What do you think of trans autobiographies?

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This is probably going to come across as very nasty. Disclaimer - I'm not talking about people who post things, example on YouTube, on trans topics for information purposes for both trans and cis education. Said topics include 101 information on surgical procedures, legal paperwork, HRT effects, "coming out" and so on. I found those things as useful as anyone especially early in transition. I'm not talking about people who work for social justice for the LGBT+ spectrum, challenge injustice and discrimination in social circles and government legislation, etc. I'm not even always (though sometimes) including people who may be celebrities or well known for other reasons who put themselves out there as transgender role models and try to "normalise" public perceptions of transsexuality. Young people especially seem to benefit from this.
I'm talking your average, proverbial run of the mill garden variety transsexual who, aside from being trans, is just a normal person. I understand transgender / transsexual people are a minority and someone even ridiculously told me it's "trendy" to be trans, but really, these people are just regular folks with pretty average lives.
I've run into several of these people who tell me they're in the process of writing a book (and it must be noted that most of these people don't work). I'm interested in that subject, so I curiously ask what their subject matter is.
They tell me they're writing an autobiography. They're writing a whole book about their "life story."
When I ask why, they seem surprised and reply "because I'm trans."
This is the nasty bit - I don't see just being trans and living your life as really enough to merit a serious autobiography, especially with the kind of gravitas they pitch it with. I'm confused on the appropriateness of the impression, but I tend to see these autobiographies (and from further questioning, I often learn that they self-published these books at personal expense - no one else in the printing world saw fit to publish the work and pay them anything for doing so) as a bit narcissistic. It seems as if they think themselves so special just because they're trans that it merits a whole book and makes them a serious writer / celebrity. I encountered one such self-published autobiography whose author even used third-person language and assumed a pen name, to make it appear as if someone else had written the book about them. When asked about their occupation, they would say they were a writer. This was the only thing they had ever written, they had never had a paid writing job, written about any other subject, etc.
There are more than a few odd things about my life, but I don't think it the kind of subject matter that really deserves to be made into a tomb of an autobiography, nor that I should consider myself some kind of special celebrity because I'm trans. It is also reflective of an alarming trend among transfolk who make being trans their entire identity, not just another (important sure, but not absolutely exclusive) part of who they are.
Opinions?

Yes, it's completely narcissistic, in the colloquial / not clinical meaning of the word. That said, for me it was one of those life-altering events. Not writing (oh, gods no...) but reading that first one years ago that just ...resonated. I was so repressed I had no idea what was wrong and here was someone who was describing exactly what I felt but couldn't identify. It was what I assume people feel when they have an epiphany. And then I read others, and I guess I got really lucky with that first one because the rest just seemed like self-centered sociopaths full of male privilege who expected the entire world to celebrate their transition with them. To be honest, I didn't know people still wrote them, I figured they went the way of the dodo bird and the transition blog? I do still have the latter, upon advice of a therapist many years ago, kept as a journal I can add to from anywhere. But it's mostly for me, you know?

I have never read any books yet written by trans but I don't think it's any different that writing about your life as being on the spectrum or as writing about being Bipolar or having schizophrenia or a personality disorder. I wonder if anyone feels the same way about these books also? I wonder if any autobiography books have been written about living as a homosexual or bisexual or living as a poly or doing any incest.

But if I understood your OP correctly, are there cis people out there who actually pretend to be trans because they don't understand what it really means to be one? I wonder how that would work because I found out you can't just get a sex change if you don't have a gender disorder. You have to go through treatment first and then start the therapy to make the change. But this would be interesting to hear about.

That actually kind of highlights my point. Say a man is gay - would you expect him (or more to the point, would he expect you to expect him) to be writing a book about his boring life story just because he's gay? Like millions of others? Just because being gay is the minority? Would he be promoting himself as some kind of serious social writer just because he's gay, and self-publishing all his work, which is only centred on himself and nothing else?
And with autism - would every member of this site be expected to be writing an autobiography for no other reason than being autistic?
It seems to me as if this isn't enough to be writing whole books about yourself. But it seems to be accepted for transsexuals to write gratuitously about every boring aspect of their lives just because they're trans.


I don't know anything about cis people pretending to be trans (why would anyone want to do that?) but it's very true, you have a lot of medical hoops to jump through before you can proceed with transition, and it varies slightly by country. The issue as to whether transsexuality is a "mental disorder" as is loosely the general consensus, or if it is even a disorder at all, is still a sore topic. And sure, experiences in transition vary between people, but the process you have to go through medically in order to transition does not vary hugely individual to individual. There is a certain standard there that everyone has to meet (that is, doing it legally, which I assume these autobiographers are, or I doubt they'd be writing books about their trades in illegal drugs). Thus, it's really not all that different, or that interesting. To me, at least. It's just a process everyone has to go through to get what you need, just like many other situations in life. I guess I just see it as self obsessed, and wonder why these people don't see it that way.

Aren't there a fair number of autobiographies from autistics out there? It seems to be a fairly common occurrence within minority groups of any kind. And trans issues are in vogue with Kaitlyn Jenner et al.

Is it progress? It's maybe a first step...real progress will be made when we see the human being first and just accept the difference...can that be something we can get all people to do? I won't hold my breath.

It seems human nature to be threatened by what is different.

C2V, I've noticed that autobiographies tend very much to be created during a particular stage of transition, and it's something that typically only occurs with later transitioners and certain personality types. Which, of course, makes them all seem even *more* identical and boring. In my opinion, rather than therapists encouraging people to write a book (or become a self-appointed spokesperson, or self-appointed media "expert") as part of their transition period, those therapists should be encouraging them to hold off. Wait until they've "moved on" and transition is not 99% of their life anymore. So many times over the last decade I've watched as people make a big, public transition, soak up the limelight, write a book, go on cheesy television shows, become a short lived media "expert"/spokesperson, make a complete a*s out of themselves...and then five years later attempt to erase it all so they can just live as a woman or man and not have to publicly identify as "transgender".

Then again I sometimes don't understand non-genderqueer people (I ❤ GQ people) who have to transition from being a man (or woman) to being a woman (or man) on an assumed binary, yet publicly claim a self identify as transgender rather than simply a woman or man. It's like there's an awkward overlap between the socio-political category of "transgender" and the actual sex or gender identity simply because our nomenclature is so muddied up.

Why the need to tell people they have nothing interesting to write about? Everyone's life can be made interesting if you express it the right way. Being trans is an interesting subject. I know I would be happy to read as many trans autobiographies as I could find, or as many autistic autobiographies. I say, if you want to write about whatever, go for it.

Agreed, I've seen this too. It's like a phase some people go through, a kind of growing up, like autistics obsessed with special interests. The whole thing has a new and special gleem to it, and they go completely overboard. I'd hazard a guess that many transsexuals are self-obsessed and in a way, you have to be a little self-obsessed during active transition to make sure you're ok and not having side effects and keeping safe - that's where the personal transition journal you mentioned comes in. That way, if you're still having mood issues on progesterone a year later or still getting periods at the same time, you will be aware of how long this has been going on and raise it with your GP. You just have to check that self-obsession at your mouth a bit, in my view.
The same seems to go for trans support groups, which is partly why I stopped attending one of them - they are all pre-everything, still living in their birth genders in their birth gendered life situations, talking about being trans. This is another area that makes me an a***hole, so I won't get into it. The point is it seems older people, and those further along in their transitions, post op a few years, don't attend because it's just a part of life now, it's not new and special and edgy. They don't have to make a big deal out of it anymore. I guess that's the way I see these autobiographies - too much fuss made. And yeah, they may end up regretting it when they get past this phase and want to go stealth.

This one is a bit more individual. I know some binary transfolk who don't go to groups for trans people because they're over the phase and don't identify as trans anymore, as they "pass" and have everything from medical to legal and social completed - they are the man/woman they set out to be, and the process is over. They may identify with having a trans history because that you can't undo, but yes, they just go by men and women.
In my experience the binary people who still strongly identify with a trans identity post-everything are those that do so for social justice reasons. They promote trans rights, act as advocates or counsellors, etc.
Genderqueer people who identify with androgyny are the ones that stick out, I think (like me). I know some genderqueer people physically transition completely binary and thus aren't visible (and don't mind being ID'd as the gender they present with) because they are still genderqueer inside, regardless. But in essence, being genderqueer and androgynous/nonbinary, I guess transition is never "done" in a way.

C2V, regarding your last sentence; my spouse and I have had entire conversations around that & they had an insightful observation. Although cisgender people have a solid internal sense of gender/sex of Self, throughout life their external gender role, presentation, and identity are (for most!) ever shifting. In our culture, a 45 year old woman who dresses or acts as she did when she was 20 (or 15) is a noticeable oddity. And there's something else, rarely mentioned; the external sex & gender that a person presents or is boxed into affects their internal sense of Self. It's almost as if the current model of "internal gender identity" is actually more complex and is an internal sense of sex identity and an internal sense of gender identity. And the sex identity is what changes somewhat both biologically and socially over the course of a lifetime as a person goes from immature to adult to post-reproductive age. But that's a dangerous complexity that would be latched onto by the Blank Slate crowd despite hard evidence it's purely biological in basis (an example: Zhou - yes, that one - has been doing some fascinating work on the genetic triggers at puberty and menopause).

I see your point about if people would write about being gay and all. Unless they faced interesting things in their life because they were gay such as growing up in Iran as gay, then that would be another story.
And speaking of being gay in Iran, I found out they do support a gender change but gay people are forced to get that operation. So lot of them flee their country. So there are cis gender people who get a sex change operation.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29832690

^ That's horrific, reminds me of how Alan Turing wound up in similar circumstances, and for the gainsayers, it seems to prove transsexuality is real. A transsexual undergoes SRS, and things improve dramatically for them. You force a cis person to undergo the same procedures, and it destroys them. Iran may well be helping its trans population as far as surgery and support over many other countries, but hell, way to drop the ball on gay issues guys.

You have your own idea of what constitutes an interesting enough life to write about. Others might draw the line at a different place. It doesn't make them narcissistic.

TheAP, what you say is quite true, but I disagree with your final point. Trans-autobiographies are a certain genre of literature and by their very nature they are exceedingly narcissistic. I've read somewhere around thirty or so & many more long-form essays. They are a subset of a subset of a subset of the "personal journey" style of autobiography. They deal with the innermost personal & idiosyncratic struggles inside a trans person during a very specific period of their transition. It's something only 0.03% of people go through, and of those, only a certain narrow band of personalities tend to write & publish their reflections of the experience. One of the hardest things many late transitioners go through is the realization that they *can* be narcissistic to some degree and give value to their own needs, typically ones they've long believed had no intrinsic value - their sense of Self. Typically it takes years - perhaps five to ten - to swing from one extreme to the other and back again until they find a good, healthy balance. Trans autobiographies tend to be written during that initial swing toward self-involvement.

I wouldn't say it's narcissistic, so much as being honest about yourself and wanting to express yourself in writing and help others by sharing your experience.

You make a valuable point about the differences in people's idea of what's interesting, and that I agree is a given - I don't find hair and makeup tutorials or racing statistics interesting either, but have no problem with the fact that other people do. But unfortunately, the motivations to help others and be honest about your experiences to the betterment of transfolk everywhere is often decidedly not the spirit in which these books are written.
As I said, people who are interested in helping others through transition, are interested in education and equality for transgender people, typically go into social justice, counselling, advocacy or even just personal online education, writing information-based blogs or videos to that effect. I have respect for some of these people, having no inclination to do this myself. Another interesting thing about these people is they often do so out of the limelight. Good work is being done, but they're not doing it for the attention.
These autobiographies on the other hand are all MEMEMEME about the author. Often (and again, I'm nasty about it) in a "poor me, I've had it so hard in life because I'm trans" tone, often coupled with a "I'm so brave and courageous because I could overcome this and blossom into the woman / man I was meant to be" overlay.
I guess that's really my beef with the topic. I find it holloway attention-seeking without any real benefit. Indeed, it may have detriment - others think all transgender people are like this.

I don't see the big deal. If you don't find it interesting, don't read it.