Pride Month 2025 : Books

Theoretically wide-ranging and deeply personal and poetic, Queer Freedom: Black Sovereignty is based on more than three years of fieldwork in the Dominican Republic. Ana-Maurine Lara draws on her engagement in traditional ceremonies, observations of national Catholic celebrations, and interviews with activists from peasant, feminist, and LGBT communities to reframe contemporary conversations about queerness and blackness.

The internet origins of the American transgender movement The Two Revolutions explores how the rise of the internet shaped transgender identity and activism from the 1980s to the present. Through extensive archival research and media archeology, Avery Dame-Griff reconstructs the manifold digital networks of transgender activists, cross-dressing computer hobbyists, and others interested in gender nonconformity who incited the second revolution of the title: the ascendance of "transgender" as an umbrella identity in the mid-1990s.

A New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestseller! Critically acclaimed and bestselling authors Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera combine their talents in this smart, funny, heartfelt collaboration about two very different boys who can't decide if the universe is pushing them together--or pulling them apart.

Hartinger's debut novel is a fast-paced and funny portrait of contemporary teenagers who may not learn any actual geography in their latest club, but who learn plenty about the treacherous social terrain of a typical American high school.

What does cisgender mean? What are people saying when they refer to "assigned" gender? Why is it not OK to say 'preferred pronouns'? What is cis privilege? If you're curious about the answers to these questions and want to learn more, this book is for you. This easy-to-read guide offers information and advice to anyone wanting to understand more about trans experiences. It explains what gender identity is and arms you with the correct terminology to use.

The explosion of cable networks, cinema distributors, and mobile media companies explicitly designed for sexual minorities in the contemporary moment has made media culture a major factor in what it feels like to be a queer person. F. Hollis Griffin demonstrates how cities offer a way of thinking about that phenomenon.

In 1893, the Washington State legislature quietly began passing a set of laws that essentially made homosexuality, and eventually even the discussion of homosexuality, a crime. A century later Mike Lowry became the first governor of the state to address the annual lesbian and gay pride rally in Seattle. Gay Seattle traces the evolution of Seattle's gay community in those 100 turbulent years, telling through a century of stories how gays and lesbians have sought to achieve a sense of belonging in Seattle.

You are cordially invited to celebrate the wedding of a worm...and a worm. When a worm meets a special worm and they fall in love, you know what happens next: They get married!

As gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what's being lost in this indispensable, intimate, and stylish celebration of queer history. Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression--whatever your scene, whoever you're seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar?

Finding home. Falling in love. Fighting to belong. The Santos Vista neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas, is all Ander Martínez has ever known. The smell of pan dulce. The mixture of Spanish and English filling the streets. And, especially their job at their family's taquería. It's the place that has inspired Ander as a muralist, and, as they get ready to leave for art school, it's all of these things that give them hesitancy. That give them the thought, are they ready to leave it all behind?

And Tango Makes Three is the bestselling, heartwarming true story of two penguins who create a nontraditional family. At the penguin house at the Central Park Zoo, two penguins named Roy and Silo were a little bit different from the others. But their desire for a family was the same. And with the help of a kindly zookeeper, Roy and Silo get the chance to welcome a baby penguin of their very own.

From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged.

In the last three decades of the twentieth century, LGBT Latinas/os faced several forms of discrimination. The greater Latino community did not often accept sexual minorities, and the mainstream LGBT movement expected everyone, regardless of their ethnic and racial background, to adhere to a specific set of priorities so as to accommodate a "unified" agenda.

She's skinny, white, and blond. She's Barbie--an icon of femininity to generations of American girls. She's also multiethnic and straight--or so says Mattel, Barbie's manufacturer. But, as Barbie's Queer Accessories demonstrates, many girls do things with Barbie never seen in any commercial. Erica Rand looks at the corporate marketing strategies used to create Barbie's versatile (She's a rapper! She's an astronaut! She's a bride!) but nonetheless premolded and still predominantly white image. Rand weighs the values Mattel seeks to embody in Barbie--evident, for example, in her improbably thin waist and her heterosexual partner--against the naked, dyked out, transgendered, and trashed versions favored by many juvenile owners and adult collectors of the doll.

Lesbian Sexuality has remained largely ignored in Japan despite increasing exposure of disadvantaged minority groups, including gay men. This book is the first comprehensive academic exploration of contemporary lesbian sexuality in Japanese society. The author employs an interdisciplinary approach and this book will be of great value to those working or interested in the areas of Japanese, lesbian and gender studies as well as Japanese history, anthropology and cultural studies.

This is a fully revised and substantially expanded edition of Peter Jackson's highly regarded pioneering study of an Asian gay culture, Male Homosexuality in Thailand (1989). The hero of Jackson's fascinating narrative is "Uncle Go", which was the pen name of a popular magazine editor who, despite being avowedly heterosexual, was tolerant of all sexual practices and whose "agony uncle" columns in the 1970s provided unique spaces in the national press for Thailand's gays, lesbians, and transgendered (kathoeys) to speak for themselves in the public domain.

The problem this project addresses is the sense of marginalization experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) and same-sex attracted (SSA) Christian college and university students. Data was collected via an online questionnaire and the study design mixed methods with an emphasis on the qualitative data.

This resource gives school librarians, children's, and YA librarians the guidance and tools they need to confidently share these books with the patrons they support.

Why does queer leadership matter? In this book, the first of its kind, 15 LGBTQ presidents and chancellors in higher education provide insight into their experiences and highlight the importance of queer leadership for the academy and the world.

The Pocket Guide to LGBTQ Mental Health is a down-to-earth, informative, and affirming manual for mental health clinicians working with patients of diverse gender and sexual identities.

At the start of the twentieth century, tales of how the other half lives experienced a surge in popularity. People looking to go slumming without leaving home turned to these narratives for spectacular revelations of the underworld and sordid details about the deviants who populated it.

This book explores the representation of queer migrant Muslims in international literature and film from the 1980s to the present day. Bringing together a variety of contemporary writers and filmmakers of Muslim heritage engaged in vindicating same-sex desire, the book approaches queer Muslims in the diaspora as figures forced to negotiate their identities according to the expectations of the West and of their migrant Muslim communities.

Articles cover many aspects of contemporary culture, including the queer cowboy, the emergence of lesbian chic, and the expansion of queer representations of blackness. This accessible volume offers useful analytical tools that will help readers make sense of the problems and promise of queer pop culture.

Championing the liberatory potential of silence to address the fraught disability politics of queerness In queer culture, silence has been equated with voicelessness, complicity, and even death. Queer Silence insists, however, that silence can be a generative and empowering mode of survival.

This is a short and accessible introduction to the complex and evolving debates around queer theories, advocating for their critical role in academia and society. The book traces the roots of queer theories and argues that Foucault owed an important debt to other European authors including the feminist and homosexual liberation movements of the 1960-1970s and the anticolonial movements of the 1950s.

Melissa M. Wilcox explores the complex spiritual lives of queer women in the Los Angeles area. She takes the reader on a tour of a colorful array of religious and secular groups that serve as spiritual resources for these women from the well-known Metropolitan Community Churches to Wiccan covens, from the Gay and Lesbian Sierrans to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

A powerful call for tolerance, acceptance, and support--and a reminder of Jesus' message for us to love one another. In this moving and inspiring book, Martin offers a powerful, loving, and much-needed voice in a time marked by anger, prejudice, and divisiveness.

Catholic Greg Bourke's profoundly moving memoir about growing up gay and overcoming discrimination in the battle for same-sex marriage in the US. In this compelling and deeply affecting memoir, Greg Bourke recounts growing up in Louisville, Kentucky, and living as a gay Catholic.

The 1980s and 1990s, the height of the AIDS crisis in the United States, was decades ago now, and many of the stories from this time remain hidden: A Catholic nun from a small Midwestern town packs up her life to move to New York City, where she throws herself into a community under assault from HIV and AIDS.

Through the lens of horror--from Halloween to Hereditary--queer and trans writers consider the films that deepened, amplified, and illuminated their own experiences. Horror movies hold a complicated space in the hearts of the queer community: historically misogynist, and often homo- and transphobic, the genre has also been inadvertently feminist and open to subversive readings.

Before he was Darcelle XV, Portland, Oregon's most celebrated female impersonator, he was Walter Cole, a boy from the small suburb of Linnton. Walter/Darcelle tells the story of his life from his depression era childhood, his years in the service during the Korean Conflict, his time as a husband and father and his coming out in the sixties to become a mentor and strong example of strength and courage for gay and straight people everywhere.

The first study of how gay and lesbian artists influenced and established a regional cultural identity in the first half of the twentieth century, this groundbreaking publication chronicles and contextualizes pioneering gay and lesbian artists from the pre-Stonewall era. Looking back as far as the 1910s, museum curator David F. Martin has unearthed astonishing works by both lesser-known and internationally famous artists.

Yunuen Trujillo addresses the need for ministry for LGBTQ Catholics and the need for support ministry for parents of LGBTQ Catholics. The book gives a full-picture template to serve as a model that can be replicated in any parish community around the world. It is as well for LGBTQ people and their families, not only for those who feel marginalized, but also for the parishioners themselves who are called to live out the social doctrine of the Church.+

Born into a wealthy Black Indianapolis family, at 17, he is ready to leave his overbearing parents and their expectations behind. In the city, Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever. He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients, and after being put to the test by gay rights activists, becomes a member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP).

In this deeply moving and empowering true story, young readers will trace the life of the Gay Pride Flag, from its beginnings in 1978 with social activist Harvey Milk and designer Gilbert Baker to its spanning of the globe and its role in today's world. Award-winning author Rob Sanders's stirring text, and acclaimed illustrator Steven Salerno's evocative images, combine to tell this remarkable - and undertold - story. A story of love, hope, equality, and pride.

Adopting an intersectional lens, this timely volume explores the lived experiences of members of the queer and trans community in post-secondary STEM culture in the US to provide critical insights into progressing socially just STEM education pathways.

Winner of the 2023 Prose Award in Cultural Anthropology and SociologyFinalist for the 2023 Publishing Triangle Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction A sweeping history of Indigenous traditions of gender, sexuality, and resistance that reveals how, despite centuries of colonialism, Two-Spirit people are reclaiming their place in Native nations.

An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller's monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction's brightest lights--and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.