Miscellaneous Useful Websites
Barbie Scott, vocal coaching
- Barbie helps transwomen retrain their vocal production to sound more female.
COLAGE
- Support network for children of GLBT people. Their mission statement: To engage, connect, and empower
people to make the world a better place for children of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or
transgender parents and families.
Dr. Becky
- Informative website, maintained by a physician. Includes name change/birth certificate
change information for all states.
Extended-wear Hair
- Recommended by an MTF client who bought a hair system from this company. She only has to remove it
once every few weeks. This is powerful for her, as she is bald
otherwise and this allows her to wake up with mussed-up hair like any other woman.
Families Joined by Love
- Support network for LGBT families. Books, resources and various discussion forums.
F.O.R.G.E. - Wisconsin-based support organization: For Ourselves Reworking Gender Expression.
FTM International - FTM International is one of the oldest FTM-support organizations in the world.
Gender Public Advocacy Coalition
- Good information about trans children's and youth issues, as well as information about
political work around workplace fairness.
Helen Boyd's blog (en)gender
- Helen Boyd is the author of "My Husband Betty." If you would rather receive her blog in
e-mail newsletter format, go to
(en)gender newsletter.
Hudson's FTM Guide - Extremely comprehensive site geared toward FTMs.
International List of Therapists
- Though I can't guarantee this is comprehensive (or up-to-date), it can provide a start for those who
would like to find a trans-savvy therapist.
Love Tribe - Website devoted to helping people find community, wherever they live. Open to trans people, but
not trans specific.
Manifest PDX
- A non-profit mens wellness community in Portland, empowering men to pursue their wellness passions
together through programs like yoga, cycling, Eco-hikes, meditation, healing touch classes, vision
teams, wellness coaching, and more. Transmen are welcome. 503-223-8822 x1.
Gender Spectrum Education and Training
- Training, education and consulting services on gender variance in children. Two support
groups for families of gender variant children, both at Children's Hospital (one in Oakland, CA
and the other in Seattle, WA) GSET also produces an annual conference for families of gender variant
children called The Gender Spectrum Family Conference. The Gender Spectrum Family Conference is held
annually over Labor Day weekend in Seattle.
TransFaith Online
- TransFaith Online is dedicated to supporting transgender folks in our faith journeys, while
providing useful resources to help Church folks become better educated trans-allies.
Trans support site - Some thought-provoking articles, with an upbeat attitude.
Transgender Guide
- Great website with lots of good articles, and potential contacts with other transgender people.
Transgender Soul - Excellent resource for information on a variety of mental healthcare related topics.
TS Road Map - Excellent site for helping people plan their transition step by step.
Virtual Facial Feminization
- Recommended by a transwoman client who wanted to see what she might look like if she underwent FFS (facial feminization surgery). Alexandra uses software to approximate what a person might expect to look like post-FFS.
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Recommended Reading
If you have read a book you'd like to see me add to this list, please
e-mail me.
Beam, Cris Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T With Transgender Teenagers. Well
written book about trans teens in Los Angeles. The author is a journalist who taught at a school for LGBT
youth for a time.
Boenke, Mary (ed.) Trans Forming Families: Real Stories About Transgendered Loved Ones. The
only book I'm aware of that includes stories by trans and non-trans people, by, for and about families.
Bornstein, Kate. Kate has published four books: Gender Outlaw; Hello,
Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws;,
Nearly Roadkill; and My Gender Workbook. Kate deconstructs
gender in a humorous, gentle way. Highly recommended.
Boyd, Helen. My Husband Betty. Very well-written account by the wife of a cross-dresser,
covering the various issues she went through in the ongoing process of coming to terms with her husband's
identity. In 2006, Helen also published She's Not the Man I Married, continuing the
process of coming to terms with Betty's identity.
Boylan, Jennifer. She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders. Memoir of an MTF, especially focusing
on the changes wrought in her marriage by her transition. Some partners have told me this book was
especially meaningful to them, as it addressed some of their issues more than most trans autobiographies.
(Many have said that this book combined with Helen Boyd's "My Husband Betty" pretty much addressed the
various issues they faced.)
Brown, Mildred. True Selves. A classic "Trans 101" that many trans people send to friends and
families to try to convey something of what it means to them to transition. More reflective of the older
MTF experience.
Califia, Patrick. Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism. Patrick is a therapist and
transman who lives in the SF Bay Area.
Colapinto, John. As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who was Raised as a Girl. Very well-written and
researched book that tells the true story of David Reimer. This book is very important, as it exposes
the truth of the "twins study" that was the basis for John Money's claim that an infant could
be raised to any particular gender role successfully, as long as the socialization began by about age 2.
As the leading sex expert of his day, Money's claims determined the medical treatment protocols for
intersexed and transsexual people for several decades.
Green, Jamison. Becoming a Visible Man. Memoir of a well-known transman activist, the
founder of FTMI. Good medical information and sociological insights into the transition process.
Highly recommended.
Jorgensen, Christine. The Christine Jorgensen Story. This classic is a "must-read," whether
MTF or FTM. Jorgensen's experiences make it so clear what it was like to transition at a time when doctors
really had no idea precisely how a body can morph from male to female (or vice versa). Every single person
who transitioned at that time was an experiment, and the result of that accumulated knowledge is that we
have it much easier today. It's a brave thing to transition now; to transition before doctors really had
any idea how the human body would react was an incredible leap of faith!
Kailey, Matt. Just Add Hormones. Well-written autobiography, told with humor and a
different perspective than most of the autobiographies I've read, in that Matt did not take refuge
in the lesbian community prior to his transition. He lived as a heterosexual woman, and now identifies
as a gay transman.
Khosla, Dhillon. Both Sides Now: One Man's Journey Through Womanhood. I read this book
and Matt Kailey's "Just Add Hormones" in the same weekend and was struck by how valuable it is to have
various autobiograhies to read. Different people will resonate with different stories, as some will
reflect their personal experience more than others. Matt and Dhillon are very different from each other,
yet both underwent a similar transformation of self, from living female to living male. Dhillon's
book is very engaging, and inspiring, because he transitioned and retained his job as an attorney.
Kotula, Dean. Phallus Palace. Photos and stories of transmen. Some of the surgery photos are
very graphic, making this book unsuitable for use in educating many people's families. (It might raise
more fears than it will allay!) But it is an excellent resource for transmen seeking detailed surgical
information, which is often unavailable in print form.
Lev, Arlene. Transgender Emergence. Written by a therapist, this book is a great reference
text for therapists. Good historical treatment about how we got to where we are in terms of the
standards of care, the medical model currently in use in the U.S., etc. This is a highly academic book,
not as accessible to the general public as True Selves.
Martino, Mario. Emergence (Out of print, but you might get lucky on some used book sites)
One of the first FTM autobiographies I know of, the story of a man who transitioned in the early
to mid-1960s.
McCloskey, Deirdre. Crossing: A Memoir. Autobiography of an MTF who transitioned on the job
within academia. McCloskey is an economist, and professor of Human Sciences at the University of Illinois,
Chicago.
Morris, Jan. Conundrum. A classic, the autobiography of Jan Morris, who transitioned in the
1960s. Morris has some thought-provoking ideas about gender, sex and being born trans.
Rudacille, Deborah The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights. One
of my favorite non-fiction books. Rudacille is a science writer who became interested in trans identity
when a long-time friend transitioned FTM. The book alternates between chronological accounts of how we
got to where we are today, and interviews with people who transitioned during that time period.
Scholinski, Daphne The Last Time I Wore a Dress. Memoir of one transman's experience being committed to a mental hospital in the 1980s, for "not doing female right." Since publishing this book, Daphne has now transitioned to become Dylan.
Serano, Julia. Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of
Femininity. A book destined to be a classic, a series of essays providing excellent social and
personal commentary.
Stryker, Susan Transgender History. This long-awaited book covers trans history in the
second half of the 20th century, from a feminist viewpoint.
Valerio, Max. The Testosterone Files. Excellent autobiographical account of one FTM's experience
with transition.
Walworth, Janis. Transexual Workers: An Employer's Guide. Recommended by a client who found
it useful in approaching her Human Resources department during her transition.