Tag Archives: Books

Queer Radical Books To Read If You’re Worried About The Trump Presidency

Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States

Do you remember the villain “Him” from The Powerpuff Girls? Him was a genderbending “monster” who looked like the devil, had a male body and wore feminine clothing. Him’s main transgression was the unwillingness to conform to traditional gender roles, and yet people called Him “The Man Without a Name,” “The Evilest of Evils,” “The Cruelest of Cruel” and “King of Darkness.”

The media is constantly portraying gay, transgender and genderqueer people as villains who spread disease, corrupt children and erode society. This book asks, “Why?” By using true stories, human rights information and scientific data, the authors indict the United States for indicting the LGBT community.

Seeing as the Vice President-elect Mike Pence has a history of criminalizing gay people, this book is a must-read if you live in the United States.

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Black lesbian poet and feminist activist Audre Lorde is a prophet for intersectional lesbians. If you’re feeling marginalized on multiple sides – such as if you’re a person of color, if you’re an immigrant, if you’re poor – then Audre’s notions of being a “Sister Outsider” will ring true for you. Lorde tackles sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class in this slim book.

This book is just as important today as when it was written in 1984, and it may help you get through the difficult four years ahead.

Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics and Theory of LGBT Liberation

This intense book will have you highlighting every page and questioning society as you know it. Sexuality and Socialism discusses:

  • the roots of LGBT oppression
  • the construction of sexual and gender identities
  • the history of the gay movement
  • and “how to unite the oppressed and exploited to win sexual liberation for all.”

Unlike many books about sexuality and theory, Sexuality and Socialism is easy to read, because it was written for average LGBT people who just want to know why they keep facing oppression.

Reviewers compared the author, Sherry Wolf, to Lady Gaga, and said that this book was “surprisingly funny.”

The more powerful statement in the book: “What humans have constructed, they can tear down.”

5 Books Every Young Gay Woman Should Read

A few of my favourite books…

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson’s award-winning novel is the story of a girl adopted by working-class evangelists in the North of England in the 1960′s – and leaves at the age of 16 for the woman she loves. The book (and subsequent BBC mini series) are loosely based on Winterson’s actual life in Accrington, Lancashire. While the story is written in first person, Winterson claims the story “isn’t autobiography in the real sense.”… Read more

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown

Brown’s novel, which often parallels with her own life, is first and foremost about growing up as a lesbian in America. Or, as the cover says quite nicely, “being different and loving it.” Molly Bolt – fearless and feisty – grows up dirt poor in the South where she realizes early on that she is attracted to girls. The story follows her escapades as she attempts to find herself and actively takes pride in what makes her so “different”. Bonus: The term “rubyfruit jungle” is slang for lady parts… Read more

Ain’t Gonna Be the Same Fool Twice by April Sinclair

The book Ain’t Gonna be the same Fool Twice by April Sinclair is the sequel to Coffee Will Make You Black. These books are very interesting, they were about a girl named Jean Steveson. In Coffee Will make you Black,Jean was growing up and graduating from high school. While this slow time period passed, she thought she was gay. She caught herself looking at women. At first she thought that it was natural for other women to look at other woman. Her junior year she had a crush on her nurse Mrs. Horn. She loved the way Mrs. Horn walked, talked, laugh, and smiled. She goes through college with the same insecurity and doubt. This story is a very interesting, once you start reading it, you don’t want to stop because you want to find out what’s happening next. What Jean is really trying to say is her sexuality is a journey and she is still on the road… Read more

Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg

A story-within-a-story, two women meet in a nursing home and develop a friendship through the older woman’s fantastic telling of her life – particularly her story about two women named Ruth and Idgie. For anyone who has seen the film, you already know how perfectly the two stories play off each other, each taking place in very different time periods (the mid-1980s and 1920s). Both sides of the novel remind you that family is something you choose, not something you’re born into. Grab a box of tissues for this one and maybe make some fried green tomatoes of your own… read more

Tipping The Velvet by Sarah Waters

The heroine of Sarah Waters’s audacious first novel knows her destiny, and seems content with it. Her place is in her father’s seaside restaurant, shucking shellfish and stirring soup, singing all the while. “Although I didn’t believe the story told to me by Mother–that they had found me as a baby in an oyster-shell, and a greedy customer had almost eaten me for lunch–for 18 years I never doubted my own oysterish sympathies, never looked beyond my father’s kitchen for occupation, or for love.” At night Nancy Astley often ventures to the nearby music hall, not that she has illusions of being more than an audience member… read more