Showing titles in Biographies & Memoirs

A woman, groomed to be a wife and mother, discovers through her clandestine interaction with a free-spirited foreigner that she has a right to determine her own destiny. Every step Elena takes toward personal liberation is considered treason by her society, driving her deeper and deeper underground and threatening her escape from Russia. Elena Vaytsel is one of the two women featured in BBC's Outlook Weekend: The Voyage of Meg and Elena, and NPR's Snap Judgment: Kismet, for their escape from Russia and yearlong planet-crossing run for their lives and freedom.

Part butch memoir, part ekphrastic travel diary, part queer family tree, Raquel Gutiérrez’s debut essay collection, Brown Neon, gleans insight from the sediment of land and relationships. For Gutiérrez, terrain is essential to understanding that no story, no matter how personal, is separate from the space where it unfolds.

A story of rough beginnings as I struggled to find gender and sexual identity in a small country town in North Carolina in the 1940s and '50s. I found my way to fame and fortune. My goal in sharing this is to help someone who may find themselves in a similar situation. You can survive.

The Wisdom of Guncles is about queer people and our relationship with family—however we choose to define it. Featuring a diverse pantheon of gay uncles (“guncles”) and other queer mentors, these stories offer unique perspectives about life, love, and personal empowerment. With each chapter, I examine what various LGBTQ+ experiences teach about disrupting norms, exploring identity, and creating chosen families that affirm one’s truth.

Growing up a Guyanese Indian immigrant in Central Florida, Rajiv Mohabir is fascinated by his family’s stifled Hindu history and the legacy of his ancestors, who were indentured laborers on British sugarcane plantations. In Toronto he sits at the feet of Aji, his unlettered grandmother, listening to stories and songs in her Caribbean Bhojpuri. By now Aji’s eleven children have immigrated to North America and busied themselves with ascension, Christianity, and the erasure of their heritage. But Rajiv wants to know more: where did he come from, and why does he feel so out of place?

Trans es la historia íntima de la enigmática fundadora de Against Me!, que entremezcla el recorrido musical de la banda con el personal de Grace, e incluye numerosas entradas del diario que la cantante cultivó y conservó durante años. Más que una autobiografía musical llena de sexo, drogas y rock and roll—que, por otro lado, tampoco faltan—Trans aborda uno de los episodios más extraordinarios de la historia del rock.

Esta es la crónica de la afortunada transformación de un hombre. Omar Ramos, como muchos gays en México, pasó de sufrir bullying a usar tacones con orgullo, de conocer a unos pocos hombres en la barra de un bar a coincidir con cientos en la pantalla de su teléfono, y de vivir con miedo al VIH a disfrutar plenamente su sexualidad.

Die Zeugen Jehovas sind Jolandas Zuhause. Gehorsam erfüllt sie alle Erwartungen, die an sie gerichtet werden, kommt ihren Diensten nach und stellt das Weltbild der Zeugen Jehovas nicht in Frage. Das ändert sich schlagartig, als Nicky auftaucht. Denn Nicky ist eine Frau - und Jolanda verliebt sich in sie. Von einem Tag auf den anderen ist nichts mehr, wie es war. Jolanda entscheidet sich, die Zeugen Jehovas zu verlassen und ein vollkommen neues Leben zu beginnen.

Why I Was Late fuses text with performance, bringing a transmasculine wisdom, humor, and experience to bear upon tailgates, spaceships, and wrestling rings. Fierce, tender, convention re-inventing—Petch works hard. And whether it’s as a film union lighting technician, a hospital bed allocator, a Toronto hot dog vendor, or a performer/player of the musical saw, the work is survival. Heroes are found in unexpected places, elevated by both large and small gestures of kindness, accountability and acceptance.

In her bittersweet memoir, Mary Fairhurst Breen sketches scenes from a life darkened by generations of mental illness and addiction. Despite the odds, Mary’s sense of humor and willingness to practice “radical acceptance” see her through the chaos to a life full of friends, art, and the joys of being a grandmother. Ultimately, she must face her greatest challenge of all when her daughter becomes one of the tens of thousands of people every year to die of opioid poisoning. This is a journey of awakening and activism, and a portrait of a life to be celebrated in all its complexity.

Für Menschen, die anders lieben, ist ein Outing im Job nach wie vor ein großes Wagnis. Im schlimmsten Fall kann es das Ende der Karriere bedeuten. Matthias Herzberg ist schwul - und hat einen langen Kampf um Anerkennung hinter sich. Er wurde aufgrund von Intrigen gefeuert, von Kollegen diffamiert und zwangsgeoutet. Heute führt er glücklich und erfolgreich sein eigenes Trainingsunternehmen. Hier erzählt er seine persönliche Geschichte und viele weitere, die von der homophoben Führungs- und Arbeitskultur in Deutschland zeugen.

Poesía contra la discriminación para celebrar el amor y la belleza. Alberto Ramos tenía solo 15 años cuando decidió meter en una maleta su esperanza y voluntad, abandonar Málaga y establecerse en Estocolmo, buscando una nueva vida. Y realizar su sueño de estudiar en el extranjero su bachillerato internacional. El instituto está situado en Södertälje, un peculiar municipio de Estocolmo con una gran influencia del cristianismo (católico y ortodoxo) e ideologías inflexibles y totalitarias por su población proveniente de las diásporas asiria (assyrier/syrianer) y árabe.

Dall'11 maggio 2016 le unioni civili sono legge. E se sul matrimonio è stato scritto molto e sulle donne altrettanto, sulle donne che hanno deciso di sposarsi fra loro si sa molto meno. A riempire con la sua intelligenza questo vuoto, arriva Chiara Sfregola che, a partire dalla sua esperienza di lesbica, di femminista e di moglie, racconta con un passo a metà tra saggistica e memoir cosa è stato storicamente e cosa sta diventando, oggi, il matrimonio.

Transparency is one of the most effective tools we have that can help us heal. It can also help us understand ourselves better as well as other people.

Maria Konner takes you on her journey from living a frustrated and bored straight-dude life to becoming a fabulous trans entertainer in San Francisco. She also begins to discover herself sexually after a Halloween costume feels better than she ever imagined. What starts as a lark, quickly becomes a lifestyle. Told in a frank and entertaining manner, Maria details her experiences at Diva's, the legendary trans bar. There, she enters into a world of alternative lifestyles, sexual experimentation, crossdressing, and hardcore kink as she tests the boundaries of her sexuality.

The body that Robyn Henderson-Espinoza inhabits is a nonbinary body, a trans body, a body in two races—and a body continually in discovery. Theirs is also a body on sojourn invested in experience, body understanding, and engagement in and for human thriving. Henderson-Espinoza relates coming into a new body story, beginning with the deep emotional work of connecting the abstract intelligence of their mind with their body's intelligence, to explore the relationship between living and becoming, doing and listening.

"Desideravo raccontare storie vere, a volte tragiche, spesso dure, altre ancora amare, qualcuna gioiosa, ma tutte assolutamente libere. Ci ho provato. Ho pedinato vite. Ho trascritto verbali, in modo onesto e partecipe e spero anche godibile." Non basta una parrucca è un viaggio nel mondo del transgenderismo raccontato direttamente dalle interessate: settanta donne "trans" scelte tra circa quattrocento interviste raccolte in più di tre anni di lavoro.

My Gay Church Days is the true story of a profoundly insecure evangelical pastor who eventually decided enough was enough. After failed relationships, crippling anxiety, and cult-like codependency, George broke away from rigid Christianity to pursue the thing he once found most dreadful and fearful about himself. This book is a crusade of revealing, an exploration of conformity, oppression, awakening, and self-discovery unlike any other.

Memorias LGTBI Negras. Esta es la historia de George Matthew Johnson. Una historia para todes nosotros. En estas rompedoras memorias para jóvenes adultes, George M. Johnson, destacade escritore y activista LGTBQIAP+ comparte recuerdos desgarradores a la par que gloriosos sobre lo que supone crecer como persona Negra y queer en Estados Unidos.

In the first edition of Bloodroot, Warland traced how a mother’s shared gender with her daughter can shape the very anatomy of narrative itself. In her mother’s final year, Warland quietly discovered how to disentangle a crucial, concealed story that had rendered their relationship disconnected and fraught. The 2000 edition broke new ground in memoir form and uncharted storytelling. The 2020 edition includes a new essay by Warland that explores subsequent questions, insights, and tenderness only the passage of time can enable.