Welcome to Debbie Ballard's Transgender Information Site.

 Deborah Ballard aka Debbie Lawrence is a transgender woman with nearly 40 years of IT experience, nearly 40 years of transformational programs including 12 step programs, leadership training programs, open source support groups, transgender support groups and websites.  Debbie has written 6 books on transgender issues, so far.

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Non-fiction Transgender Books (Kindle/Amazon)

Christine Jorgensen: A Personal Autobiography

This is really the most accurate accounting of the life and transition of Christine Jorgensen written by Christine herself.  The movie version was written by a former boyfriend.

n 1951 George Jorgensen, an American man of 26, left for Denmark and returned a year later as the first world-renowned transsexual, Christine Jorgensen. In her own personable style, Jorgensen offers a firsthand account of her ground-breaking life. "Nature made a mistake," she wrote, "which I have corrected."

How to Change Your Sex: A Light-hearted Look at the Hardest Thing You'll Ever Do

Annie Rose changed her sex and now she explains how you can too! How To Change Your Sex: A Lighthearted Look at the Hardest Thing You'll Ever Do is an amusing and practical guide to everything you need to know for your sex change, from how to tell if you are transsexual, through venturing out in public in your new gender presentation (including which restroom to use!), to hormones and surgeries, to what to expect afterwards. Whether you are seriously considering changing your own sex, or if you have a friend or loved one who is going through the process, or even if you are just curious, you are bound to be entertained and informed by this handy little manual.

Finding the Real Me is an extraordinary collection of real-life stories told by a wide-range of sex and gender diverse people. These healing tales of struggle and transformation reveal just how creative, resourceful, and adventurous the individuals in this community can be and also helps to bridge the gap between ignorance and understanding. As each incredible story unfolds we become part of the author's journey to self-acceptance and join the celebration of their new life. Page by page, we laugh, cry, and learn to appreciate these wonderful courageous people and the road they walked to be their true selves. Finding the Real Me is a landmark book that encourages us to embrace diversity, to never fear our differences, and to remain always in awe of our amazing possibilities.

New Body, New Gender, New Life

This a biographical account based upon the true life story of Brooke McKellogg, a young woman who was born male, yet realized at an early age she was intended to be a girl. Follow along with Bobby McKellogg, age twelve, as he finally admitted to his parents his most secret desire - to live his life as a girl. Weep with the newly renamed Brooke McKellogg as she begins her new life, still in her teen years,and learns that not everything about her new gender is as easy as she hoped it would be. Cheer with Brooke as she undergoes her gender reassignment surgery and learns that there is indeed victory to be found when someone is willing to forge through a life fraught with set-backs and disappointments. This stirring true-to-life drama reveals the heartaches and joys of one transgender's life as she continues on as a young adult after she has undergone the gender reassignment surgery necessary in order to become the real girl she was meant to be.
Brooke McKellogg is an amazing girl the entire world will fall in love with and learn to identify with as each person reads this account of her life. Through the help of her family, friends and her own perseverance, Brooke discovers that all is worthwhile when finally able to achieve the new body, new gender, and New Life she always yearned for. What she doesn't know is what direction her love life will take as an adult woman and what form of romance she will find.

Alice in Genderland

This is the first ever memoir by a crossdresser who is not content to live behind closed doors—and who takes it much further than his straighter, more circumspect peers might ever care to go. Most of the time, Harvard-educated psychiatrist Richard Novic is Rick, a man at the office or a husband and father at home. But one night a week, he is Alice, a woman about town, shopping, dining, dancing, and dating a man for nearly a decade.

In contrast to the life he leads today, Rick Novic suffered since his sporty, nerdy boyhood with a secret, a desire he was in no way equipped to handle, but one that eventually burst through his denial, a few months before his wedding day. Just once, he felt, while he still could, he had to know how it felt to be a woman.

Like Alice in Wonderland, his curiosity led him to fall headlong down a rabbit hole, through desperate straits, mind-opening surprises, heart-rending changes, gritty sex, and boundless love. By the time he was back on his feet, he was a different person, living a lifestyle he hadn’t known existed. Anyone who has struggled to figure out who they are and how they want to live will surely appreciate this informative and engaging life story.

Praise for Alice in Genderland

“Few know the transgender scene like GIRL TALK magazine’s Alice Novic. This exciting new memoir by her male alter ego takes us along with him and the people he loves, as he encounters and explores each twist and turn around him and within him. As much Lewis and Clark as it is Lewis Carroll, Alice in Genderland blazes a new trail in the world of crossdressing.”
—Linda Jensen, contributing writer, Transgender Forum


“Alice bravely explores the limits of gender, sexuality, and relationships—a sexy, poignant, and often hilarious memoir of transgenderism.”
—Vernon A. Rosario, M.D., author of The Erotic Imagination, clinical faculty, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute


“More provocative than soothing, Alice in Genderland is fascinating and well worth reading.”
—Vern L. Bullough, Ph.D., author of Crossdressing, Sex, and Gender, past president of the Society of the Scientific Study of Sex

Squirrel Cage

What happens when you hold a secret your whole life that can never be shared? What happens when your faith abandons you to pray your problem away? What happens when you destroy a complete generation of your family? This is the story of David, born into the Mormon faith who faces the insurmountable to become Cindi. Her life crumbles before her as she is pushed into an untenable position. Her family is destroyed as well as her career. She manages to pull herself through these agonizing events to rebuild her life and reconnect with her family.

"In this autobiography, at times whimsical and at times serious, Cindi continues to hold strong to her principles in the face of so much rejection from those around her: family, faith, friends. I believe this story can be a source of inspiration for others facing similar difficulties, by showing that acceptance from others must start with self-acceptance." .. Andrea James

Just One Letter: My Journey from 'M' to 'F'

2nd Edition published December 2015.The contents have been re-edited mainly to remove typographical errors. The book has been updated to include a new final chapter outlining my life in the five years following SRS and after the receipt of my new birth certificate. This is the story of my life from earliest memories to the present day. I spent the best part of fifty years in total denial of my true gender. To the rest of the world, from my birth until I was in my mid-fifties, I was seen as male. Yet I knew from very early days, and long before I had the words to describe myself correctly, that I was in truth female. I was transsexual. I start my story on the day I told my wife why our marriage had been such a sham for the previous five years, and when I admitted to her that I was transsexual. The book progresses along two interlinked paths. One describes my early childhood and development into an adult, getting married and having children. The other path describes my journey of transition following the disclosure to my wife. It details the process up to and including my Sex Reassignment Surgery in January 2010 and the five years beyond, up to the present day. It details my receipt of a Gender Recognition Certificate and the issue of the new Birth Certificate, recording that all-important change of sex. The amendment is from the M on my original birth certificate to F on my new one, correcting the error of record at my birth and giving the book its perhaps enigmatic but wholly appropriate title.

Confessions of a Transsexual Physician

This story is in part about the metamorphosis of a man becoming a woman, but the transformation is more than a simple change of physical appearance; It's one of spiritual and emotional change as well. Along the way, I learned things about trust, friendship, love, and the infinite ways of being human. The transition taught me compassion for others in a way I never dreamed possible.

Sex and gender can be difficult to write about because an element of erotica, an insatiable desire that drives us as a species to reproduce, must always be addressed. For some, that lack of control can feel like a weakness that lends itself to insecurity. But I dare say, being a post-operative transsexual allows me a certain amount of freedom to discuss this subject without trepidation.

I wrote this story because I felt compelled to find peace within myself, and to that end, I've tried not to hold anything back. Transitioning from one sex to another, is no easy feat, and it’s my hope that by relating my story, I can help other transgendered people prepare for their own personal journey.

I believe that everything happens for a reason. Life is not just one random event after another, but rather we are all connected. For forty-eight years, I felt I needed the world's forgiveness and felt shameful about my desire to be a member of the opposite sex. I kept those thoughts bottled up inside me for a very long time, fearful of the consequences should anyone find out the truth about me. When my father-in-law died, I felt so dishonest about my life that I couldn't take communion at his funeral. As strange as it may sound, had that not happened, I might never have found my true self.

This is the first book I've ever written, but it's a story from the heart, and I've chosen to share it because I think we all can all relate to it in some way. Life is a journey and everyone's story is unique. I hope people will enjoy reading about mine.

I Am Jazz

The story of a transgender child based on the real-life experience of Jazz Jennings, who has become a spokesperson for transkids everywhere

"This is an essential tool for parents and teachers to share with children whether those kids identify as trans or not. I wish I had had a book like this when I was a kid struggling with gender identity questions. I found it deeply moving in its simplicity and honesty."—Laverne Cox (who plays Sophia in “Orange Is the New Black”)

From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl's brain in a boy's body. She loved pink and dressing up as a mermaid and didn't feel like herself in boys' clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Jazz's story is based on her real-life experience and she tells it in a simple, clear way that will be appreciated by picture book readers, their parents, and teachers.

Tea and Transition

Nobody anticipated a change from heterosexual man to heterosexual woman—least of all the author herself.

This is a marvelously candid memoir of gender and acceptance; one that breaks down many complex issues, though it is her enchanting British humor that makes them such a joy to read. Inner and outer recognition is uncovered through dating debacles, painful family discussions, and trips to Victoria’s Secret. Challenges of pesky pronouns, passport humiliation and underwhelming cup sizes test her spirit yet her charismatic wit never wanes. There are laugh out loud moments, heart-wrenching ones too as she tussles with the balance between he and she, and how gender is perceived—for herself and for those around her.

Back in the 80s and 90s Chase was a globe-trotting DJ who played exotic clubs in the Middle East and southern China, then an indie music radio host in Hong Kong. However, having played at rooftop parties for sheiks, been a maestro in the clubs, and a household name on the airwaves, it was only after relocating to New York that the real journey began.

Why was he feeling like a she? The feeling wouldn’t go away. Then the first cross-dressing steps into Manhattan as a woman. Embarrassing wigs, stares on the subway, and heels an inch from respectability. Through painful, unexpected, and hilarious experiences, a tipping point of gender was reached. But how to tell those who knew her as a man before?

Friends were both won and lost, but the biggest announcement was over a cup of Earl Grey: the excruciating moment of disclosure with her 80-year old mother. The devolution and rebuilding of that amazing relationship is one of the most heart-rending threads of this book.

Humor drives her forward as she explores the New York dating life as a woman. She gets thrown out of a strip club as a perceived threat to business, initiates her first bikini moment, and has a love match at the US Open Tennis Championships. Puberty happens for a renewed time in a different gender, and with that, dodgy fashion choices and overzealous make-up. She was a 16 year old girl in her 40s.

As she considers life changing surgery, one moment of epiphany ensues, yet clarity comes with a kick. What would be next?

There are martinis on top of the world, the pyramids at dawn, and high-speed motorbike rides through Asian back streets, but Tea and Transition is far more than a globetrotting travelogue or another tale of a right-soul-in-the-wrong-body. This is a wonderfully personal journey through places beyond the physical. Of change and the human spirit, love and family values, and how one man became one woman.