Bookshelf: Best Non-Fiction Transgender Books

The Lives of Transgender People ($28, Columbia University Press)
Recognizing
a critical need for greater perspectives on transgender life, authors
Genny Beemyn (director of the Stonewall Center at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst) and Susan Rankin (an associate professor at The
Pennsylvania State University) analyze one of the largest surveys ever
conducted in the U.S, of trans women and men, crossdressers, and
genderqueer individuals. Studying nearly 3,500 participants for The
Lives of Transgender People, the authors track the formation of gender
identity across individuals and groups, beginning in childhood and
marking the "touchstones" that led participants to identify as
transgender. The Lives of Transgender People also uncovers the toll that
bias, violence, and economic disenfranchisement takes on individuals,
even in a day and age where a transgender person can headline a reality
TV show.