Títulos em Biografias e Memórias

Ein Satz, der wie eine Selbstverständlichkeit klingt - "Ich bin Linus" -, doch er teilt sein Leben in ein Davor und Danach. Auf beeindruckende Weise erzählt Linus Giese, warum er einunddreißig Jahre alt werden musste, um laut auszusprechen, dass er ein Mann und trans ist und warum sein Leben heute vielleicht nicht einfacher, aber sehr viel glücklicher ist. Eigentlich ahnt er es seit seinem sechsten Lebensjahr. Doch aus Sorge darüber, wie sein Umfeld reagieren könnte und weil ihm Begriffe wie trans, queer, nicht-binär fehlen, verschweigt Linus lange, wer er wirklich ist.

In 2009, Juliet Patterson was recovering from a serious car accident when she learned her father had died by suicide. His death was part of a disturbing pattern in her family. Her father’s father had taken his own life; so had her mother’s. Over the weeks and months that followed, grieving and in physical pain, Patterson kept returning to one question: Why? Why had her family lost so many men, so many fathers, and what lay beneath the silence that had taken hold?

One Bead at a Time is the oral memoir of Beverly Little Thunder, a two-spirit Lakota Elder from Standing Rock, who has lived most of her life in service to Indigenous and non-Indigenous women in vast areas of both the United States and Canada.

Sexual healer and entrepreneur David P. Wichman has lived through it all: Childhood abuse, foster care, homelessness, survival sex work, and the blackest pits of drug and alcohol addiction. After white-collar crime landed him in jail, David resolved to finally conquer the sense of brokenness that had been driving him to self-destruction throughout his life. In his moving memoir, he recounts how his recovery and spiritual journey have revealed to him his inherent wholeness and worth, a message of love and belonging that he now carries to others.

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.

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.

Today’s gay youth have dozens of queer peer heroes, both fictional and real, but former gay teenager Grace Perry did not have that luxury. Instead, she had to search for queerness in the (largely straight) teen cultural phenomena the aughts had to offer: in Lindsay Lohan’s fall from grace, Gossip Girl, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl”, country-era Taylor Swift, and Seth Cohen jumping on a coffee cart. And, for better or worse, these touch points shaped her adult identity. She came out on the other side like many millennials did: in her words, gay as hell.

As an adult, Lauren Hough has had many identities: an airman in the US Air Force, a cable guy, a bouncer at a gay club. As a child, however, she had none. Growing up as a member of the infamous cult The Children of God, Hough had her own self robbed from her. The cult took her all over the globe - to Germany, Japan, Texas, Chile - but it wasn't until she finally left for good that Lauren understood she could have a life beyond "The Family."

Imagine thinking you had the ideal life. The perfect partner, on whom you relied and trusted. An infant child, newly adopted. Then one day, you wake up, and the life you’ve been living has suddenly turned upside down. Everything thought true becomes suspect. And you learn, quite quickly, that you can never again trust the person sleeping beside you.

Jeremy Ivester is a transgender man. Thirty years ago, his parents welcomed him into the world as what they thought was their daughter. As a child, he preferred the toys and games our society views as masculine. He kept his hair short and wore boys’ clothing. They called him a tomboy. That’s what he called himself. By high school, when he showed no interest in flirting, his parents thought he might be lesbian. At 20, he wondered if he was asexual. At 23, he surgically removed his breasts.

It’s funny how life never pans out the way you’d expect. I always knew that something wasn’t right, that some part of my inside didn’t match my outside. What I didn’t know then is that I’m transgender, a realization that took a lifetime to fully unpack and understand. And to embrace. Growing up in Michigan I started off sheltered with no idea of what lay over the horizon, but serving in the navy opened my eyes to what possibilities might be within my grasp. I encountered many forks in the road, sometimes I made the right choice, sometimes my decisions were terribly wrong.

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.

Event producer, music director, and community organizer Elaina Martin has over the past three decades become widely known in Eastern Ontario, bolstering queer representation, community sustainability, and the arts. In this soulful narrative, she shares how she grew into these roles and what she learned along the way.

In Rebent Sinner, Ivan Coyote takes on the patriarchy and the political, as well as the intimate and the personal in these beguiling and revealing stories of what it means to be trans and non-binary today, at a time in their life when they must carry the burden of heartbreaking history with them, while combatting those who would misgender them or deny their very existence. These stories span thirty years of tackling TERFs, legislators, and bathroom police, sure, but there is joy and pleasure and triumph to be found here, too.

Seit ihrem zehnten Lebensjahr strebt Glennon Doyle danach, gut zu sein: eine gute Tochter, eine gute Freundin, eine gute Ehefrau - so wie die meisten Frauen schon als Mädchen lernen, sich anzupassen. Doch statt sie glücklich zu machen, hinterlässt dieses Streben zunehmend ein Gefühl von Müdigkeit, Über- und Unterforderung. Glennon - erfolgreiche Bestsellerautorin, verheiratet, Mutter von drei Kindern - droht, sich selbst zu verlieren. Bis sie sich eines Tages Hals über Kopf in eine Frau verliebt - und endlich beschließt, ihr Leben selbst in die Hand zu nehmen.

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.

As the US occupation of Iraq rages, novelist Mortada Gzar, a student at the University of Baghdad, has a chance encounter with Morise, an African American soldier. It’s love at first sight, a threat to them both, and a moment of self-discovery. Challenged by society’s rejection and Morise’s return to the US, Mortada takes to the page to understand himself. In his affecting memoir, Mortada interweaves tales of his childhood work as a scrap-metal collector in a war zone and the indignities faced by openly gay artists in Iraq with his impossible love story and journey to the US.

House on Fire, a raw and riveting memoir by author and publisher Jenn T. Grace, explores her journey growing up as an adopted child in a chaotic household. Surviving a turbulent childhood marked by family conflict, mental illness, and alcoholism, Grace promises herself that life will get better. But as an adult, Grace’s personal and professional successes belie her inner turmoil.

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.

In the summers of the early 1970s, Morris Ardoin and his siblings helped run their family's roadside motel in a hot, buggy, bayou town in Cajun Louisiana. The stifling, sticky heat inspired them to find creative ways to stay cool and out of trouble. When they were not doing their chores — handling a colorful cast of customers, scrubbing motel-room toilets, plucking chicken bones and used condoms from under the beds — they played canasta, an old ladies’ game that provided them with a refuge from the sun and helped them avoid their violent, troubled father.