The Stonewall Uprising in 1969 is often considered the start of the USA's LGBTQ+ rights movement, but queer people have existed throughout history. Here are some books to check out if you're interested in learning more!
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The art of drag
by Jake Hall Presents a history of drag, from Kabuki theatre to Shakespeare, with illustrations. |
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Before We Were Trans : A New History of Gender
by Kit Heyam This global history of gender nonconformity examines the stories of people from antiquity to the present who defied categorization and looks to the past to uncover new possibilities for possible trans futures. |
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From gay to Z : A Queer Compendium
by Justin Sayre Do you know your gAyBCs? ABBA, ACT Up, Angels in America, James Baldwin, But I'm a Cheerleader, Joan Crawford, Laverne Cox . . . This illustrated celebration and exploration of queer history and culture-based on performer Justin Elizabeth Sayre's hit five-part show The gAyBCs-collects hundreds of witty readable short texts on pop culture moments, iconic figures, ongoing challenges in the LGBTQ+ community, and everything in between, all delivered in Sayre's lively and inimitable voice. Here to entertain,throw some shade, and bring some joy, this carefully curated (and absolutely not definitive) A-to-Z perspective on queer culture also aims to make you laugh, think, and act, and serves as a reminder that queer culture isn't just what we have been, but what we are. |
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How to survive a plague : the inside story of how citizens and science tamed AIDS
by David France A definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic, written by the creator of and inspired by the seminal documentary of the same name, also shares the poignant stories of gay activists who resolved to make their life battles purposeful. By the author of Our Fathers. |
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Love wins : the lovers and lawyers who fought the landmark case for marriage equality
by Debbie Cenziper An award-winning Politico Top 50 Visionary and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist document the inspirational story of the partners, lawyers, judges and activists behind the groundbreaking Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage. |
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Miss Major speaks : conversations with a Black trans revolutionary
by Toshio Meronek Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a transgender elder and activist who has survived Bellevue psychiatric hospital, Attica Prison, the HIV/AIDS crisis and a world that white supremacy has built. Miss Major Speaks is both document of her brilliant life--told with intimacy, warmth and an undeniable levity--and a roadmap for the challenges Black, brown, queer, and trans youth will face on the path to liberation today. |
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The Queer bible : essays
by Jack Flynn A love letter to the queer community, an essay collection follows contemporary queer icons as they pay homage to those who helped pave their paths, including Susan Sontag, David Bowie, RuPaul, Divine and George Michael. |
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Secret city : the hidden history of gay Washington
by James Kirchick Drawing on declassified documents, interviews and materials unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, this chronicle of American politics illuminates how homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration through the end of the 20th century. |
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The Stonewall generation : LGBT elders on sex, activism, and aging
by Jane Fleishman Sexuality researcher Jane Fleishman shares the stories of nine fearless elders in the LGBTQ community who came of age around the time of Stonewall. In candid interviews, they lay bare their struggles, their strengths, their activism, and their sexual liberation in the context of the political movements of the 1960s and 1970s and today. |
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The Stonewall reader : edited by the New York Public Library
by Jason Baumann For the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, an anthology chronicling the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded it, with a foreword by Edmund White. June 28, 2019 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library's archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the riots. |