Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Month! Celebrated in the month of June, Pride Month honors the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, a six-day stretch of protests in which LGBTQ+ activists fought back against a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in New York City. It was a major protest against anti-LGBTQ+ laws and discrimination and a catalyst for the Pride celebrations known today.
The following list of resources can help you celebrate Pride Month by learning about the history of LGBTQ+ communities in the United States, reading about the lives of LGBTQ+ persons, and experiencing the works of LGBTQ+ authors and creators. Many of the titles and authors included on this list have received awards or other honors, but this list is by no means comprehensive.
Adult Fiction
Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity by Lee Mandelo (editor): This masterful collection of short stories presents a joyful and impressively varied array of speculative fiction centered on queer resistance and survival in imagined futures.
Bellies by Nicola Dinan: Two queer men who meet at university and begin a life together face a momentous challenge when one of them announces an intention to transition.
Blackouts by Justin Torres: An unnamed narrator and his elderly and dying friend weave together forgotten queer histories in Torres’ second novel.
Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters: This collection of short works explores community, desire, and the complexities of gender through stories of lumberjacks navigating identity, boarding school intrigue, and dark choices on the Vegas strip.
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai: In 1985, Yale Tishman’s career as the director of a Chicago art gallery starts to flourish while the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him.
I’m So (Not) Over You by Kosoko Jackson: Kian Andrews is shocked when his ex-boyfriend Hudson Rivers contacts him months after their breakup, asking him to pretend they’re still dating during an upcoming visit from his parents.
A Language of Limbs by Dylin Hardcastle: This stunning debut, which has already won the Kathleen Mitchell Award in Australia, follows a 15-year-old girl in 1972 Australia across two alternate timelines: one where she embraces her queerness and one where she rejects it.
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki: To escape eternal damnation, Shizuka Satomi is tasked by the devil with persuading seven violin prodigies to surrender their souls for success.
The Lilac People by Milo Todd: Trans man Bertie and his girlfriend Sofie flee Nazi persecution in 1930s Berlin to live in hiding, later risking everything to protect a young trans Holocaust survivor from Allied arrest in a tale of resilience and the fight for queer survival in this debut novel from Lambda Literary Fellow Todd.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: In this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Calliope’s sense of identity is shaken by the discovery that she is intersex.
Old Enough by Haley Jakobson: When her best friend from childhood gets engaged, college sophomore Savannah Henry is pulled back into a history she had just barely begun to heal from while falling in love with Wes, a sweet, nonbinary classmate.
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon: Vern lives in the woods, isolated from society and determined to raise her twins far from its influence, but now her body is undergoing strange transformations.
The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan: Cate Kay, a reclusive bestselling author, has concealed her identity for years, but when a devastating tragedy from her past resurfaces, she’s forced to confront the secrets that derailed her dreams.
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian: In New York City in the late 1950s, a hostile time for gay men, reporter Nick Russo finds himself smitten with Andy Fleming, the son of the newspaper’s owner.
Adult Nonfiction
Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar by Cynthia Carr: From an acclaimed biographer comes the first full portrait of the queer icon and Warhol superstar Candy Darling.
Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi: This memoir, written by an award-winning nonbinary author, reveals the harrowing yet inspiring truths of their personal, spiritual, and artistic journey.
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel: This darkly funny graphic novel memoir tells the story of Alison Bechdel's family, including her coming out of the closet.
Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City by Elyssa Maxx Goodman: This history of drag in New York City reveals the untold stories of its emergence in Harlem Renaissance balls, its crucial role in the Stonewall Uprising and its unifying power during the AIDS crisis and 9/11.
He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters by Schuyler Bailar: Activist and educator Bailar, the first openly transgender athlete to compete in an NCAA Division I sport, offers a vulnerable, incisive discussion of gender and sexuality.
Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.: A queer Muslim immigrant recalls her coming of age and how she drew inspiration from the stories in the Quran throughout her lifetime search for safety and belonging.
The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul: From an international drag superstar and pop culture icon comes a deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer and discovering the power of performance and self-acceptance.
I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition by Lucy Sante: An award-winning writer chronicles her late-in-life gender transition in this poignant, arresting, and ultimately affirming memoir.
Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Queer Histories by Diarmuid Hester: This radical new history of seven queer lives, including Josephine Baker in Paris and E.M. Forster in Cambridge, illuminates the connections to where they lived, who they loved, and the art they created.
The Rainbow Age of Television: An Opinionated History of Queer TV by Shayna Maci Warner: This journey through decades of the LGBTQIA+ television landscape offers new perspectives on favorite queer characters and TV shows and introduces pop culture and queer-history readers to ones they may have missed.
Reclaiming Two-Spirits: Sexuality, Spiritual Renewal, & Sovereignty in Native America by Gregory D. Smithers: A sweeping history of Indigenous traditions of gender and sexuality that decolonizes North America's past and reveals how Two-Spirit people are reclaiming their place in Native nations.
The Stonewall Reader edited by the New York Public Library: This anthology records the tumultuous fight for LGBTQ+ rights in the 1960s and the activists who spearheaded the movement.
Young Adult Fiction
Camp by L.C. Rosen: At a summer camp for queer teens, sixteen-year-old Randall “Del” Kapplehoff schemes to convince Hudson Aaronson-Lim to fall in love with him.
Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White: An autistic, transgender teen seeks justice as a 100-year-old feud threatens his family and anyone who associates with them in this Michael L. Printz Honor Award-winning book.
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender: Felix Love, a transgender teenager, attempts to get revenge by catfishing his anonymous bully, but lands in a quasi-love triangle with his former enemy and his best friend.
Flamer by Mike Curato: This graphic novel follows Aiden through a week of summer camp in 1995 as he wrestles with the growing realization that he’s gay.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuinston: After valedictorian rivals Chloe and Shara kiss, Shara vanishes, leaving Chloe and two boys, who are also enamored with Shara, to follow the trail of clues she left behind.
Lakelore by Anna-Marie McLemore: Two nonbinary teens are pulled into a magical world under a lake and struggle to keep their real lives intact.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo: America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown, where Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone.
Loveless by Alice Oseman: Eighteen-year-old Georgia comes to understand her aromantic/asexual identity as she starts college.
Time and Time Again by Chatham Greenfield: Two former friends reconnect and explore their feelings while stuck in a time loop in this heartfelt, pitch-perfect debut that received a Stonewall Honor Award.
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson: High school senior Liz Lighty plans to attend a prestigious medical school, but the unexpected loss of her financial aid forces her to compete for her school’s prom-queen scholarship.
Movies
Ammonite: Acclaimed paleontologist Mary Anning works alone selling common fossils to tourists to support her ailing mother, but a chance job offer changes her life when a visitor hires her to care for his wife.
Call Me by Your Name: Set in 1983 in northern Italy, this film chronicles the romantic relationship between Elio and Oliver and is based on the novel of the same name.
Milk: This film is based on the true story of Harvey Milk, a middle-aged New Yorker who, after moving to San Francisco, became a gay rights activist and city politician.
The Miseducation of Cameron Post: Based on the novel of the same name, this film follows Cameron, a teenage girl who is sent to a conversion therapy center in the 1990s.
Moonlight: A young Black man struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire: This French language film set in 1760 follows Marianne, who is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a young woman who has just left the convent.
Supernova: A gay couple, one a musician, the other a novelist, embark on a road trip as dementia starts to take hold of one of them.