LGBTQ+ Nonfiction
A list of recent LGBTQ+ nonfiction books selected by our librarians.
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I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I've Put My Faith in Beyoncé
"In the style of New York Times bestsellers You Can't Touch My Hair, Bad Feminist, and I'm Judging You, a timely collection of alternately hysterical and soul-searching essays about what it is like to grow up as a creative, sensitive black man in a world that constantly tries to deride and diminish your humanity. It hasn't been easy being Michael Arceneaux. Equality for LGBT people has come a long way and all, but voices of persons of color within the community are still often silenced, and being black in America is...well, have you watched the news? With the characteristic wit and candor that have made him one of today's boldest writers on social issues, I Can't Date Jesus is Michael Arceneaux's impassioned, forthright, and refreshing look at minority life in today's America. Leaving no bigoted or ignorant stone unturned, he describes his journey in learning to embrace his identity when the world told him to do the opposite. He eloquently writes about coming out to his mother; growing up in Houston, Texas; that time his father asked if he was 'funny' while shaking his hand; his obstacles in embracing intimacy; and the persistent challenges of young people who feel marginalized and denied the chance to pursue their dreams. Perfect for fans of David Sedaris and Phoebe Robinson, I Can't Date Jesus tells us--without apologies--what it's like to be outspoken and brave in a divisive world"-- Provided by publisher.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Queer: A Graphic History
"Activist-academic Meg John Barker and cartoonist Julia Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel. A kaleidoscope of characters from the diverse worlds of pop-culture, film, activism and academia guide us on a journey through the ideas, people and events that have shaped u000Equeer theoryu0019. 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. Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of whatu0019s u000Enormalu0019, such as Alfred Kinseyu0019s view of sexuality as a spectrum between heterosexuality and homosexuality, Judith Butleru0019s view of gendered behavior as a performance, the play Wicked, which reinterprets characters from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, or moments in Casino Royale when weu0019re invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media,"--Amazon.com.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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A Quick & Easy Guide to They/them Pronouns
"A quick, easy and important educational comic guide to using gender-neutral pronouns."--Amazon.
Format: Graphic Novel
Availability: Available
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Butch Heroes
Katherina Hetzeldorfer, tried "for a crime that didn't have a name" (same sex sexual relations) and sentenced to death by drowning in 1477; Charles aka Mary Hamilton, publicly whipped for impersonating a man in eighteenth-century England; Clara, aka "Big Ben," over whom two jealous women fought in 1926 New York: these are just three of the lives that the artist Ria Brodell has reclaimed for queer history in Butch Heroes. Brodell offers a series of twenty-eight portraits of forgotten but heroic figures, each accompanied by a brief biographical note. They are individuals who were assigned female at birth but whose gender presentation was more masculine than feminine, who did not want to enter into heterosexual marriage, and who often faced dire punishment for being themselves. Brodell's detailed and witty paintings are modeled on Catholic holy cards, slyly subverting a religious template. The portraits and the texts offer intriguing hints of lost lives: cats lounge in the background of domestic settings; one of the figures is said to have been employed variously as "a prophet, a soldier, or a textile worker"; another casually holds a lit cigarette. Brodell did extensive research for each portrait, piecing together a life from historical accounts, maps, journals, paintings, drawings, and photographs, finding the heroic in the forgotten.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements
"A 21st century guide to building a Black liberation movement through a Black queer feminist lens"-- Provided by publisher.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community
Showcases twenty-nine artists who are moving through the narrow space that is gay or straight, biological or social, craft and fine art and doing so explicitly through their work in fiber and textile. Loaded with gender connotations and power hierarchies, fiber-based handicrafts such as crochet, embroidery, knitting, macrame, quilting, and sewing provide a fitting platform for examining tastes, roles, and relationships socialized within and around gay and lesbian culture, as well as our reactions to the traditional home and cultures in which we were raised. This book evolves from an exhibition of the same name, that John Chaich curated in 2014 at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art in New York City, the first dedicated LGBTQ art museum in the world with a mission to exhibit and preserve LGBTQ art and foster the artists who create it. While other recent, high-profile fiber and textile exhibitions have featured several of the artists in Queer threads, the Leslie-Lohman exhibition marked the first time these works were shown together to specifically examine the works queerness. To further examine how queerness informs each featured artist's work in fiber and textiles, or vice versa, this book features interviewers from the worlds of music, fashion, media, dance, museums, and scholarship who are makers and thinkers themselves, many members of the queer community if not powerful allies. The resulting dialogues are as fun, challenging, personal, and universal as the ideas in the works discussed.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory
"The book focuses on the concept of asegi stories--stories that revise and revive Cherokee cultural memories of same-sex relationships and non-binary gender systems. It is the first full-length work of scholarship to develop a tribally specific Indigenous queer/two-spirit critique, providing a Cherokee 2GLBTQ lens from which to interpret the past, understand our present, and imagine decolonial futures"--Provided by publisher.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews With Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults
Representations of older transgender people are nearly absent from our culture and those that do exist are often one-dimensional. For over five years, photographer Jess T. Dugan and social worker Vanessa Fabbre traveled throughout the United States creating 'To Survive on this Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Older Adults'. Seeking subjects whose lived experiences exist within the complex intersections of gender identity, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, socioeconomic class, and geographic location, they traveled from coast to coast, to big cities and small towns, documenting the life stories of this important but largely underrepresented group of older adults. The featured individuals have a wide variety of life narratives spanning the last ninety years, offering an important historical record of transgender experience and activism in the United States. The resulting monograph provides a nuanced view into the struggles and joys of growing older as a transgender person and offers a poignant reflection on what it means to live authentically despite seemingly insurmountable odds.00Exhibition: Projects+Gallery, St. Louis, USA (06.09. - 10.10.2018).
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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A Quick & Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities
"Covering essential topics like sexuality, gender identity, coming out, and navigating relationships, this guide explains the spectrum of human experience through informative comics, interviews, worksheets, and imaginative examples. A great starting point for anyone curious about queer and trans life, and helpful for those already on their own journeys!"--Back cover.
Format: Graphic Novel
Availability: Available
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We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir
"A queer Muslim searches for the language to express her truest self, making peace with her sexuality, her family, and Islam. Growing up in Pakistan, Samra Habib lacks a blueprint for the life she wants. She has a mother who gave up everything to be a pious, dutiful wife and an overprotective father who seems to conspire against a life of any adventure. Plus, she has to hide the fact that she's Ahmadi to avoid persecution from religious extremists. As the threats against her family increase, they seek refuge in Canada, where new financial and cultural obstacles await them. When Samra discovers that her mother has arranged her marriage, she must again hide a part of herself--the fun-loving, feminist teenager that has begun to bloom--until she simply can't any longer. So begins a journey of self-discovery that takes her to Tokyo, where she comes to terms with her sexuality, and to a queer-friendly mosque in Toronto, where she returns to her faith in the same neighbourhood where she attended her first drag show. Along the way, she learns that the facets of her identity aren't as incompatible as she was led to believe, and that her people had always been there--the world just wasn't ready for them yet."-- Provided by publisher. (4/16/2024 2:56:40 PM)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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