LGBTQ+ History

Updated September 19, 2022
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
And the band played on politics people and the AIDS epidemic
Shilts, Randy.
By the time Rock Hudson's death in 1985 alerted all America to the danger of the AIDS epidemic, the disease had spread across the nation, killing thousands of people and emerging as the greatest health crisis of the 20th century. America faced a troubling question: What happened? How was this...
Odd girls and twilight lovers a history of lesbian life in twentieth century America
Faderman, Lillian.
Lillian Faderman tells the compelling story of lesbian life in the 20th century, from the early 1900s to today's diverse lifestyles. Using journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, news accounts, novels, medical literature, and numerous interviews, she relates an often surprising narrative of...
Celluloid closet homosexuality in the movies
Russo, Vito.
Praised by the Chicago Tribune as "an impressive study" and written with incisive wit and searing perception--the definitive, highly acclaimed landmark work on the portrayal of homosexuality in film.
Transgender history : the roots of today's revolution
Stryker, Susan
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...
Stonewall the definitive story of the LGBTQ rights uprising that changed America
Duberman, Martin B.
On June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, was raided by police. But instead of responding with the routine compliance the NYPD expected, patrons and a growing crowd decided to fight back. The five days of rioting that ensued changed forever the face of gay and...
The gay metropolis : 1940-1996
Kaiser, Charles.
"For hundreds of thousands of gay Americans, New York City is the literal gay metropolis: the place where they have learned how to live openly, honestly, and without shame. But the figurative gay metropolis is much larger: it encompasses every place on every continent where gay people have found the...
Queer history of the United States
Bronski, Michael.
Winner of a 2012 Stonewall Book Award in nonfiction The first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present. In the 1620s, Thomas Morton broke from Plymouth Colony and founded Merrymount, which celebrated...
Queer : a graphic history
Barker, Meg-John
'Queer: A Graphic History Could Totally Change the Way You Think About Sex and Gender' Vice Activist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel. ...
Strangers : homosexual love in the nineteenth century
Robb, Graham
The nineteenth century was a golden age for those people known variously as sodomites, Uranians, monosexuals, and homosexuals. Long before Stonewall and Gay Pride, there was such a thing as gay culture, and it was recognized throughout Europe and America. Graham Robb, brilliant biographer of Balzac,...
How to survive a plague the inside story of how citizens and science tamed AIDS
France, David, 1959-
A New York Times 2016 Notable Book The definitive history of the successful battle to halt the AIDS epidemic--from the creator of, and inspired by, the seminal documentary How to Survive a Plague. A riveting, powerful telling of the story of the...
QUEER CITY GAY LONDON FROM THE ROMANS TO THE PRESENT DAY
ACKROYD, PETER.
A history of the development of London as a European epicenter of queer life. In Queer City, the acclaimed Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way-through the complete history and experiences of its gay and lesbian population. In Roman Londinium, the city was...
The gay revolution : the story of the struggle
Faderman, Lillian
The fight for gay, lesbian and trans civil rights is the most important civil rights issue of the present day. Based on rigorous research and more than 150 interviews, The Gay Revolution tells this unfinished story not through dry facts but through dramatic accounts of passionate struggles, with all...
Stonewall reader
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. Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, presented by The...
Deviant's war the homosexual vs the United States of America
Cervini, Eric, 1992-
FINALIST FOR THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE IN HISTORY. INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER. New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Winner of the 2021 Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction. One of The Washington Post's Top 50 Nonfiction Books of 2020....
Black on both sides : a racial history of trans identity
Snorton, C. Riley
Winner of the John Boswell Prize from the American Historical Association 2018 Winner of the William Sanders Scarborough Prize from the Modern Language Association 2018 Winner of an American Library Association Stonewall Honor 2018 Winner of Lambda Literary...
Last call a true story of love lust and murder in queer New York
Green, Elon
**WINNER OF THE EDGAR® AWARD FOR BEST FACT CRIME** A "terrific, harrowing, true-crime account of an elusive serial killer who preyed upon gay men in the 1990s." -The New York Times (Editor's Pick) "In this astonishing and powerful work of...
The lavender scare : the Cold War persecution of gays and lesbians in the federal government
Johnson, David K.
The McCarthy era is generally considered the worst period of political repression in recent American history. But while the famous question, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" resonated in the halls of Congress, security officials were posing another question...
When Brooklyn was queer
Ryan, Hugh, 1978-
The never-before-told story of Brooklyn's vibrant and forgotten queer history, from the mid-1850s up to the present day. ***An ALA GLBT Round Table Over the Rainbow 2019 Top Ten Selection*** ***NAMED ONE OF THE BEST LGBTQ BOOKS OF 2019 by Harper's Bazaar*** ...
Let the record show a political history of ACT UP New York 1987-1993
Schulman, Sarah, 1958-
Based on more than two hundred interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for today's activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration - and long-overdue reassessment - of the coalition's inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Sarah Schulman, one of the...
Natural born celebrities : serial killers in American culture
Schmid, David
In August 1934, young Cyril L. wrote to his friend Billy about all the exciting men he had met, the swinging nightclubs he had visited, and the vibrant new life he had forged for himself in the big city. He wrote, "I have only been queer since I came to London about two years ago, before then I...
We are everywhere protest power and pride in the history of Queer Liberation
Riemer, Matthew, 1982-
Have pride in history.A rich and sweeping photographic history of the Queer Liberation Movement, from the creators and curators of the massively popular Instagram account LGBT History. "If you think the fight for justice and equality only began in the streets outside...
David Bowie made me gay 100 years of LGBT music
Bullock, Darryl W.
LGBT musicians have shaped the development of music over the last century, with a sexually progressive soundtrack in the background of the gay community's struggle for acceptance. With the advent of recording technology, LGBT messages were for the first time brought to the forefront of popular...
Secret city the hidden history of gay Washington
Kirchick, James
The New York Times Bestseller A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 Named one of Vanity Fair's "Best Books of 2022" "Not since Robert Caro's Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a work of history. Secret...
Bad gays a homosexual history
Lemmey, Huw
These "very funny-deep dives into the lives of the most dastardly queer people in history" offer a passionate argument for rethinking gay politics beyond identity (Vogue). What can we learn from the homosexual villains, failures, and baddies of our past? ...
Indecent advances a hidden history of true crime and prejudice before Stonewall
Polchin, James
Edgar Award finalist, Best Fact Crime American Masters (PBS), "1 of 5 Essential Culture Reads" One of CrimeReads' "Best True Crime Books of the Year" "A fast-paced, meticulously researched, thoroughly engaging (and often infuriating) look-see into the...
Engagement a quarter century of defending defining and expanding marriage in America
Issenberg, Sasha
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR . The riveting story of the conflict over same-sex marriage in the United States-the most significant civil rights breakthrough of the new millennium "Full of intimate details, battling personalities, heated court cases, public...
WOMEN'S HOUSE OF DETENTION A QUEER HISTORY OF A FORGOTTEN PRISON
RYAN, HUGH.
This singular history of a prison, and the queer women and trans people held there, is a window into the policing of queerness and radical politics in the twentieth century. The Women's House of Detention, a landmark that ushered in the modern era of women's...
FIRE ISLAND A CENTURY IN THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN PARADISE
PARLETT, JACK.
*A Town and Country Must-Read Book of Summer?* *A BUZZFEED BEST BOOK OF JUNE* *A Washington Post "Book to Read This Summer"* *AN ADVOCATE BEST LGBTQ+ BOOK OF 2022* *A USA Today "Book to Celebrate Pride Month"* *A New...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.