LGBTQ: Adult Non-Fiction Books

"An eloquent, restless, and enlightening memoir by one of the most thought-provoking journalists today about growing up Black and queer in America, reuniting with the past, and coming of age their own way. One of nineteen children in a blended family, Hari Ziyad was raised by a Hindu Hare Kṛiṣhṇa mother and a Muslim father. Through reframing their own coming-of-age story, Ziyad takes readers on a powerful journey of growing up queer and Black in Cleveland, Ohio, and of navigating the equally complex path toward finding their true self in New York City. Exploring childhood, gender, race, and the trust that is built, broken, and repaired through generations, Ziyad investigates what it means to live beyond the limited narratives Black children are given and challenges the irreconcilable binaries that restrict them."

"An electric and intimate story of 1970s gay Atlanta through its bedazzling drag clubs and burgeoning rights activism. Coursing with a pumped-up beat, gay Atlanta was the South's mecca-a beacon for gays and lesbians growing up in its homophobic towns and cities. There, the Sweet Gum Head was the club for achieving drag stardom. Martin Padgett evokes the fantabulous disco decade by going deep into the lives of two men who shaped and were shaped by this city: John Greenwell, an Alabama runaway who found himself and his avocation performing as the exquisite Rachel Wells; and Bill Smith, who took to the streets and city hall to change antigay laws. Against this optimism for visibility and rights, gay people lived with daily police harassment and drug dealing and murder in their discos and drag clubs. Conducting interviews with many of the major figures and reading through deteriorating gay archives, Padgett expertly re-creates Atlanta from a time when a vibrant, new queer culture of drag and pride came into being"

A groundbreaking collection tracing the history of intellectual thought by Black Lesbian writers, in the tradition of The New Press's perennial seller Words of Fire"

"From The Onion and Reductress contributor, this collection of essays is a hilarious nostalgic trip through beloved 2000s media, interweaving cultural criticism and personal narrative to examine how a very straight decade forged a very queer woman "If you came of age at the intersection of Mean Girls and The L Word: Read this book." -Sarah Pappalardo, editor in chief and co-founder of Reductress. Today's gay youth have dozens of queer peer heroes, both fictional and real, but Grace Perry did not have that luxury. Instead, she had to search for queerness in the teen cultural phenomena that the early aughts had to offer: in Lindsay Lohan's fall from grace, Gossip Girl, Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl," country-era Taylor Swift, and Seth Cohen jumping on a coffee cart. And, for better or worse, these touch points shaped her identity, and she came out on the other side, as she puts it, gay as hell. Join Grace on a journey back through the pop culture moments of the early 2000's, before the cataclysmic shift in LGBTQ representation and acceptance--a time not so long ago, that people seem to forget"

"Ace" delves into the lives of those who identify using the little-known sexual orientation of asexuality and shows what all of us can learn-about desire, identity, culture, and relationships-when we use an asexual lens to see the world"

"Billy-Ray Belcourt's debut memoir opens with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life in the hamlet of Joussard, Alberta, and on the Driftpile First Nation. Piece by piece, Billy-Ray's writings invite us to unpack and explore the big and broken world he inhabits every day, in all its complexity and contradiction: a legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it; first loves and first loves lost; sexual exploration and intimacy; the act of writing as a survival instinct and a way to grieve. What emerges is not only a profound meditation on memory, gender, anger, shame, and ecstasy, but also the outline of a way forward. With startling honesty, and in a voice distinctly and assuredly his own, Belcourt situates his life experiences within a constellation of seminal queer texts, among which this book is sure to earn its place. Eye-opening, intensely emotional, and excessively quotable, A History of My Brief Body demonstrates over and over again the power of words to both devastate and console us."

"The groundbreaking, never-before-told story of Brooklyn's vibrant and forgotten queer history, from the mid-1850s up to the present day. When Brooklyn Was Queer is a groundbreaking exploration of the LGBT history of Brooklyn, from the early days of Walt Whitman in the 1850s up through the women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II, and beyond."

A collection of letters written by successful trans women sharing the lessons they've learned on their journeys to womanhood, celebrating their achievements, and empowering the next generation to become who they really are.

"In 'The invisible orientation, ' Julie Sondra Decker outlines what asexuality is, counters misconceptions, provides resources, and puts asexual people's experiences in context as they move through a very sexualized world. It includes information for asexual people to help understand their orientation and what it means for their relationships, as well as tips and facts for those who want to understand their asexual friends and loved ones."

""In a hugely ambitious study which crosses continents, languages, and almost a century, Gregory Woods identifies the ways in which homosexuality has helped shape Western culture. Extending from the trials of Oscar Wilde to the gay liberation era, this book examines a period in which increased visibility made acceptance of homosexuality one of the measures of modernity."

"Southern literature has long been heralded for its tragic sentiments, in its somber and necessary acknowledgments of the region's tormented past, as it has concomitantly asserted an overarchingly heteronormative vision of Southern life. (click title for more)

"A chronicle of the modern struggle for gay, lesbian and transgender rights draws on interviews with politicians, military figures, legal activists and members of the LGBT community to document the cause's struggles since the 1950s."

"A dramatic and inspirational memoir from one of the world's top leaders of the movement for gay and lesbian equality."

Exposing the culture of homophobia that still runs rampant in corporations around the world, the former CEO of BP draws on his own experiences to reveal why self-disclosure is best for employees despite the risk.

Mark Abramson was a bartender on Castro Street, Haight Street, and South of Market during the worst years of the AIDS crisis, roughly from 1984 to 1996, when new life-saving drugs came on the market. He was also involved in several of the major fundraising events of the times, from gay bars to the waterfront piers of San Francisco and theaters in between. For My Brothers is filled with true stories of encounters with Connie Francis, Johnnie Ray, and Christine Jorgensen, plus friendships with Al Parker, John Preston, and Sylvester and dozens of lesser known characters who deserve to be remembered.

"Black gay artists and activists who have struggled with their marginalized identity in the AIDS era have looked to the 1920s Harlem Renaissance and the 1950s era of protest for strategies to deal with racism and homophobia. In analyses of black gay culture texts from black queer theory approaches, Dickel (ethnic and postcolonial studies, Ruhr-U. of Bochum, Germany) focuses on writers and filmmakers affiliated with literary anthologies including Brother to Brother: New Writings by Gay Black Men (1991), edited by Essex Hemphill, and the Other Countries Collective's Sojourner: Gay Voices in the Age of Aids (1992); Isaac Julian's film Looking for Langston (1989); and writings by Samuel Delaney, Randall Kenan, and Melvin Dixon."

""This book will cover fertility and conception for the whole LGBTQ spectrum"--The only evidence-based, up-to-date fertility guide for queer people from an experienced health care provider, this is also the first to be transgender inclusive and body-positive. Here, queer prospective parents will find sound advice for navigating complex medical, social and financial decisions."

"In Baby Making for Everybody, queer millennial midwives Ray Rachlin and Marea Goodman use their professional expertise to demystify the dizzying process of pursuing parenthood as queer and solo people, offering concrete, gender-affirming advice on topics like tracking fertility, choosing a sperm donor, legal considerations, IVF, IUI, adoption, navigating gender and pregnancy, and more. The result is a much-needed how-to guide for every aspect of the complicated, messy, and glorious process of building a family as an LGBTQ+ or solo parent. Combining practical information with personal narratives and first person community wisdom, this book provides prospective parents with the information they need to grow their families outside of a traditional heterosexual nuclear family model"

"Shares practical and legal advice for LGBT couples considering marriage, covering name changes, nuptial agreements, finance management, estate planning, adoption, and counseling."

"The right of same-sex couples to marry provoked decades of intense conflict before it was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015. Yet some of the most divisive contests shaping the quest for marriage equality occurred not on the culture-war front lines but within the ranks of LGBTQ advocates. Nathaniel Frank tells the dramatic story of how an idea that once seemed unfathomable--and for many gays and lesbians undesirable--became a legal and moral right in just half a century."

"Victory may sometimes look like a sudden revolution when, in truth, it rests on years of struggle. The June 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges is a sweeping victory for the freedom to marry, but it was one step in a long process. Love Unites Us is the history of activists' passion and persistence in the struggle for marriage rights for same-sex couples in the United States, told in the words of those who waged the battle."

"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... Open your eyes to what it means to be a boy or a girl -- and above and beyond! Within these pages, you get to choose which path to forge. Explore over one hundred different scenarios that embrace nearly every definition across the world, over history, and in the ever-widening realms of our imagination! What if your journey leads you into a world with several genders, or simply one? Do you live in a matriarchal society, or as a sworn virgin in the Balkans? How does gender (or the lack thereof) change the way we approach sex and love, life or death? Jump headfirst into this refreshingly creative exploration of the ways gender colors every shade and shape of our world. Above all, it's more important than ever for us to celebrate the fact that there are infinite gender paths -- and each of them is beautiful."

"Sporting Gender explores both the historical and current issues of defining gender in sports, especially regarding intersex and transgender athletes. It not only covers important events and regulations, but also delves into the lives of the athletes themselves to provide a personal perspective on the science of athletic performance."

"Sociologist Arlene Stein takes us into the lives of four strangers who find themselves together in a sun-drenched surgeon's office, having traveled to Florida from across the United States in order to masculinize their chests. Ben, Lucas, Parker, and Nadia wish to feel more comfortable in their bodies; three of them are also taking testosterone so that others recognize them as male. Following them over the course of a year, Stein shows how members of this young transgender generation, along with other gender dissidents, are refashioning their identities and challenging others' conceptions of who they are, despite great personal costs. Stein draws from dozens of interviews with transgender people and their friends and families, as well as with activists and medical and psychological experts. Unbound documents the varied ways younger trans men see themselves, and how they are changing our understanding of what it means to be male and female in America."

"Jodie Patterson is the mother of five children, including her ten-year-old transgender son Penelope, the catalyst for the author's reexamination of identity within her own dynamic household--and the wider world. This inspiring and highly personal debut memoir goes on to examine Jodie's extended families' African American experiences with racism and civil rights, and her own coming of age in New York City in the 1970s and 80s, and later on as a wife, mother, and activist. "

An illustrated and informative primer on the progressive social change movements of the last 60 years as told through the stories of 60 diverse female and non-binary leaders in those movements, from the Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall riots through today

"In the updated second edition of Whipping Girl, Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her diverse background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist, shares her powerful experiences and observations -- both pre- and post-transition -- to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole."

"A psychologist's gripping, troubling, and moving exploration of the brutal murder of a possibly transgender middle school student by an eighth grade classmate. On Feb. 12, 2008, at E. O. Green Junior High in Oxnard, CA, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney shot and killed his classmate, Larry King, who had recently begun to call himself "Leticia" and wear makeup and jewelry to school."

"Although transgender people are increasingly represented in academic studies and popular culture, they rarely have the opportunity to add their own voices to the conversation. In this remarkable book, the author records the stories of more than thirty Americans who identify as transgender. They range in age from fifteen to seventy-two; come from twenty-five different states and a wide array of racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds; and identify across a vast spectrum of genders and sexualities."

The inspiring true story of a transgender girl, her identical twin brother, and an ordinary American family's extraordinary journey to understand, nurture, and celebrate the uniqueness in us all, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter for The Washington Post.

Cultural theorists have written loads of smart but difficult-to-fathom texts on gender theory, but most fail to provide a hands-on, accessible guide for those trying to sort out their own sexual identities. In My Gender Workbook, transgender activist Kate Bornstein brings theory down to Earth and provides a practical approach to living with or without a gender. (click title for more)

"When a child comes out as LGBTQ+, Christian parents often find themselves in unfamiliar terrain. This hopeful resource delivers research-based insights for parents and church leaders, offering stories and advice from other parents while reframing the focus from fear-based choices towards practical counsel for maintaining and deepening relationships"

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."

A writer for Time magazine, after coming out to his parents as a gay man, documents his personal journey, from Brooklyn to California, to discover the God forbidden to him because of his sexuality and understand what the diverse followers of Christ believe about homosexuality. An intellectual, emotional, and spiritual pilgrimage that reveals a nation in crisis.

Bishop of the Episopal Dioces of New Hampshire Gene Robinson uses the Bible to argue for gay marriage, looking at ten significant questions about the subject.

In Bible, Gender, Sexuality James Brownson argues that Christians should reconsider whether or not the biblical strictures against same-sex relations as defined in the ancient world should apply to contemporary, committed same-sex relationships. Presenting two sides in the debate -- "traditionalist" and "revisionist" -- Brownson carefully analyzes each of the seven main texts that appear to address intimate same-sex relations. -Amazon.com