top of page

Build the Archive

A Collaborative Bibliography of Global South Trans Memoir

Book cover titled 'CARMEN' featuring a smiling person in glamorous attire

Cover of Carmen Rupe's Carmen: Having a Ball! or My life from schoolboy to successful businesswoman (1988) with thanks to Central City Library, Auckland, Aotearoa NZ.

Transgender people across the Global South have used life writing — memoir, autobiography, testimony — to claim their own stories, challenge colonial frameworks of gender, and petition for recognition and rights. But scholarship on trans life writing has focused almost entirely on North American, European, and Australian contexts. The writers and traditions of India, South Africa, Aotearoa New Zealand, and the diasporic communities of the Americas have been largely left out of the conversation.

This bibliography is an attempt to change that. It is a living, collaborative scholarly resource — open to anyone who knows this literature and wants to help build the archive. If you are a scholar, a reader, a community member, or a writer who knows of works that belong here, please use the form below to add them.

Every contribution matters. The archive grows with you.

Scholarly Database

A living bibliography of Global South Trans memoirs and scholarship. We invite you to contribute your research and personal narratives to this growing archive.

Contribute to the Archive

Global South Trans Memoir Scholarly Contribution Form

Thank you for contributing to the database of Global South Trans memoirs. Please provide the details of the work below.

The full bibliography is currently in development and will be published here. In the meantime, your submissions are being collected and will be incorporated into the archive as it grows.

bottom of page