The New Girl

'It's a boy!' or 'It's a girl!' are the first words almost all of us hear when we enter the world. Before our names, before we have likes and dislikes - before we, or anyone else, has any idea who we are. And two years ago, as Juno Dawson went to tell her mother she was (and actually, always had been) a woman, she started to realise just how wrong we've been getting it. 

Covering American transgender history from the mid-20th century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events.

In the updated second edition of Whipping Girl, Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her diverse background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist, shares her powerful experiences and observation - both pre- and post-transition - to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women as well as gender and sexuality as a whole.

Author Kate Bornstein ushers listeners on a funny, fearless, and wonderfully scenic journey across the terrains of gender and identity. On one level, Gender Outlaw details Bornstein's transformation from heterosexual male to lesbian woman, from a one-time IBM salesperson to a playwright and performance artist. But this particular coming-of-age story is also a provocative investigation into our notions of male and female, from a self-described nonbinary transfeminine diesel femme dyke who never stops questioning our cultural assumptions.

Sarah McBride is on a mission to fight for transgender rights around the world. But before she was a prominent activist, and before she became the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, she was a teenager struggling with her identity. With emotional depth and unparalleled honesty, Sarah shares her personal struggle with gender identity, coming out to her supportive but distraught parents, and finding her way as a woman.

Jazz Jennings is one of the youngest and most prominent voices in the national discussion about gender identity. At the age of five, Jazz transitioned to life as a girl, with the support of her parents. A year later her parents allowed her to share her incredible journey in her first Barbara Walters interview, aired at a time when the public was much less knowledgeable about or accepting of the transgender community.

A searing account of her search for identity and true self, Tranny reveals the struggles and victories that Laura Jane Grace, the lead singer of the cult punk rock band Against Me!, experienced in her quest for gender transition. Illuminated by Laura Jane's never-before-published journal entries reaching back to childhood, Tranny is an intensely personal and revelatory look inside her struggles with identity and addiction.

In Trans Like Me, CN Lester takes listeners on a measured, thoughtful, intelligent yet approachable tour through the most important and high-profile narratives around the trans community, turning them inside out and examining where we really are in terms of progress. From the impact of the media's wording in covering trans people and issues to the way parenting gender-variant children is portrayed, Lester brings their charged personal narrative to every topic and expertly lays out the work left to be done.

Riveting, rousing, and utterly real, Surpassing Certainty is a portrait of a young woman searching for her purpose and place in the world - without a road map to guide her. The journey begins a few months before her 20th birthday. Janet Mock is adjusting to her days as a first-generation college student at the University of Hawaii and her nights as a dancer at a strip club.

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past 50 years, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, "essential" notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category "woman" and continues in this vein with examinations of "the masculine" and "the feminine." Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.

Kimberly Davis knew who she was on the inside. Despite being born a male, she was very much a woman. Unfortunately, the realities of living in a rural, redneck area forced her to dress and act as a man. She spent 63 years living as one. It was only when her beloved wife passed away that Kimberly decided to complete her transition. This poignant memoir chronicles every step of her transition, from her first feelings of gender dysphoria to the surgery that completely changed her life.

How does it feel to be constantly regarded as a potential threat, strip-searched at every airport? Or be told that as an actress, the part you're most fitted to play is 'wife of a terrorist'? How does it feel to have words from your native language misused, misappropriated and used aggressively towards you? How does it feel to hear a child of colour say in a classroom that stories can only be about white people? How does it feel to go 'home' to India when your home is really London?

My Transgender Coming Out Story is the memoir of Parker Marie Molloy, a transgender woman from Chicago, detailing her upbringing, the struggles she had coming to terms with her transgender status, her experience starting hormone replacement therapy, and the act of building and sustaining relationships in a post-transition life. She also shares thoughts on gender, coming out, and the concept of self-discovery.

The provocative best seller She's Not There is the winning, utterly surprising story of a person changing genders. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family. Told in Boylan's fresh voice, She's Not There is about a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of On the Front Line with the Women Who Fight Back, written and read by Stacey Dooley. Put yourself in their shoes. In 2007, Stacey Dooley was a 20-something working in fashion retail. She was selected to take part in the BBC series Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts, which saw her live and work alongside Indian factory workers making clothes for the UK high street. This sparked her series of hugely popular investigations.