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I think an author needs a pretty intimate understanding of what they're discussing in their writing, but they don't necessarily need to live the same lives as their characters. I do think injecting them with a bit of their own experience makes them more believable, but when it comes to the stuff that the author hasn't experienced, enough research can suffice... if you make sure the topic being explored isn't for the sake of creating some kind of gimmicky character.
I just finished reading Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. The book is about an intersex male-raised-female who is probably the furthest thing from what the author is in reality. What makes it a successful book is not the fact that he jams facts down your throat - he doesn't make Cal's intersexuality the novel's sole focus, but it's clear that when it eventually is explored that the author did his research. He gets away with writing about this kind of character because the character they are a seemingly real person with an interesting family history, values, etc. They are not some kind of caricature cobbled together by some random guy for the sake of telling a story. There's very little gimmicky weirdness to it all, which my gut told me to look out for when I started reading it so I'd like to think I was pretty scrutinizing of how he went and handled the topic if intersex individuals.
The book is great, I can see why it won the Pulitzer. It's more than Cal/Callie's gender and identity though. The character's life parallel's a LOT of Eugenide's life growing up in Detroit, and blending this real world experience with something he wished to look at, almost a "what if this was me" kind of deal, that's what made Middlesex awesome.
Plus she eventually becomes a hermaphroditic mermaid stripper at one point, which we all can relate to.
