the impression we're all going to get breast implants? Many of us are quite content with our hormone grown, and very sensitive breasts, thus all her talk about nipple insensitivity left me confused. The highlight of the book is how she counters J.Raymond and his ilk of hatemongering seperatists. While Bornstein tries to placate this group in her works and Wilchins challenges, but with "puppy eyes," Califia makes no apologies for referring to Raymond as "pigheaded" and shows Raymond to be little more than a well educated fanatic with a clear agenda of hatred. The comparison of Raymond to Anita Briant is perfect. The only problem I had with the book was too many long quotations from previous TG authors, whose works many readers, like myself, are already very familiar. Pat Califia has done a great service to the TG and particularly TS community. We should be proud to have her as an ally."



Read My Lips : Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender by Riki Anne Wilchins "Over the course of the past decade transgender politics have become the cutting edge of sexual liberation. While the sexual and political freedom of homosexuals has yet to be fully secured, questions of who is sleeping with whom pale in the face of the battle by transgender activists to dismantle the idea of what it means to be a man or a woman. Riki Anne Wilchins's Read My Lips is a passionate, witty, and extraordinarily intelligent look at how society not only creates men and women--ignoring the fluidity of maleness and femaleness in most people--but also explains how those categories generate crisis for most individuals. It is impossible to read Wilchins's ideas and not be provoked in fundamental and mysterious ways."