200 Words to Help You Talk about Sexuality and Gender
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If you have ever felt at a disadvantage when joining in a conversation on a subject that you aren't confident about, this new series is for you. Each book features definitions of two hundred words frequently used to describe and discuss a smart subject. Gender and Sexuality can seem like a big subject to decode. Let Kate Sloan guide you through it.
The Pink Line
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A groundbreaking look at how the issues of sexuality and gender identity divide and unite the world today.
LGBTQIA+ Rights
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Since the Stonewall Riots in 1969, the LGBTQIA+ experience has changed dramatically. Progress, while remarkable, has not been quick or expansive enough. And now, fears arise that advances to established rights could be rolled back. What rights do these Americans enjoy, and in what ways do they continue to be discriminated against? Do anti-LGBTQIA+ policies put lives at risk? What are the issues that matter most to these individuals in pursuit of their own freedoms and happiness? The diverse viewpoints in this resource explore where America stands currently, and where it might be headed.
Queerstory
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Celebrate the remarkable stories, events, and landmarks of the global LGBTQ+ movement with this inspirational and empowering infographic guide to the path toward equality throughout history.
365 Gays of the Year (Plus 1 for a Leap Year)
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365 Gays of the Year is a celebration of Queer history told through one LGBTQ+ figure for each day of the year.
Real Queer America
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Allen takes us on a cross-country road-trip stretching all the way from Provo, Utah to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South. Her motto for the trip: "Something gay every day." Making pit stops at drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, she introduces us to scores of extraordinary LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more. Capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places and revealing a national network of chosen family fighting for a better world, this is a treasure trove of uplifting stories and a much-needed source of hope and inspiration in these divided times.
Pride: the LGBTQ+ Rights Movement
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This celebratory book is the most in-depth visual tribute to the LGBTQ+ pride movement ever created. The story starts in the bohemian subculture of post-World War I American cities. Author Christopher Measom next covers the influence of World War II, which relocated millions of people to single-sex barracks and factories, encouraging a freedom and anonymity that helped spark the formation of gay communities after the war. The repressive '50s era saw the launch of two important rights organizations, the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, that led to the rebellions of the 1960s--culminating in the game-changing Stonewall Uprising of June 1969. The book then explores the devastation of the AIDS crisis, its impact on gay culture, and the fight to bring awareness to the disease. The narrative is brought up to the present day with coverage of the struggles for equality in marriage, the military, and beyond--and the push for gender rights.
The Stonewall Riots
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On the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary, the most important moment in LGBTQ history--depicted by the people who influenced, recorded, and reacted to it.
The Stonewall Reader
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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. Most importantly the anthology spotlights both iconic activists who were pivotal in the movement, such as Sylvia Rivera, co-founder of Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries (STAR), as well as forgotten figures like Ernestine Eckstein, one of the few out, African American, lesbian activists in the 1960s. The anthology focuses on the events of 1969, the five years before, and the five years after. Jason Baumann, the NYPL coordinator of humanities and LGBTQ collections, has edited and introduced the volume to coincide with the NYPL exhibition he has curated on the Stonewall uprising and gay liberation movement of 1969.
We Are Everywhere
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Through the lenses of protest, power, and pride, We Are Everywhere is an essential and empowering introduction to the history of the fight for queer liberation. Combining exhaustively researched narrative with meticulously curated photographs, the book traces queer activism from its roots in late-nineteenth-century Europe -- long before the pivotal Stonewall Riots of 1969 -- to the gender warriors leading the charge today. Featuring more than 300 images from more than seventy photographers and twenty archives, this inclusive and intersectional book enables us to truly see queer history unlike anything before, with glimpses of activism in the decades preceding and following Stonewall, family life, marches, protests, celebrations, mourning, and Pride. By challenging many of the assumptions that dominate mainstream LGBTQ+ history, We Are Everywhere shows readers how they can -- and must -- honor the queer past in order to shape our liberated future.
I Am Ace
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How do I know if I'm actually sexual? How do I come out as asexual? What kinds of relationship can I have as an ace person? If you are looking for answers to these questions, Cody is here to help. Within these pages lie all the advice you need as a questioning ace teen. Tackling everything from what asexuality is, the asexual spectrum and tips on coming out, to intimacy, relationships, acephobia and finding joy, this guide will help you better understand your asexual identity alongside deeply relatable anecdotes drawn from Cody's personal experience. Whether you are ace, demi, gray-ace or not sure yet, this book will give you the courage and confidence to embrace your authentic self and live your best ace life.
How to Be Ace
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"Brave, witty and empowering, this graphic memoir follows Rebecca as she navigates her asexual identity and mental health in a world obsessed with sex. From school to work to relationships, this book offers an unparalleled insight into asexuality.
Bi
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Despite all the welcome changes that have happened in our culture and laws over the past few decades in regard to sexuality, the subject remains one of the most influential but least understood aspects of our lives. For Julia Shaw, this is both professional and personal--Shaw studies the science of sexuality and she herself is proudly and vocally bisexual. It's an admission, she writes, that usually causes people's pupils to dilate, their cheeks to flush, and their questions to start flowing. Ask people to name famous bisexual actors, politicians, writers, or scientists, and they draw a blank. Despite statistics that show bisexuality is more common than homosexuality, bisexuality is often invisible. In Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality, Shaw probes the science and culture of attraction beyond the binary. From the invention of heterosexuality to the history of the Kinsey scale, as well as asylum seekers trying to defend their bisexuality in a court of law, there is so much more to explore than most have ever realized. Drawing on her own original research--and her own experiences--this is a personal and scientific manifesto; it's an exploration of the complexities of the human sexual experience and a declaration of love and respect for the nonconformists among us.
She/He/They/Me
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An accessible guide for learning about gender identity for those questioning their own genders, generally curious about gender, or interested in better understanding someone else's identity. If you've ever questioned the logic of basing an entire identity around what you have between your legs, it's time to embark on a daring escape outside of the binary box. Written in a choose-your-own path style, you'll explore over one hundred different scenarios that embrace nearly every definition of gender around the globe and throughout history in a refreshingly creative exploration of the ways gender colors and shapes our world. In She/He/They/Me, Dr. Robyn Ryle, professor of sociology and gender studies at Hanover College in Indiana, thoughtfully discusses gender constructs, expectations, and transitions along with covering everything from the science, biology, and psychology of gender to the philosophy, legality and societal implications. This is a must-read for better understanding and celebrating LGBTQ+, nonbinary, and transgender identities and a great resource for parents of gender queer kids.
Sissy
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Through revisiting their childhood and calling out the stereotypes that each of us have faced, Jacob Tobia invites us to rethink what we know about gender and offers a blueprint for a world free from gender-based trauma. Sissy takes you on a gender odyssey you won't soon forget. Writing with the fierce honesty, wildly irreverent humour, and wrenching vulnerability that have made them a media sensation, Jacob shatters the long-held notion that people are easily sortable into men and women and guarantees that you'll never think about gender - both other people's and your own - the same way again.
He/She/They
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"Just a few years ago, Schuyler Bailar rose to national and international prominence when he became the first openly transgender athlete to compete on an NCAA Division 1 team in any sport. A top high school prospect, Schuyler had been recruited by Harvard for the women's team, but after taking a gap year to address mental health and ultimately to transition, Schuyler swam instead for Harvard's men's team. Since then, Schuyler has become a go to expert on gender identity for the media and has given hundreds of talks on gender literacy and inclusion. But at the same time, Supreme Court Justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked in her confirmation hearing to define the word "woman," a seemingly simple question that in that particular arena was too politically charged for her to answer. Meanwhile, anti-gay and anti-trans legislation in Florida and Texas shows that trans rights are under attack. Transgender suicides are up, transgender hotlines are buzzing, and the only thing that is certain is this: America is long overdue for a reckoning with gender. He/She/They uses storytelling and the art of conversation to give us the fundamental language and context of gender so that we can meet people where they are and pave the way to understanding, acceptance, and inclusion. As a transgender man, inclusion advocate, and LGBTQ educator, Schuyler Bailar is more than familiar with the myriad questions that come up. In He/She/They, he addresses them head on, such as why being transgender is not a choice, why pronouns are important, and what is biological sex. But this book is more than a book on allyship; many of Schuyler's vast followers come to him for support; one of his most popular reels is speaking to a young trans person who asks, "does it get better?" Schuyler speaks to everyone, no matter where they are. In the same way that So You Want to Talk About Race defined the conversation about race in American, He/She/They is an essential, urgent, and, as Schuyler points out, potentially life-saving book that will change the conversation about gender identity and how we talk about it, moving us toward a more equitable future.
The Transmasculine Guide to Physical Transition: For Trans, Nonbinary, and other Masculine Folks
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This in-depth exploration of all aspects of physical transition is an accessible and supportive guide for trans men, transmasculine people, and nonbinary people. Drawing on their personal experience and extensive research, Sage Buch walks you through a wide array of safe transition options. Inside, you'll learn about non-medical interventions like chest binding and packing, explore the varieties and effects of hormone replacement therapy, and get a comprehensive primer on choosing, preparing for, and recovering from top and bottom surgery. Medical research and jargon is made accessible, side effects and pros and cons are clearly spelled out, and empowering perspectives help you consider what transition path is right for you. Everything always comes back to checking in with yourself at every step of the way so that you can enjoy the unique self-expression that comes with finding yourself and who you are meant to be. Reading can be enhanced by working through The Transmasculine Guide to Physical Transition Workbook as you read.
Transgender History
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Covering American transgender history from the mid-twentieth century to today, Transgender History takes a chronological approach to the subject of transgender history, with each chapter covering major movements, writings, and events. Chapters cover the transsexual and transvestite communities in the years following World War II; trans radicalism and social change, which spanned from 1966 with the publication of The Transsexual Phenomenon, and lasted through the early 1970s; the mid-'70s to 1990-the era of identity politics and the changes witnessed in trans circles through these years; and the gender issues witnessed through the '90s and '00s. Transgender History includes informative sidebars highlighting quotes from major texts and speeches in transgender history and brief biographies of key players, plus excerpts from transgender memoirs and discussion of treatments of transgenderism in popular culture.
Before We Were Trans
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Explores the history of transgender and gender nonconforming people, with a focus on those who identified in other than a straightforward binary fashion; on communities in West Africa, Asia, and among Native Americans; and on cross-dressing in World War I prison camps and in entertainment.
Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood
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Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood provides a unique combination of inspirational firsthand accounts combined with the critical information, tips and advice needed to help couples successfully navigate the complex road to parenthood.
Lesbian Love Story
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When Amelia Possanza moved to Brooklyn to build a life of her own, she found herself surrounded by queer stories: she read them on landmark placards, overheard them on the pool deck when she joined the world's largest LGBTQ swim team, and even watched them on TV in her cockroach-infested apartment. These stories inspired her to seek out lesbians throughout history who could become her role models, in romance and in life. Centered around seven love stories for the ages, this is Possanza's journey into the archives to recover the personal histories of lesbians in the twentieth century: who they were, how they loved, why their stories were destroyed, and where their memories echo and live on.
A Little Gay History
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When was the first chat line between men established? Who was the first "lesbian"? Were ancient Greek men who had sex with each other necessarily "gay," and what did Shakespeare think about crossdressing? A Little Gay History answers these questions and more through close readings of art objects from the British Museum's far-ranging collection. Consulting ancient Egyptian papyri, the Roman Warren Cup's erotic figures, David Hockney's vivid prints, and dozens of other artifacts, R. B. Parkinson draws attention to a diverse range of same-sex experiences and situates them within specific historical and cultural contexts. The first of its kind, A Little Gay History builds a complex and creative portrait of love's many guises.
Secret City
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For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret "too loathsome to mention" paradoxically held enormous, terrifying power. Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, from FDR through Clinton is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of "the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States," award-winning journalist and author James Kirchick illuminates how the idea of homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration, impacting everything from the creation of America's earliest civilian intelligence agency to the rise and fall of McCarthyism, the struggle for African American civil rights, and the conservative movement. Celebrating the men and women who courageously decided that the source of their private shame could instead be galvanized for public pride, Kirchick offers a reinterpretation of American history told from the perspective of the citizens who lived in its shadows.
Before Lawrence V. Texas
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In Before Lawrence, Wesley Phelps recounts the legal challenges to discriminatory Texas sodomy laws before the major breakthrough in the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas. While most scholars and activists recognize the Lawrence decision to be the foundation for all subsequent gains for gay and lesbian equality in the twenty-first century, Phelps argues that the earlier legal challenges laid the necessary groundwork for the modern movement for queer civil rights. By probing the fascinating human stories behind these cases, this book offers a rare glimpse into an important component in the movement for gay and lesbian equality and constitutional reform in the United States.
The Engagement
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On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled that state bans on gay marriage were unconstitutional, making same-sex unions legal throughout the United States. But the road to victory was much longer than many know. In this seminal work, SashaIssenberg takes us back to Hawaii in the 1990s, when that state's supreme court first started grappling with the issue, and traces the fight for marriage equality from the enactment of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 to the Goodridge decision that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, and finally to the seminal Supreme Court decisions of Windsor and Obergefell. This meticulously reported work sheds new light on every aspect of this fraught history and brings to life the perspectives of those who fought courageously for the right to marry as well as those who fervently believed that same-sex marriage would destroy the nation. It is sure to become the definitive book on one of the most important civil rights fights of our time.
The Sacred Band
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From classicist James Romm comes a thrilling deep dive into the last decades of ancient Greek freedom leading up to Alexander the Great?s destruction of Thebes--and the saga of the greatest military corps of the age, the Theban Sacred Band, a unit composed of 150 pairs of male lovers. The story of the Sacred Band, an elite 300-man corps recruited from pairs of lovers, highlights a chaotic era of ancient Greek history, four decades marked by battles, ideological disputes, and the rise of vicious strongmen. At stake was freedom, democracy, and the fate of Thebes, at this time the leading power of the Greek world. The tale begins in 379 BC, with a group of Theban patriots sneaking into occupied Thebes. Disguised in women's clothing, they cut down the agents of Sparta, the state that had cowed much of Greece with its military might. To counter the Spartans, this group of patriots would form the Sacred Band, a corps whose history plays out against a backdrop of Theban democracy, of desperate power struggles between leading city-states, and the new prominence of eros, sexual love, in Greek public life.
Accepted
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When Pat Patterson was 17 years old, he was asked to leave his home after telling his parents he was in love...with a man. Moving from Montreal to the United States in the 1960s, barely knowing a word of English, he was determined to succeed in the squared circle. Back when homophobia was widespread, Pat lived in the super-macho world of pro wrestling.
The Family Outing
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Jessi Hempel was raised in a seemingly picture-perfect, middle-class American family. Growing up, Jessi and her two siblings struggled to make sense of their family, their world, their changing bodies, and the emotional turmoil each was experiencing. And each, in their own way, was hiding their true self from the world. By the time Jessi reached adulthood, everyone in her family had come out: Jessi as gay, her sister as bisexual, her father as gay, her brother as transgender, and her mother as a survivor of a traumatic experience with an alleged serial killer. Yet coming out was just the beginning, starting a chain reaction of other personal revelations and reckonings that caused each of them to question their place in the world in new and ultimately liberating ways.
Hola Papi
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The first time someone called Brammer "Papi" was on the gay hookup app Grindr. At first he took this as white-guy speak for "hey, handsome". What started as a racialized moniker given to him on the hookup app soon became the inspiration for his now wildly popular advice column. Here Brammer shares his story of growing up biracial and in the closet in America's heartland, while attempting to answer some of life's toughest questions. This book is for anyone-- gay, straight, and everything in between-- who has ever taken stock of their unique place in the world.
Boys and Oil
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Taylor Brorby's Boys and Oil, a haunting, bracingly honest memoir about growing up gay amidst the harshness of rural North Dakota, "a place where there is no safety in a ravaged landscape of mining and fracking." In visceral prose, Brorby recounts his upbringing in the coalfields; his adolescent infatuation with books; and how he felt intrinsically different from other boys. Now an environmentalist, Brorby uses the destruction of large swathes of the West as a metaphor for the terror he experienced as a youth. From an assault outside a bar in an oil boom town to a furtive romance, and from his awakening as an activist to his arrest at the Dakota Access Pipeline, Boys and Oil provides a startling portrait of an America that persists despite well-intentioned legal protections.
Until I Meet My Husband
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This historic memoir by activist Ryousuke Nanasaki recounts his first experiences as a gay man while searching for his soulmate and eventual marriage the first religiously recognized same-sex wedding in Japanese history. (Manga adaptation also available from Seven Seas.) Ryousuke Nanasaki married his husband in 2016 in the first religiously recognized same-sex wedding in Japanese history. This collection of essays follows Ryousuke s search for love on the journey to his extraordinary marriage. From unrequited junior high crushes to awkward dating sites to finally finding a community, Ryousuke s heartfelt reflections on his coming-of-age as a young gay man in Hokkaido will touch readers all over the world.
Enjoy Me among My Ruins
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Juniper Fitzgerald recounts her life experiences as a queer, sex-working mother using childhood journal entries, feminist theories, and literary culture references.
Hijab Butch Blues
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Fourteen years old and growing up in the Middle East, Lamya is an overachiever and a class clown, qualities that help her hide in plain sight when she realizes she has a crush on her teacher-her female teacher. She's also fourteen when she reads a passage in Quran class about Maryam, known as the Virgin Mary in the Christian Bible, that changes everything. Lamya learns that Maryam was untempted by an angelically handsome man, and later, when told she is pregnant, insists no man has touched her. Could Maryam be... like Lamya? Spanning childhood to an elite college in the US and early adult life in New York City, each essay places Lamya's struggles and triumphs in the context of some of the most famous stories in the Quran. She juxtaposes her coming out with Musa liberating his people from the Pharoah; asks if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing strength from the faith and hope of Nuh building his ark, begins to build a life of her own-all the while discovering that her identity as a queer, immigrant devout Muslim is, in fact, the answer to her quest for safety and belonging.
Diary of a Misfit
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Part memoir, part sweeping journalistic saga: As Casey Parks follows the mystery of a stranger's past, she is forced to reckon with her own sexuality, her fraught Southern identity, her tortured yet loving relationship with her mother, and the complicated role of faith in her life. With an enormous heart and an unstinting sense of vulnerability, Parks writes about finding oneself through someone else's story, and about forging connections across the gulfs that divide us.
Candy Darling
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From acclaimed biographer Cynthia Carr, the first full portrait of queer icon and Warhol superstar Candy Darling.
Postcolonial Love Poem
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Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz's brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages--bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers--be touched and held as beloveds. Through these poems, the wounds inflicted by America onto an indigenous people are allowed to bloom pleasure and tenderness: "Let me call my anxiety, desire, then. / Let me call it, a garden." In this new lyrical landscape, the bodies of indigenous, Latinx, black, and brown women are simultaneously the body politic and the body ecstatic. In claiming this autonomy of desire, language is pushed to its dark edges, the astonishing dunefields and forests where pleasure and love are both grief and joy, violence and sensuality.
All Boys Aren't Blue
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"In a series of personal essays, prominent journalist and LGBTQIA+ activist George M. Johnson explores his childhood, adolescence, and college years in New Jersey and Virginia. From the memories of getting his teeth kicked out by bullies at age five, to flea marketing with his loving grandmother, to his first sexual relationships, this young-adult memoir weaves together the trials and triumphs faced by Black queer boys.
Be Gay, Do Comics
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The dream of a queer separatist town. The life of a gay and Jewish Nazi-fighter. A gender reveal party that tears apart reality. These are the just some of the comics you'll find in this massive queer comics anthology from The Nib. Be Gay, Do Comics is filled with dozens of comics about LGBTQIA experiences, ranging from personal stories to queer history to cutting satire about pronoun panic and brands desperate to co-opt pride. Brimming with resilience, inspiration, and humor, an incredible lineup of top indie cartoonists takes you from the American Revolution through Stonewall to today's fights for equality and representation. Featuring more than 30 cartoonists including Hazel Newlevant, Joey Alison Sayers, Maia Kobabe, Matt Lubchansky, Breena Nunez, Sasha Velour, Shing Yin Khor, Levi Hastings, Mady G, Bianca Xunise, Kazimir Lee, and many, many more!
Community Resources - Equality Texas
The National Resource Center on LGBTQ+ Aging